From: William Knowles (wkC4I.ORG)
Date: Thu May 18 2000 - 00:32:56 CDT

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http://netculture.about.com/internet/netculture/library/weekly/aa051100a.htm

Dateline: 5-11-00

First a bad virus called Melissa. Now one whose author could have that
for a middle name.

The "I Love You" email worm outshadows its predecessor. Among those
suspected of spawning it are not one, but three, females. Long
fingernails aside, there's nothing preventing a woman from tapping out
errant code. But what if? What a surprise.

Tracking the Elusive Female

Hacking, cracking and virus-programming is characteristically male,
just as women are still a minority in programming. Researcher Sarah
Gordon of IBM could find hardly any women doing it. Her mid-1990s
paper on virus writers notes:

"In conversations with dozens of individuals involved in the virus
writing culture, we have found only two instances of 'direct' female
involvement."

By 1999 the number was up to five.

[...]

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"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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