Princess Luna's Computer

April 25

In the morning hours, Celestia woke and crossed to Luna’s room which was empty since her night duty was not finished yet. She moved the computer to the main room where the throne was located. Twilight Sparkle and Spike entered the throne room to consult Princess Celestia.

“You wanted to meet me, Princess Celestia?” Twilight asked as her voice resonated around the room; as a result, Celestia turned her head to face Twilight.

“Yes. I have something that I wanted you to figure out so you can be enriched with outer-world knowledge,” Celestia emphasized.

“That sounds spectacular! What will I be working with?” Twilight cheered and asked Celestia, who appeared to be a little nervous.

“You will be working with this laptop. I have “borrowed” it from Luna’s room--” right at that moment, Luna entered the throne room, and looked dreadfully tired.

“Princess Luna! Is it alright with you if I can lend your computer to Princess Twilight Sparkle for this day?” Celestia asked Luna.

“Sure… Go ahead…” Luna said with a hoarse voice as she walked towards Celestia.

“Okay, thank you; get some good sleep too.” Celestia reminded Luna as Luna enters the hall of her room.

“Wow, that night duty sure did a number on her stamina,” Twilight remarked as she looked at the bedrooms and then towards Celestia.

“She is assigned to do dream duty, and certain dreams are quite… let’s say, complex to her,” Celestia answered.

Afterwards, there was nothing much else to say, and there was a period of long awkward silence between Twilight and Celestia.

“I guess… I’ll be seeing you, Princess Celestia,” Twilight hesitantly said as she lifted the computer and slowly trotted to the main entrance; at that sight, Celestia realized something.

“Wait!” Celestia raised her voice slightly, and caught Twilight’s attention. “ I forgot to teach you the ways of operating this computer!”

Twilight turned towards Celestia, and sat the computer in front of her while spike grabbed a quill and a piece of parchment paper.

Celestia delivered the same lecture as she did with Princess Luna, and as she delivered the info, Spike deliberately took notes of every minute detail such as every mouse movement, and every interaction that happen.

When the short lecture ended, the parchment is filled with instructions and notes that Spike vigorously took. Spike grabbed the computer and Twilight said a temporary goodbye to Celestia.

“Wow, this thing sure is heavy…” Spike complained as he used his two claws to hold the Laptop. Twilight then initiated a teleportation spell, and she, along with spike, disappeared from the castle.

…

The two reappeared in the Golden Oaks Library, and Spike placed the computer on the table, and flipped open the screen.

Twilight walked over to the computer and looked at the individual keys, and the nib.

“You should operate this, Spike. My hooves are incompatible with such small keys,” Twilight assigned Spike, and as a result, Spike became excited since he would be piloting a piece of modern (Well… sort of modern) technology. Spike grabbed the parchment, and looked over the first procedures:

“Turn the computer on by pressing the button above the keyboard!”

Spike used his claw, and gently pressed the power button. The computer displayed its IBM splash screen, and it loaded Windows 98 again.

The loading screen disappeared, and as it loaded the desktop, the startup sound played at full volume, thus scaring Spike, and catching Twilight’s attention.

“What was that?” Twilight asked spike, and Spike pulled out the parchment sheet.

“Don’t worry; the loud sound you will hear will be the startup sound. There is nothing wrong.”

Spike then looked to the screen, and then notices the desktop blacks out, and then displayed a white screen.

Active Desktop Recovery

Microsoft Windows has experienced an unexpected error. As a precaution, your Active Desktop has been turned off. To restore active desktop, use the following troubleshooting tips:

• Did your browser stop working, or did you restart your computer without shutting it down first? If so, click:

[Restore my Active Desktop]

Spike thought it would me more sensible to click the button, and he did, which brought the desktop back to its normal status quo. Twilight slowly trotted to the computer, and investigated. She eyed on the “Readme.doc” file.

“Spike, move the pointer over to the readme.txt and open it,” Twilight commanded spike, and spike gently placed one of his claws on the nib, and slowly moved the pointer to the icon. Spike double clicked it, and a Microsoft Word window popped up.

Twilight overviewed the file, which was a syllabus/unit guide of sorts.

