Last night for the first time we got a computer virus. It was very annoying. While it didn't do any real damage it did steal precious time. We don't use Outlook for email and so don't usually have any trouble with the email viruses that come out. I delete most of the attachments that I am not specifically expecting. But last night we got a jokes.txt from a friend who doesn't usually send them so rather than being suspicious I thought it must be something really good for him to send it. Tom opened it in textpad on our server, read it, told me it was only text, and forwarded it to my laptop where I do most of my computer use. I opened it, read it, thought it was typical and not particularly funny and forgot about it. Later Tom noticed an odd file in my start menu, a text file with a name all in caps, IMPORTANT, etc. He was immediately suspicious and began to check it out and sure enough there it was. We had been infected!
I don't understand this urge some people have to cause trouble and inconvenience to so many unsuspecting people. It would have hurt my heart to lose some of what I have on my laptop, my writings that I could not replace, memories, work. I don't know the person who designed the virus and have certainly not done anything to harm him. Why do people like to do this kind of thing? It certainly is not a protest against corporations, big business, or government because it is far more likely to affect the individual anyway whether they use their computer at work for personal email as so many do, or have a computer at home to be attacked. It just promotes distrust and suspicion which is not a paradigm I want to support. It does nothing to further our society or the individual.
It could have been worse. I will certainly be even more careful now. It hasn't done much for the stress level though.
Copyright © 2000 Kyril Oakwind