CHICAGO -- At the end of the Thursday general session at the annual
Travel Weekly Technology 2000 conference, Alan Fredericks, TW's
editorial director, alerted delegates to reports of a potentially
serious "I Love You" computer virus.
Sessions were delayed for 15 minutes, giving delegates time to
check with their offices to see if any problems existed; many
pulled out their cell phones to do so.
Some said they had the messages but had received alerts from
their company IT departments and immediately deleted the tainted
e-mails.
Robert Hubbard, president, Interworldtravel.com, Coral Gables,
Fla., said he alerted his colleagues at the office. He said his
staff had received the "love bug," but had not opened the
messages.
A spokeswoman from the Atlanta-based WorldTravel Partners said
the agency has a firewall that screens out such viruses.
Except for their quick calls to the office, delegates treated
the matter as a near nonevent.
Scott Ahlsmith, vice president and general manager of Trams,
said the virus did no major harm to his company, although it did
shut down his portable laptop. And it also hit most of the
computers in his company.
"I got slammed this morning," he said. "I saw the story on CNN,
then turned on my computer and had about 30 of those emails. We
have a pretty good virus control on our computers, and I'm
surprised it slipped through."
Ahlsmith said the virus copied all of Trams' e-mail addresses
and sent the virus to those addresses.