UNIT 9 – Malware and viruses

Students! By the end of this unit, you need to meet the following Critical Learning Standards:

1. I can identify and define Computer Virus and Malware

2. I can classify what variant or kind of Virus is running, i.e. Trojan Horse, Malware, Spyware, Adware, Backdoor… etc.

3. I can Identify malicious coding

4. I can identify and analyze the payload of famous malware samples.

5. I can identify the different payloads each type of malware has.

6. I can explain how an antivirus works.

7. I can accurately develop basic antivirus software. (Lab project!) (You will base your malware database off of the sites on )

8. I can develop a simple piece of malware. (Extra Credit Project! More destruction = More Points!)

Day 1: You will be administered what I call “Dummy Computers.” The purpose of this project is for you to choose one piece of malware and explore its effects on the system. After observing the effects, please, on a separate sheet of paper, write down your predictions on what the virus did to the system.

IMPORTANT! Please do NOT run two malwares at once! It will give unwanted results, and your assignment score will be deducted!

In the “IMPORTANT FILES” folder, I have searched the internet, and retrieved the finest, and the most famous pieces of malware for you to explore.

The rest of the days will be lectures, and some fun interactivities.

Twilight, upon reading the syllabus, was extremely confused, as if she read some document that is written in a different language; her face was flushed and frozen. Spike tapped her on the shoulder.

“What is wrong, Twilight?”

“I don’t know any of this!” Twilight complained as spike pushed the down arrow. It revealed important info in a very large font.

“That is why you learn!” Spike gently said to Twilight.

“Learn about mal… antiviruses? No one in Equestria has ever heard of these!” Twilight explained to Spike in a quasi-anxious tone.

Your TEST will be on 29 April.

Your FINAL EXAM will be on 6 May.

“TEST? Nopony ever told me that there will be a test on this!" Twilight yelled as she entered a freak-out mode.

“Twilight, It is just a test…” Spike replied to her madness.

“It’s just a TEST? If I fail this, it means that I betray Celestia!” She yelled, and then she furiously ran to one end of the entire bookshelf and vigorously searched the shelves for any content related to coding, viruses; etc.

“Coding… Coding… CODING…!” Twilight frantically chanted as she removed each and individual book from the shelves.

Spike, on the other hand, went into the “IMPORTANT FILES” folder, and clicked on “description.txt.” A window of Notepad opened, and it debriefed the viruses.

“Twilight!” Spike yelled.

“WHAT?” Twilight, enraged, replied to Spike’s call.

“Whoa… I think just by previewing this small document may help,” Spike suggested.

Twilight stomped her way over and read the first entry.

DEBRIEF OF VIRUSES.

CIH: A very devastating virus that affected the majority of the business computing industry in April 26, 1998. The virus was created by a Taiwanese man named Chen-Ing-Hau, hence the virus name “CIH.” When the date is OTHER than April 26, opening the virus sample will manifest the virus into the memory, and any executable file that is opened will be infected by the virus. On April 26 of any year, when any program that is infected with CIH runs, the virus activates its fatal payload; as a result, the computer cannot boot anymore. If you choose this virus, you should write a brief prediction regarding the hindered boot sequence.

“It sounds quite interesting, maybe we should try it!” Twilight suggested as she understood half of the jargon.

“Well, it’s on the Critical Learning Standards list… Why not?” Spike clicked on the folder behind the notepad window, and moused over the CIH.exe file.

“Don’t blow up…” Spike nervously pressed the left mouse key twice, and the CIH.exe opened a simple command line window.

“Oh no! It is showing a black screen with grey text!” Spike jumped when a large MS-DOS window popped up and Twilight used her magic to use the nib, and she moused over to the X on the top right corner of the window.

“It did not do anything…” Spike wondered as he stared at the screen while clicking around. “Should I run another one?”

“From the syllabus thing, it indicated that it would ruin our results,” Twilight explained to Spike, and he scrolled down the list and spotted the “ILOVEYOU” worm.

“Oh! I shall send that to Rarity!” He dared to click it, but a flashback of what Twilight just explained came back to Spike, and because of that, he refused to open it so he could not betray Twilight.

