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Meet hacking's hottest couple: Gigabyte, the feisty teen who recently gained celebrity for her computer viruses and feminist views, says she has found a soul mate in Nostalg1c, a former member of a hacking group that defaced the White House site.
The duo, a kind of Bonnie and Clyde of cyberspace, claim their shared love of malicious code gives them a strong bond. Then again, it may also make the lovebirds a one-stone shot for the federal computer crime unit in their native Belgium.
Gigabyte, who is 18 and in her last year of high school, burst into headlines last March -- and intrigued male hackers everywhere -- for writing Sharpei, the first virus in Microsoft's C# programming language and only the second to infect executable files used by the big software company's .NET platform.
Nostalg1c, 20, said he has given up website defacements since watching mates MostHateD and f0bic from the globalHell and Team Spl0it groups, respectively, get busted for hacking numerous high-profile corporate and government sites.
The two, who first met on Internet relay chat two years ago, have been an item since mid-May, shortly after Gigabyte's innovative virus, along with her sex, made her a media darling.
Cable channel TechTV even dispatched a crew to Belgium in April to film her -- carefully not revealing her face -- as she sparred with a kick-boxing instructor and later dissed what she called the "stupid" people who click on virus-laden e-mail attachments.
Ever since, Gigabyte has replaced Lara Croft as the ideal woman in the eyes of some young hackers. The guest book at her website is replete with messages from gushing male admirers, along with the occasional nastygrams from critics who say she lacks ethics, maturity, programming skill, etc.
But Gigabyte has paid her online suitors and detractors little heed.
"(They are) mostly complete idiots who (have) had little or nothing to do with computers at all. Sometimes they stalk me on IRC, by e-mail and on ICQ and all, which gets very annoying," she said in an interview Tuesday.
The characteristically tough-talking and sarcastic Gigabyte turns downright sappy, however, when discussing her new flame, whom she calls "Nostie."
"Things get strange. Like, we say the exact same thing at the exact same time (then laugh about it). Or when we see each other the sun shines even when they predicted rain, or we know what exactly the other one's thinking ... nothing logical about it. Maybe it's 'cause I'm into computers and I'm used to things being logical," she said.
When asked what she and Nostalg1c have in common besides computers, Gigabyte reverts to form: "Saliva?" she quips.
Currently a first-year computer science college student, Nostalg1c admits he still performs the occasional "curiosity hacking."
"Most of my hacking results in talking to the admins ... sometimes earns me money, sometimes gets me in heavy discussions about how I am a jackass and how I should not hack their sites," Nostalg1c said.
While hackers have historically disdained virus writers, Nostalg1c said he and "Gigs" have a connection he hasn't experienced in previous relationships.
"It helps a lot that she knows how our world works. I guess other girls would not understand my addiction to computers," he said.
Whenever the two, who live about 15 minutes apart by train, get together at his apartment, it's usually not in front of a PC, however.
"When she comes over, she sometimes checks her mail, or we go on IRC to bug some people with the icky love stuff, but we don't really do so for longer than five or 10 minutes. We already spend enough time on our computers, so we would like to do other things when we're together," Nostalg1c said.
Currently struggling through school final exams, Gigabyte and Nostalg1c said it's unlikely they will end up at the same university in the fall.
"It would be fun. But then again, we wouldn't want to put the country into a state of national alert, would we?" jokes Nostalg1c, wryly adding that their combination of skills makes the pair a "deadly combination."
But Gigabyte says Belgian police could care less that two of the country's most notorious computer malcontents are romantically entwined.
"If they care at all, they'll see it as a positive thing. Because, after all, while we're busy with each other, we're usually away from the computer," she said.
