Introduction
    +----------+

    Well I don't think the release date has been held back this time,
    mostly because I didn't really give any definite release time,
    this was a good decision I think.  This is issue is as usual pretty
    much packed full with viruses and related information.

    Hopefully the code contained in this issue is definitely bug free,
    we haven't had the best past for this but we're checking things out
    a little better now.  If you find one, email me and I'll kill
    whoever did it :).

    The group has expanded once more, there are now seven of us, and
    it's definitely the last addition to the group.  Although I said
    the same thing last issue, I think it's definite this time.  Now
    we have a decent amount of members it means I can take a rest
    (shya!).

    Quantum makes his appearance with his two viruses, Bane and
    Tasha Yar Mark II.  It's Mark II because he originally wrote
    Tasha Yar as his "application" virus and when it actually came
    to testing the virus, it didn't work! hehe so it's a rewrite of
    the original.  He also wrote half of the windows virus, which
    is something I have no clues about :).

    Much like last issue there's a contribution (or two) from
    everyone in this issue.  Not as many as some people would have
    liked but there aren't any more spaces anyway :).  We've pretty
    much fulfilled our goals in virus authoring so now we have to
    think up some new ideas for us to do.  We may write a
    com/exe/newEXE infector just to expand the technology but who knows.

    The work up to this issue was a little slow to begin with since
    people's commitments at university/college kinda cut down on
    productivity.  At last though, it's here and it's an impressive
    assortment of code.  There are plenty of independant submissions
    which makes the magazine more interesting.

    VLAD now has a world wide web page, at the moment it's at
    'http://nether.net/~halflife' but it will eventually be moved
    to 'http://tmok2.tmok.com/~meta'.  So when you can no longer
    reach the page at nether.net you know it has moved :).  On the
    page you can read about our progress towards the next issue and
    there are hypertext copies of vlad#2-4.  There are also links to
    other virus pages around the place, so check them out also..

    Well that's just about all I have to say with relevance to us,
    now I'll pass along a little news of what has been happening in
    the virus scene.

    The group mentioned in vlad#2 & 3 AIH has now officially split
    up.  They were responsible for the Aussie Parasite family and
    the Aussie Tiny viruses.  A couple of the members have gone onto
    cracking games whilst Dark Fiber has joined NuKE.

    He's not the only person to join NuKE recently.  There are three
    other additions to the group.  Virogen and Diddler from USA, and
    Stalker X from South Africa.  On the other hand, Mr.Twister has
    quit the group and is off to do bigger and better things :).

    Red_a and Blonde have joined Immortal Riot so there's another
    couple of helping hands to get their Insane Reality magazine
    out.  The Unforgiven tells me he has some full stealth viruses
    ready to put out so issue 7 of insane reality should be
    something to check out.

    The scene with Aristotle seems to have quietened down, I've
    given up reading echomail so I wouldn't have a clue what's
    going on there.  Although if you get yourself a copy of the
    Chiba City times #3 check out his MBC v2.0 for a little message
    about us on exit.

    40hex issue 14 has finally been released, after a while of
    saying it'll be out next week (every week ;) garbage heap
    finally got it done.  It's definitely worth checking out.

    It seems Urnst Kouch just can't keep things to himself, in
    his latest issue of the crypt newsletter he managed let slip
    more private info about another virus author.  Although he
    emailed me after vlad#3 and told me that the mentioned person
    knew all about it (re crypt #29) the same cannot be said for
    this case.  Here's a little hint for everyone, if Urnst wants
    to speak to you, you keep your mouth shut :).

    Our friend Zvi Netiv the author of Invircible that lovely
    AV package has finally done himself in.  He has been banned
    from Fido's virus and virus_info echos.  Before he got himself
    kicked out, he implied Vesselin Bontchev was the Dark Avenger,
    and he said that Vesselin's phd was taking him so long because
    he's slack.  Vesselin hit back by posting a message claiming
    that IV is a trojan because it will overwrite a file called
    'sofia' in the root directory.  Actually, Zvi isn't too popular
    with a lot of people at the moment, due to his criticism of
    opposition anti-virus software, with Frans Veldman (TBAV) and
    Wolfgang Stiller (Integrity Master) both taking offence at
    some of his comments.

    Quite a few of our viruses from vlad#3 have now been added
    to the growing list of scanned viruses by TBAV and F-Prot.
    Although not all, I'd say they picked the wrong ones to scan.
    Since hemlock still isn't detected when it's TSR due to the
    various stealths.

    I haven't seen too much happen around me lately so I don't
    have that much info for this issue, but I hope you got something
    out of the little I did have to say.

    Metabolis/VLAD