Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Love Letters

Transcript

Love Letters · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. On May fourth of
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the year two thousand, a lone worker at the Pentagon
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: sat bored at their computer desk, sifting through routine emails.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: They were surprised when they saw one with a subject
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: line that read I Love you in all caps with
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: no spaces. Their heart skipped a beat as they consider
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: that maybe they had a secret admirer. They clicked the email,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: which was blank, but it had an attachment with the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: same name, a love letter. Perhaps the worker clicked on it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: This was no secret admirer, though, but a trojan virus,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: one of the first of its kind. Within a day,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: it had infected ten percent of all computers on the planet,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: deleting millions of files. A little while earlier across the world,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: in the Philippines, computer college student O'Nell de Guzman was
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: staring at his thesis proposal in shock.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: There were red marks all over it. His professor had
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: completely rejected it. Entitled Email Password Sender Trojan, it was
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a proposal for a computer virus that would steal a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: user's dial up credentials so that the sender could access
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the Internet freely. At this point in history, in the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: year two thousand, only about twenty five percent of the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: world's population was actually online. In more developed Western countries,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: users paid for internet access as much as they do today,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: with a flat monthly fee, but in developing nations like
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the Philippines, users had to pay hourly rates. O'Nell and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: his fellow students imagined a future where everyone could gain
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: access to the Internet for free. They believed that it
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: was a human right, and he thought his virus was
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a good way to make sure that that happened. But
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: his professor disagreed, writing this is illegal on the paper
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and saying that the college wasn't in the business of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: training burglars. For someone like Ohnell, this was just encouragement.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Though the older, stuffier generation was willing to follow the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: rules and remain under the heel of the more developed nations,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: this younger generation was willing to take matters into their
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: own hands, and so O'Nell went ahead and he coded
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the virus anyway. The trojan would also present itself as
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: a love letter from a secret admirer, praying on the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: human desire for love and attention. O'Nell also made it
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: so that it would exploit a weakness in Microsoft Outlook.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: This was the email software that the vast majority of
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the world used at the time. The weakness was that
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the software didn't show what kind of a file an
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: attachment was, so users wouldn't notice that the file wasn't
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: a dot TXT or word document file, which is what
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you'd expect a love letter to be, but a dot
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: VBS file, which is an executable program file, a program
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: such as a virus. O'Nell uploaded the program, which came
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to be known as I Love You, and used it
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to steal the Internet provider login credentials from wealthier users.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It's unclear if he realized that the program would also
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: delete all their files in the process, but what does
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: seem to have been intentional was that the virus would
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: then send itself to all of the contacts in the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: user's address book, giving O'Nell even more potential targets. However,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: he couldn't have imagined how effective this would be. It
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: made the virus travel exponentially, racing across the Philippines, Asia, Europe,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and the Americas within days. It showed how networked the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: world really already was at that point, and also how
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: truly desperate for love many Peas people seemed to be.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter if the person was rich or poor,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: successful or not. All kinds clicked on the attachment. The
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: virus soon led to email servers going offline in important
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: government centers such as the British House of Commons, the Pentagon,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and multiple American military bases. This cost billions worldwide in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: both lost revenue and expensive additional hours as it professionals
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: had to come in and try to recover the lost
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: files while also patching the various computer systems that were
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to I Love You Naturally. The FBI launched a
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: manhunt and soon narrowed the source of the bug to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the Philippines, and before long, Filipino law enforcement was banging
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: on Onell's door. Onell was put on a world stage
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: as reporters questioned him about the virus. He said he
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: had no idea the virus would travel so far, but
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: he wasn't sorry. He believed the Internet should be free.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: US law enforcement tried to charge him with fraud, but
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that would require him to have broken laws in both
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the US and the Philippines, and the Philippines had no
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: laws against hacking at the time, so O'Nell went free. Curiously,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: he did not go on to an elaborate life of crime,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: or even a job in cybersecurity. No. When a reporter
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: tracked him down in twenty twenty, he was working in
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a curiously mundane place, a cell phone repair store. It
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was September of nineteen forty four in a quiet town
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: in Illinois, and Aileen Kearney had just crawled into bed.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: She had almost fallen asleep when suddenly she smelled a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: sickeningly sweet odor wafting in from the open window. At first,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: she thought that it was just the flowers outside in
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the garden, but the smell kept getting stronger. Eventually Aileen
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: tried to get up and investigate, but found that she
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: couldn't her legs were paralyzed. Aileen screamed for her sister, Martha,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: who was staying in the other room. When Martha came
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: running in, Aileen asked if she smelled anything, and Martha
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: said no, But she was so alarmed by Aileen's sudden
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: paralysis that she immediately called her husband for help. A
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: few minutes later, there was frantic knocking on the front door.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Martha opened it and found her husband on the doorstep,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: sweating and terrified. He told Martha that he had just
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: seen a tall man in dark clothing lurking outside Aileen's
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: bedroom window. He tried to chase the man, but the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: man got away. Martha took her husband into Aileen's bedroom
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to see what was wrong with her. But now that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the man outside the window was gone, so were Aileen's symptoms.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Her legs were no longer paralyzed, and the sweet odor
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: she was smelling was gone. Convinced that the strange man
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: outside the window had been poisoning her, Aileen called the police,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and the next morning, the so called anesthetic prowler was
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: front news. The strange affair, though, was only beginning. Once
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: ailing story ran, the police were suddenly inundated with similar reports.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: That same night, another woman in town had heard a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: plopping noise followed by a strange smell, and her hands
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and legs had started tingling. The night before that, a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: couple had both been awoken in the middle of the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: night by an unusual smell. When they tried to get
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: out of bed, they found that they were completely paralyzed
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and couldn't move for over an hour. A few days later,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a woman came home and found a small white cloth
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: pressed against her screen door. Without thinking, she sniffed it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and was overwhelmed by an unusual smell, and then she
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: felt an electric shock run through her body and she
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: fell to the ground, paralyzed for two hours. The wave
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of attacks became a statewide crisis, and the anesthetic Prowler
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: soon became known by a much more catching name, one
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: named after the town the events were happening in, the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: mad Gasser of Mattoon. The local police examined and ruled
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: out every possible suspect, escaped mental patients, known pranksters and criminals,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: even a high school chemistry teacher. They analyzed the cloth
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the woman had found on her screen door, but strangely,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: there were no traces of chemicals on it at all.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: They even brought in chemical weapons experts from the army,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: who were unable to locate any poisonous gas residue at
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: any of the affected homes, and even though a few
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: people had claimed to have seen the mad Gasser and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: dozens had reported symptoms, no one had actually been hospitalized,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and there was no physical evidence of any chemical attacks
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: at all. Over the course of two weeks, more than
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: two dozen gas attacks were reported to local police, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the panic spiraled out of control. Armed vigilantes roamed the
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: streets at night looking for the mad Gasser. Women were
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: afraid to leave their homes without carrying baseball bats for
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: self defense, and then, just as suddenly as the reports
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: had begun, they went away. The police received their final
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: work port of a gaser attack in mid September. Despite
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: calling in state and federal investigators for assistance, the authorities
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: never found out who or what was responsible for these
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: strange incidents. The mad guesser, if he even existed at all,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was never caught. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: written by the Grim and Mild team, and produced by
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Learn more and sign up over at patreon dot com,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: slash grim and Mild, and until next time, Stay curious,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: m HM.