Give me a short description of who you are!

Well I'm male, 24 years old and I'm last year student computer science.

From where did you get your handle, Dark Helmet?

I got the name from a film of Mel Brooks called 'Spaceballs'. The film itself is a parody on the Sciene Fiction films.

When did you discovered the world of computers?

I think I was about 10 years old when I got my first game computer (a Philips ..., I forgot the name). Later when I was about 14, I bought a C64 (great computer) then 4 years later I bought an Atari 520 ST computer. And a couple years later a PC, which I still use today.

How long have you been active in the scene?

I think about a 2 years, about 6 months after I bought my PC.

How did you came into the virus business?

I got involved with viruses at my school. At that time people didn't know much about viruses and when the school got hit by a virus I wanted to know more about these things. So I started to collect viruses. Thats how I got in contact with [Sorry censored!] who just had started with [More censor!] a Hack/Phreak/Virus BBS. After just collecting I tried to write my own virus. So I wrote my first virus a overwriting non-resident virus of 44 bytes. It took me about 3 hours to write it because I hadn't programmed in assembler before. Most of knowledge I got from books that you can buy at you local bookshop.

Have you been involved in any other group than Trident?

Nope..

Who started/created Trident?

I think it was Tardy who started the group. He also came up with the name TridenT. There where four members when the group started. John Tardy, Peter Venkman, Bit Addict and Dark Helmet (me). The group was founded in the summer of '92.

What's the groups goal?

To write viruses and to exchange idea's

How many people are you?

don't know, I think 8 or 9.

What's their handles?

Bit Addict
Dark Helmet
xxxxxxxxxxxxx (more censor!)
xxxxxxxxx (look above!!)
Masud Khafir
Crom Cruach
John Tardy
Dark Ray
NighBird??? (don't know this one)

Do all of them program, if not, what's the others job?

most of them program, the others do other stuff like xxxxxxxxx who xxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [This is getting too much censoring!]

Who are the "leading/head-persons" in the group?

Well there isn't a leading/head person or something like that. Everyone does the things he likes.

How is Trident (currently) organzied?

Not...well loose, we do have regular meetings and so and we have a internal network between the members.

Have you got any contacts with other virus-groups/programmers?

There are some contacts with the other main viruswriting groups in the virusworld. And there is also some sort of contact with other virusprogrammers in the Netherlands.

Can anyone ask for membership, or are you a "private" group?

Everyone can join as long as he is willing to accept the rules

What does it take to join up?

Stick with the rules :
no racism in viruses
no destructive viruses
if you can write a virus it will help...

Have you ever thought of/are you currently releasing some sort of electronic magazine (text/executable/hard-copy)

Yea, well we have discussed this idea a long time, but because of the new laws in the netherland we didn't do it....

Are you into other things such as hacking and phreaking aswell, or just viruses?

Well a the beginning I did a little bit of hacking aswell but I stopped with that because the phone bills got to high

Do you have some network-connection?

You can reach me at Nuke-net, adresses it to Dark Helmet and I will read it ( I hope).

Can you name a few viruses/engines that members of Trident has written?

TPE, Horns of Jericho, Crusher, Civil War, Gotcha, and so on...

Which of them have you written yourself?

Civil war(s), Ritzen and some other

Which one was the hardest to write?

No virus writing is that hard..

Do you have any sort of company or law-enforcement who are trying to hunt Trident down?

Yea, the CRI, I think Tardy can you tell more about this.

If so, are they a real threat or just "childish"?

No, they are a real threat to us...

Have you ever had any trouble in the group with the result of kicked member(s)?

Nope, because nobody is kicked out...

How good are Trident comparing to other groups?

We are the best...( well at least we are in the top 3 )

Do you have any couriers that spread your products around?

No, I upload the creation to a Vx board and then it will spread itself

What do you think about the laws against h/p/v that has arrived lately?

I here they are becoming a problem to us, because you have to be very carefull that you don't break the law

Would you feel guilty if one of your viruses made damage to a hospital?

I don't thinks so, because I don't feel responsible if someone else start releasing viruses in the wild. As a matter of fact I think that the most viruswriters don't spread there creation around in the wild. I think that the whole virus problem is exaggerated by some anti-virus people.

Do you see any differences between the scene now and a couple of years ago (concerning the underground part ofcause)?

Well its much more organized then a few years back, and there is also more contact with the other groups and viruswriters. and there are now much more people involved then a few years back.

Which virus-magazine do you think is the best avalible now-a-days?

Crypt and 40Hex, I like Crypt for the news and 40hex for the news and programming stuff

Which virus-group/programmer do you admire/like?

No one..,I don't believe in that hero stuff andso..

Which country is the best virus-writing today?

Maybe Russia, don't know exactly...

Which virus-group(s) do you think is the best?

I think Phalcon/Skism is very good.

What do you think about these virus generators, such as VCL or PS-MPC? IVP, NUKE-GV etc. etc.?

I'm working on my own virus generator now, that will generating viruses the polymorphic way. It was planned to be ready last xmas, but some things came up and I don't know when I finnish it yet.

What do you think about the people using them?

Well I don't see the fun of using a virusconstructor and generate a virus and spread it. I mean whats the point of it. Be orginal and try to write your own virus.

What do you think about people bragging over (almost) nothing and ragging with other groups aswell?

ignore them...

What do you think about such individes as board-crashers?

Depends on the reason for crashing the board. But if there is no good reason I see it as pure vandalism.

Describe the perfect virus :

I don't think there is suchs thing as a perfect virus, every virus has some negative aspects....

Which AV-program do think is the best, and why?

F-Prot, it has a easy to use user-interface, and it has a good detection rate of viruses. For students its free.

What do you think about the underground's future?

I think there is no more real underground, I think is will more public in the future. Next I believe that the underground will become more organzied both in contact between each other as in more groups.

Any advice to people who want's to learn the basic of virus-writing?

1. Buy a good book. (I learned a lot of 'Advanced MS-DOS programming, by Ray Duncan, second edition, Microsoft Press, Redmond WA, USA)
2. Then get some real viruses and study them.
3. Try to write a simple virus, like a overwriting one, or a simple non-resident infector, then move up to resident ones and so on.

Something else you wish to say?

Sorry that I don't have more time to fill out all the question, and that I didn't have time to remove all the spelling and grammar error. If you have anything to ask, you can reach me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Do you wish to send any greets?

Sure...Greetings to :
Alie, Anja, Claudine, Christine, Dyonne, Erik, Frank, Gertie, Jos, Linda, Liesbeth, Mari‰le, Marcel M., Marcel T., Mildred, Mike, Norbert, Peter, Ralph, Roger C., Roger H., Victoir