From the reaction to Friday's column--in which I kiddingly called for death to virus writers--it's easy to tell who has had to deal with viruses and who hasn't. People who've spent hours, even days, undoing the work of these computer terrorists, whose crimes inflict tremendous damage on people they can't possibly know, seem to appreciate my viewpoint more than most.
I am also heartened that so many of you mentioned that, well, killing people is never a very good idea. One of the subliminal points I tried to make was that we all too often play fast and loose with innocent life. We're willing to allow poor people--often mentally ill--to freeze to death on the streets. Or what about those who don't have enough insurance coverage?
STILL, I AM HEARTENED that some of you found joking about the death penalty to be offensive. When my cynicism gets the better of me, there is always someone to remind me we really can do better if we're only willing to try.
So if we can't dispatch virus and worm writers--however attractive the revenge option may sometimes seem--what can we do?
At the end of the day, there's not much you can do--except practice defensive computing: Run antivirus and other antihacking software, keep it up to date, and run frequent backups of your critical files. I recommend Norton AntiVirus.
That is all you can do and it's not a perfect solution.
I SOMETIMES BLAME MICROSOFT for these problems. And there are two ways of looking at this: one, that Microsoft could do more to write virus-proof software, and two, that Microsoft has caused itself to be the preferred target of the world's computer anarchists.
There is truth to both those sentiments. While no software will ever be virus-proof, Microsoft could do more to protect its customers. Of course, when it does more the company also angers people who don't like it that Outlook XP now blocks certain types of files considered likely to be dangerous. There is no winning this battle, though Microsoft has to understand that viruses and hacking are a major threat to its .Net software-as-a-service initiative.
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