COTE : Parasite in Love.

Chapter 2: Computer Worm

To describe Smspacem briefly, it’s “malware that informs people the world is ending.” Infected devices, on the date 5/12/2011, were made to send a message about the world ending to all addresses on their contact list.

According to security reports, Smspacem was malware that targeted users in North America. So the fact that a similar message in Japanese was sent to Japan-dwelling Ayanokouji in late September meant there was probably some curious sort who made a Japanese-centric variant of Smspacem.

Once, while lazily lying in bed after quitting his job, Ayanokouji suddenly recalled Smspacem. And he thought: I wonder if I could make something like that myself? I wonder if I could reproduce, in a different form, that sensation of a little seam forming in my ordinary life?

Luckily, he had plenty of time. So Ayanokouji picked up the knowledge needed to create malware. He had a base of knowledge and experience from working as a programmer, so in just a month after he began studying, he completed some original malware that didn’t depend on any toolkits.

I think I’m suited for this field, Ayanokouji thought. He had a talent for finding the best algorithm for a problem without anyone teaching it to him. A rare example of born punctuality and perfectionism working in a positive way.

Before long, the malware he created began to appear in security reports by major software corporations. This spurred Ayanokouji to begin the creation of new malware. At some point, creating malware became the one thing he lived for.

An ironic turn of events. A person who on one hand was so scared of viruses and insects in the real world that he found it hard to live, meanwhile found something to live for in creating viruses and worms in the virtual world.

As he faced his computer and typed on his keyboard, Ayanokouji sometimes thought: Maybe I’m convinced my genes won’t be left behind in this world, which is why I’m spreading self-replicating malware across the internet instead.

There are actually various things which are considered malware. Traditionally, malware is divided into three categories: viruses, worms, and trojans. But over the years, malware has gotten more complex, and with the appearance of malware that doesn’t fit into the traditional categories comes new definitions like backdoor, root kit, dropper, spyware, adware, and ransomware.

The simple three categories of malware - virus, worm, and trojan - are relatively easy to understand the differences between. First of all, viruses and worms both have self-infecting and self-multiplying abilities, but viruses must inhabit other programs to exist, whereas worms can exist independently without a host. Trojans are distinguished from viruses and worms by a lack of self-infecting and self-multiplying.

The Smspacem that got Ayanokouji interested in malware would be defined as a worm. It collects email addresses from an infected computer, sends out many emails with copies of an illegal program attached, and repeats the process with those infected to spread further - this is known as a mass mailing worm.

This was, naturally, the kind of malware Ayanokouji developed as well. He gave the mass mailing worm he was working on the codename “SilentNight.”

SilentNight was a worm that attacked on a set date. Starting up on 5 PM on December 24th, it disabled transmission functions on infected devices for 2 days. To be more exact, it ended all transmissions as soon as they began. As a result, the owner of the infected device would be temporarily deprived of not only phone calls, but emails, texts, online call services - any means of communication.

The codename SilentNight, then, was a play on how it was both a virus that activated on Christmas Eve, and one that took away communication from friends or loved ones, forcing them to spend a quiet Christmas night alone.