A sophisticated software virus is deleting tariffs from customs documents before they are viewed or printed, effectively negating recently imposed surtaxes. Agents processing goods that cross the Canada – United States border are completely unaware, as the computers show no glitches or signs of the virus operating silently in the background.
The virus was unleashed on both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Canada Border Services Agency systems at 12:01 AM this morning and have now infiltrated computers at all border crossings as well as all air and sea ports. It deletes the tariffs on goods moving in both directions.
The hacker, a beaver calling himself “Billy” who lives on the Kettle River near the border, says he was “just so damn mad” about the widespread tariffs that he felt he had to do something, adding, “don’t even get me started on the lumber situation.”
The Kettle River flows across the border between the province of British Columbia and the state of Washington but according to Billy, the trees all look the same. “Trees have brownish trunks and greenish softer stuff that makes a nice bed inside the dam, and every frigging tree is like that! Some of them have roots in Canada and branches in the States, and some are the opposite. This tariff thing is just ridiculous,” Billy said, thumping his wide tail on the ground for emphasis.
Asked how he managed to infiltrate the government computer systems, Billy said he just told DeepSeek to do it. DeepSeek is an artificial intelligence model developed in China.
It was later discovered that Billy is just a prankster and the virus was an April Fool’s Day hoax.