Opening the blog. Presenting myself (Part I)

Hi, malware collectors of the world!

I will present myself in this first post of the blog.

I´m VirusBuster, a malware collector. I used to define myself as virus collector, but nowadays viruses are so rare (almost everything are malwares) that some time ago I decided it would be fair to change the "label" from virus collector to malware collector.

I´m from Spain and I have been collecting viruses and malware since 1992. It was in that year when I met someone that introduced me to virus collecting. He had a small collection of viruses, and after the initial shock (who could be so insane to keep them?), I was truely interested about them.

At the beginning I used to get new specimens from pirated software, but after a time always the same viruses were showing up. Then, how to get new viruses?

In that year, in Spain, BBS (Bulletin Board System) were the most used way for communications. Internet was something reserved to universities yet, so I started my quest for new viruses in the spanish BBS. After a time I located a BBS with several new viruses and something that was like the grial, the Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL). I sent my viruses and just in a few days I got access to all the viruses. Chiba City rules!

I joined (in 1993???) Fidonet just to get access to VIRUS.R34. I met there other people interested in viruses, in writing and collecting them. After a time some people complained because they considered that publishing virus codes was not politically correct and after some argues exchanged the moderator decided to ban that kind of stuff. In that moment I and the person who introduced me to virus collecting, decided we should create our own BBS dedicated to anything related to viruses: coding, collecting, ... That´s how Dark Node BBS was born.

Very talented virus writers joined the BBS, most of them coming from VIRUS.R34. It was a common project so they helped economically to buy the required hardware.

After a time, using stuff (articles, virus source codes, ...) published in the BBS, a virus magazine, in the style of Immortal Riot and Vlad, was created. It was called 29A #1 and a virus group, formed by members of the BBS, named as the magazine was created too. What happened with 29A... is other story.

From Dark Node times I keep nice memories, specially about the meetings we did.

In 1994 I got internet connection at home. A common friend of a friend got us internet access using a modem installed in the university as bridge. I still wonder how the hell he did that.

I don´t remember where I heard about IRC but the question is that I joined #virus at Effnet and met there most of the greatest collectors of that time. Poltergeist, Shadow Seeker, jtr, omega666, Danielle Fogazzi, ...

They teached me their procedures for virus exchange and shared the tools used in the process.

My collection compared to the collections they had was a joke but I decided I would be patient and constant. Keeping that in mind it was not a surprise that with the years my collection grew a lot. I also learned that being honest and loyal, keeping promises (and also secrets) and being a nice person, was the key to be a better collector.

With the years collectors came and collectors left.

I can say with the heart on the hand that the best thing from all these years of collector has been meeting and knowing other collectors. The list of collectors to greet would be too large so I´ll just say: Kind regards for Perikles and the rest of collectors I appreciate.

As a person who likes to question things, there was a moment I asked myself: What´s the meaning of being a virus collector? Is all about a file exchange? Send and receive?

I didn´t think so. For me virus collecting was teaching how to collect and helping to new collectors, as previously other people teached me, specially Poltergeist, who I consider my "father" in virus collecting. Poltergeist was the model I used as mirror. He was the kind of collector I wanted to be when I joined internet and met other international collectors.

Therefore apart of trading files, for me collecting was helping other traders, guiding them in their first steps as traders. But there was other important thing...

From very old times, collectors used antivirus to make reports and use those reports to know what they had and what they missed from other collections. A few tools were created with the purpose of exchanging viruses but the most famouse was VirSort by Jim Fougeron (Poltergeist), originally created by ShadSeek.

When Poltergeist left the scene he sent VirSort source code to Spooky but he never released a new version. Then ShadSeek created a new virus collecting tool named VS2000 (VirSort 2000). After a time he also stopped development of his tool and that was a shock because I was used to use other people tools. Who would continue developing the tool and adding new features?

I wanted to add new functions I considered important for collecting so I asked ShadSeek a copy of VS2000 source code so I could continue developing it. I had to learn Pascal for this.

That´s how I discovered another important aspect of being a virus/malware collector: the tools for collecting. With the appropiate tools collecting is easier.

Actually if someone asks me "what makes of someone a real virus/malware collector?" I know the answer. My answer.

For me a true virus/malware collector, in the traditional sense, has next characteristics:

* Someone who is able to get many new samples in a constant basis.

* Someone that has the knowledge to help other collectors.

* Someone that rarely infects the system because stablished controls to avoid that.

* Someone able to code the required tools for the tasks involved in collecting.

Becoming a true collector is something that takes time and effort.

I consider that nowadays becoming a traditional collector is not possible anymore. The reasons for that is something I will comment in next post.

End of presentation. Part I.