On Friday March 26, 1999 an e-mail virus named "Melissa" slipped into systems via e-mail and forcing computers to fire off dozens of infected messages to friends and colleagues. Once opened, the virus immediately reads the user's e-mail address book and sends an infected message to the first 50 entries. Although the virus apparently causes no permanent damage to a computer, its clogging affects were far-reaching. All new Microsoft Word documents created on an infected computer will contain …showed first 75 words of 296 total…

…showed last 75 words of 296 total…in its system. Although it is hard to find the source of the the e-mail. A man named Richard Smith, president of Phar Lap Software, a firm that makes operating systems and software tools, thinks he knows who made the e-mail virus. He had found clues linking the virus to a still-unidentified writer who uses the computer handle ``VicodinES''. He thinks the virus writer distributed it using an account stolen from America Online 15 months ago.