The inside story of ‘ILOVEYOU’ and two other viruses from two decades ago. Steven Sinofsky, who worked at Microsoft from 1989-2012 and oversaw the Office (1998-2006) and Windows (2006-2012) teams, writes (shared by reader harrymcc): One morning during the first week of May of the new millennium, I received a call at my apartment while I was getting ready for work. I heard a female reporter tell me her name, and then basically listened to her hyperventilating and proclaiming her love for me repeatedly: “I love you. I love you.” That’s what I heard, anyway. The call. A reporter. Early morning. It was all weird. In reality, LOVE broke out all over the internet. Over the span of a weekend, inboxes around the world of Outlook and Exchange email users were inundated with dozens of copies of email messages with the subject line, “ILOVEYOU.”

I learned from the reporter that the LOVE email incident was deemed so serious that the PR lead gave her my home number and simultaneously sent me a briefing via email. In the era of dial-up, I could not read the email and talk on the phone because I only had one analog phone line at home. I had no idea what was going on, so I agreed to return the call after I dialed up and downloaded my email. That’s when I realized the magnitude of the issue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – How Microsoft Fought the ‘ILOVEYOU’ Virus 20 Years Ago