"The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated..."  Who can forget the words spoken by Bernard Shaw, CNN's reporter on the scene, when the US kicked off the air war over Iraq on January 17^th, 1991.  While a portion of the air war was conducted with stealth aircraft, invisible to air defenses and radar, a large number of aircraft such as B-52s entered Iraqi airspace with the radar signature of the Hindenburg.

Urban legend says that Iraqi air defenses were quickly neutralized by a virus entered into the IBM system which ran most of the radar defenses within the country.  As a legacy SNA (protocol) system, the IBM mainframes were all linked to each other, including items like printers.  Legend says the CIA located an Iraqi printer prior to the war, which was being repaired at a computer shop in Jordan.  Once the infected chip was in the printer, it was given a clear shot at the entire Iraqi air defense computer network, and at the right time unleashed a series of commands to shut down the entire IBM network.

True? Who knows, most legends are based on at least some truth.  Possible - absolutely!