Don't blame Canada, South Park computer bug German

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new computer bug dubbed SouthPark that matches in destructive power what its namesake TV series boasts in tastelessness is making the e-mail rounds, a computer security company said Wednesday.

SouthPark is not a variant of the ''Love Bug'' virus that crippled corporate and governmental electronic mail last week, said Alan Comet, business manager for the securities solutions division of Computer Associates International Inc. But it can wreak just as much havoc, he said.

The e-mail is written in German and carries a worm with the subject heading ''Servus Alter!,'' which translates into English as ''Hey Dude!'' The text says ''Hier ist das Spiel, das du unbedingt wolltest!'' - ''Here is the game that you desperately wanted.'' It carries an attachment titled SouthPark.exe.

The name entices users who may be familiar with the animated off-colour television series South Park and the related feature film SouthPark: Bigger Longer and Uncut. That movie featured a satirical song,''Blame Canada'', nominated for an Oscar earlier this year.

Computer Associates said it first got wind of the SouthPark bug earlier Wednesday from a user in Germany.

Technically, SouthPark is a worm, not a virus, as it does not change any coding in the host computer. It rides on top of e-mail as an attachment. Once it is opened, it spreads to every address book entry and can overload e-mail servers on Internet service providers and at corporations and large organizations, Comet said.

SouthPark has the potential to do even more damage, because unlike the Love Bug, which had a tag of .vbs - visual basic script - rarely seen by most computer users, SouthPark comes as an executable file with the more familiar tag of .exe.

''It's far more dangerous, because they're known by users,'' Comet said. ''It's much harder to say, `Please delete this.' ''

The ''Love Bug'' struck millions of computers worldwide May 4, causing billions of dollars in damage from lost data, productivity, and efforts to fix it.

http://www.thestar.com/editorial/updates/intlnews/200005110_COMPUTER-SOU.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), May 11, 2000