Comments on: The Melissa virus of 1999 https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-melissa-virus-of-1999 David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Thu, 26 Mar 2026 23:32:10 +0000 hourly 1 By: Steve Aubrey https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/#comment-57589 Thu, 26 Mar 2026 23:32:10 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=37220#comment-57589 She must have seen the guy behind the geek. Congrats!

]]> By: Dave Farquhar https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/#comment-56879 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 01:55:59 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=37220#comment-56879 In reply to Steve Aubrey.

The story of what happened in 2005? I don’t think I’m at liberty to tell that story but I can tell another one. On my first date with my now wife, I was late, AND we got interrupted by phone calls three times. There was a tape drive involved.

]]> By: Steve Aubrey https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/#comment-56870 Sat, 29 Mar 2025 21:36:28 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=37220#comment-56870 In reply to Dave Farquhar.

?

]]> By: Dave Farquhar https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/#comment-56867 Thu, 27 Mar 2025 22:04:02 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=37220#comment-56867 In reply to John Dominik.

What an unpleasant memory! I deny knowing anything about tape backups due to an unpleasant incident that happened in 2005. But my CISSP training says you need those.

]]> By: John Dominik https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-melissa-virus-of-1999/#comment-56863 Thu, 27 Mar 2025 02:45:07 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=37220#comment-56863 Oh, I remember it well. My employer had approved a new email system because we were in the process of adding PCs to what had been a Macintosh-only network. I had connected a full-time internet connection that supported our brand new Exchange server that could talk to both Mac and PC clients. I got word that a Microsoft-specific virus was spreading and disconnected the internet, putting the cable in a drawer in my desk (it was a lean shop at the time, I only had the network cables I needed). Fortunately, all of our in-bound internet email was processed on an outside server that translated the corporate email addresses we used to the old AOL accounts that each corporate office user had for corporate external email the Exchange server would eliminate. Ten minutes after I got the server disconnected I got through to our outside provider who had not been infected, and were in the process of building a filter that would eliminate any in-bound message with the payload. Three months later the company hired a consultant who used the existence of that Melissa virus to make me look bad. He removed the exchange server which had already paid for itself by reducing the AOL costs, replaced it with a very expensive Macintosh server, which failed in 15 month, and cost him his job because he hadn’t added it to the backup routine… Because he didn’t want to deal with backups, he’d never needed them.

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