I asked him what that was and he said it was a hacking device. I didn't believe him, 'cause there isn't a way to hack into Whyville or so I thought. Not believing him, I yelled out and told people about him and his hacking.

He got mad at me and said something like "The LD will get you!" I got puzzled about what the LD was, so I asked him, but all he said was "You'll see, just check your whymail."

About 30 minutes later, I signed on to Whyville again, and this is what I found: about 20 whymails! Sheesh! All these people's usernames started with LDx. I thought, what was this!!??

I checked all of the messages, and each one said to watch out because I had harassed an LD person and they would hack me with some new hacking device they called doom-x. The creator of this 'device' had made the clan LD, they said.

I got worried and reported every single Y-mail they had sent me. I don't know if they were really different people in a mob or, more likely, just one person using many different accounts. After the person was taped by the City Workers, I got another ymail. This is what it said:

"Our clan is **? Hahaheheh... I hear you don't know what DooM-x is... I'll explain it to you... First I must tell you what LD is though... you see, the clan LD was formed three years ago. The person that started the clan was the guy that created DooM-x virus... and he's the only person that knows it... he never told ANYONE!

DooM-x is a virus that plants itself in the victim's computer, but YOU have to activate it! What it does is it cleverly disguises itself as a popup. When it appears, it cannot be deleted off of the screen until you click "yes" or "no". No matter which one you click, it does the exact same thing. That's when it activates. It overclocks the computer, which basically tricks it into thinking it can run faster than it actually can. So your computer overheats and destroys its own Hard drive, video card, sound card, and even processor!

ITS BRILLIANT! And to imagine, that you will have it soon!

HAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAA

Don't mess with the InSaNe"

Is this real? Will they do this to my computer?? Is Whyville safe anymore?

Editor's Note: Whyville is absolutely safe, as I reported last week. Rule number one: Never open attachments in your email. Rule number two: always have at least one professional-quality anti-virus software installed in your computer, and use it regularly. This is the best way to keep a computer safe from viruses, spyware or other nasty bugs. As for Whyville, as always, there's no way for someone to send you a virus through our system. Don't go to a website that someone tells you about in chat -- that's a good way to experience unpleasant things, too.

As for "DooM-x", it's not a virus acknowledged by McAfee, Norton or any of the other major computer security companies, so I doubt it's a real threat, though of course if you don't take the proper precautions, even the lamest of viruses can do serious damage to your computer. One more rule to add -- NEVER click "Yes" on a popup window in your browser if you have any reason to not trust what you're reading, hit the red X mark in the upper right-hand corner. That should close it completely. Should another popup comes up, you may want to shut down your browser using your computer's "three fingered salute", usually Ctrl-Alt-Delete. If you never clicked anything on the popup's screen, it can't download anything on to your machine.

Once again, anyone "threatening" you with viruses in Whyville is just trying to get attention. You can ignore them, you can report them, or you can even try to be nice to them and let 'em know they don't have to be such annoying jerks, they can be cool without threats, but it's all up to you. Take care!