Twilight was back to search for any relevant books while Spike navigated to the Games folder. He moved the pointer to “Hearts” and opened the game. There was a card in the middle, and then each side of the window filled up with cards with various numbers, faces, shapes, and red or blue colors.

“Twilight?” Spike was confused of what is going on in the game.

“What do you—“ Twilight eyed on the game, and she seemed to remember playing it with old fashioned paper cards instead of electronically.

“Oh my gosh! I remember how to play this!” Twilight pushed Spike aside as she initiated the game by picking three cards to exchange.

“Spike, you can search through the shelves,” Twilight was then absorbed, and transferred her errands to Spike, and as a result, Spike groaned and climbed up the ladder leaning against the shelves.

… (4 hours later)

“Nope… Nope… and no… That seems to be the last of it,” Spike declared, and Twilight, all of a sudden, was interrupted on her 125th game of Hearts just to stare at Spike.

“Are you serious?” Twilight gently raised her voice at Spike, and as a result, Spike’s anxiety grew as he feared of being demoted as Twilight’s assistant.

“Yes I am, and there is not a book that has the terms “Coding”, nor “Computer Viruses”!” Spike, panting out of extreme exhaustion, declared the pithiest statement to Twilight.

“Well… Now it is down to one thing… It will be risky,” Twilight told Spike her plans of Learned Helplessness.

“What is it?”

“Make educated guesses!” Twilight declared, and by that, she meant completely BS’ing through the unit in the vain hope she passes.

“Educated guesses… Well the directions in the syllabus thing told you to use an educated guess on what the virus is doing when it opens. It is questionable to wing the entire unit on concepts you have not even heard about,” Spike explained to Twilight, and it whisked her chances of hope away.

“I’ll contact Celestia tomorrow. Sit down, Spike, and you can enjoy yourself while I continue to thrive on this game of “Hearts”.” Twilight assured Spike as she resumed her game. Spike signed, and walked over to the stairs. He stepped up to the bedroom and rested on his small bed.

Twilight continued to play Hearts for quite a while, and she stopped when she felt her eyes twitch and strained; Due to the side effects, she became tired earlier than usual.

The sun lowered towards the Horizon, and Twilight looked around her library, which was a complete mess that is composed by mounds of books piled everywhere. Fortunately, she used a spell, which made all the books levitate, and slowly, all the books slid past another, and eventually, they were arranged in an array by alphabetical order of the title. The books were then shoved into the individual spaces on the bookshelf, and the library was back to its clean state.

Twilight walked back to the computer and resumed her activities, but her eyes continued to rally at her; eventually, the rallying took over, and Twilight had to shut down the computer.

She pressed the power button, and the cursor turned into an hourglass. The computer seemed to do nothing. Twilight nudged the small red nib, and the cursor did not even move in compliant to the direction of the nib-tilt.

Then, the screen turned black, and then…

It is now safe to turn off your computer.

“Okay… I pressed it to turn off and it is asking me to turn it off again…” Twilight let out disgruntled sigh, and pressed the power button again to shut the computer off completely.

Twilight closed the lid on the computer, placed a piece of paper on it and wrote:

“Dear Princess Luna,
You may have this computer back.

-Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

The sun was completely below the horizon, and as the sky darkened, Twilight slowly trotted up to her quarters, and observed Spike sleeping soundly. Twilight yawned, and jumped into the bed and under the covers.

Downstairs, Luna entered the library, and immediately spotted the computer. She walked over to it and read the note.

She used her magic to hold the computer, and as she left, she uttered: “Thank you, Twilight!”

Luna returned to her quarters in the Canterlot Castle, and placed the computer on the floor near her bed; instead of opening it to play, she left it there and went straight to her night duty post.

Meanwhile, when Twilight was about to fall asleep, something came to her mind.

“On April 26 of any year, when any program that is infected with CIH runs, the virus activates its fatal payload; as a result, the computer cannot boot anymore.”

“April 26…” Twilight stood up and looked at her calendar, and then the clock.

“April 26… Is tomorrow!!” By that time, Princess Celestia was sleeping, and Princess Luna was attending to dream duties.

“Oh my…” Twilight grew anxious as she lied on the bed again, tossing and turning before drifting to sleep.