How did it all start for Virus Help Team

VIRUS HELP TEAM


IndexNewsDownloadWarningsLinkHelpEncyclopediaUnsortedForumAboutContact

Virus ScreenshotsAntivirus TestNostalgic AntivirusAmiga ProgramsSupport LibrarysText files



How did it all start
(Written by Lars P. Kristensen - Virus Help Team)


Who is Virus Help Denmark and what do they do:

Jan Andersen: Amiga Support.
Jan Nielsen: Amiga Support.
Lars P. Kristensen: Retired.
Torben Danø: Retired.
Henrik Lauridsen: Retired.

This is a very short description, most off us are still having an Amiga, but the time between the use off it, is getting longer and longer, we all have daily jobs and families to support as well. I could fill pages, with lots of stuff concerning what the five of us has overcome since the early ninety's. I would rather prefer telling the history behind VHT DK, and this started for me at the summertime 1991. The summer I got attacked by a simple virus named ByteBandit. I found a coverdisk which contained a few shareware programs- mainly from the "Fish Library" - every Amigaguy should now Fred Fish and the tremendous work he did to get programmers and users closer. However I found this disk and ZeroVirus, I quickly read the documentation and stumbled over a name - a Danish name: Erik Løvendal Sørensen. Erik had had a similar situation to my own. But -differently - he started to collect the viruses and mail them to authors of antivirus programs, which didn't yet, supported the virus he mailed. Then he put "The New Superkiller" (TNS) together. By the time I got it, it was stuffed with antivirus programs to the limit.


Animation of AmigaKnight Virus
[Animation of AmigaKnight bootblock virus]
In the "Important-file" on the disk, Erik looked for new members to his organisation -Safe Hex International. Many Regional Virus Center's (RVC) was already established all over the world and as a Danish Center wasn't among the list of centers, i took a look of the requirements for setting up a center. One point was to translate the whole documentation to ones own language (for me; from English to Danish). I did so in three months. Through this translation I think I got to know the programmers a bit and I was so amassed of SO MUCH, SO FEW, ARE DOING, FOR SO MANY. I mailed the disk to Erik and got a phone call, inviting me to Præstø - some 100-km's from my own place. What a trip, and what a story Erik told me. It seemed that this was an organisation, working hard to keep Aimgausers systems clean. However, a Danish center was already up and running. Some of my translations could fill a gap - and I continued to translate some more files from the Utillitydisk. Besides this I thought my abilities could take some pressure off Erik - then Erik "installed" me to take care of the RVC's.


During the winter 1991/1992 I got to know lots of RVC-guys all over the world: most of Europe, the fare east, South and North America, even from Australia and South Africa. In those days all communication was performed by the normal postal services. I had no modem and by this no possibility, to get connected to any "nets". In springtime 1992 there was a "party" held at the Sheraton hotel in Copenhagen - what can i say; SHI was there. We did sell a few hundred disks and made a small "profit" that could cover our expenses. Just to keep the reader correctly informed. SHI was running non-profit.

A day during Easter 1992 I was down to visit Erik. Then I met Jan Andersen and Torben Danø I have seen Jan shortly (he can't remember -he's just getting older) talking to Erik about how he had shown the TNS to some pupils at an evening school and taught them how to use it. A month or so after Easter, the two guys forming RVC-DK wished to leave to pay a greater attention to their study. I had had a wish to join the center from the day I started in SHI - now that possibility was in reach. Erik thought it was better if I stayed at "my post", however he hadn't any complaints when Jan was pointed at as a new RVC leader. What the heck. I called Jan and fortunately he lived just 25 km's from me. The next month Jan and I redesigned the whole set of disks. Time demanded a Kick2.0 disk and we first tried different versions of "softkick's" (Jan had a hard drive - lucky him). Well, we equipped Jan's A500 with a Kick2.0 ROM and that gave us a lot of new possibilities, one was to use the entire 880KB of a disk. Shortly after Jan and I teamed up, Jan Nielsen (Jan-Jan), Torben Danø and Henrik Lauridsen joined to be part of the action.


By that time the Internet hadn't evolved into this communicator it is today, then there were nets like FIDONET, a local net in Denmark and AMIGANET, a world wide net for the Amiga community. It could take up to a fortnight to get a reply from fare places like Australia or South America and it wasn't right to mail virus around those nets, as executables in archives, attached to personal letters, could be opened and executed by accident. Security on the Internet has been improved dramatically and today virus can be mailed via the net instead of on disks in letters. Soon Jan established SHI BBS. First he figured out the MAX BBS system but soon he changed to - and learned to master - the STARNET BBS system (the prior system to MEBBS net) under which the system performed to the end. The system almost killed Jan, he wanted the system to be no less than 100 percent secure and he actually took a bet with another SHI guy, who claimed he could hack the BBS. As fare as i know, Jan is still waiting to collect the bet. However, Jan also did a heck off a job in keeping the BBS up to date, he actually "haunted" every corner of all the great BBS-sites and nets to seek new updates all the time.
Animation of Graffiti Virus
[Animation of Graffiti bootblock virus]


However, on the 31 december 1994 the five of us performing under SHI in the RVC known as "SHI Team Denmark" discovered that SHI in general took a different path, we decided to resign from SHI and keep on the path we had followed so fare. There were many reasons that lead us to this conclusion and it wasn't easy for any of us to leave. As fare as I know SHI doesn't exist anymore, however, lots off friends met each other in SHI and lots of new great ideas evolved from the endless brainstorms we had. From the 1'st of January 1995 Virus Help Team Denmark took off - the name had slightly changed as the words "Team Denmark" is copyrighted, today we function under the name "Virus Help Team".


Animation of SCA Virus
[Animation of SCA bootblock virus]
Since the beginning of 1995 Virus Help Teams has been started in Norway, Holland and Canada, some of the guys in those centers are also earlier SHI-guys. In Norway there's Helge and Kurt, in Holland Alex put a team together (yep - VirusChecker guy), In Canada, Charlene has made a team as well and we still get mails from BBS sysops who is prepared to function as support BBS'.

When the Internet started to spread among normal users, Jan could see from the log file that users who earlier logged on to the BBS on regular basis, became more and more rear. From my point of view he closed the BBS in the right time, everybody who have a modem, can connect to the Internet and get the updates from the VHT-DK homepage.

If you were a regular visitor on the former BBS, then pay this site a visit and you'll find that everything is back, the homepage was actually up and running some time before he closed down the BBS. I know that Jan still keeps the old STARNET system - just in case.


Membership in Virus Help Team is by invitation only and is limited to individuals with expertise and contributions in the field of computer security and antivirus research.

Updated text in 2014: But at pressent date, there are only 2 guys left in Virus Help Team in Denmark. We do all this anti-virus work in our free time, we all have full time work next to our antivirus hobby. Virus Help Team in Denmark are still alive and kicking. Virus Help Team have just celebrated Virus Help Team's 29'th anniversary.


[ Back to previous page ]

(Text by: Lars P. Kristensen © Copyright 1999)



Virus Help Team
Denmark & Canada
Copyright © All Rights Reserved