Dear person(s) that creates and spreads computer viruses, worms, etc,
On many occasions, I have struggled late at night to fix my computer after a typically boring and treacherous day, and have wondered “Who starts these computer viruses anyways”?? Admittedly, as I hurry to back up my ‘important’ documents and remove the infiltrating files, I have nothing but curse words for you. But during intermittent times, such as today, I simply want to understand.
I want to meet you and have an open minded, non-accusatory lunch during which I can explore your motives and objectives. Specifically, I want to know how this provides you with pleasure. I appreciate the pleasure in practical jokes, and partake in a few myself. But the pleasure is usually in watching the reaction, and enjoying the typical and non-predictable human response. But even as a practical joke, I can not imagine the humor or pleasure in watching someone spend hours trying to fix a computer when they could be doing something more fruitful like helping starving children or watching t.v. And more so, even if this did provide you with humor, you can not actually see the people doing it. You can not watch their anguish, you can not experience their pain, and you do not know what they have forsaken for this precious time.
Are you trying to make a specific point? Like a minority group arguing to be recognized? If so, I am afraid that your point is lost in the medium. Perhaps, if you could, please make your point more clearly. For example, name the worm or virus after your cause. Something like the “Greed will devour us all” virus or the “please don’t judge people based on their height” worm.
Another possibility is that you are sharing your intelligence and superior computer skills with the rest of the world. I appreciate talent, so I appreciate the desire to show it. I am indeed impressed by your computer skills, which are clearly superior to my own. But unfortunately I am not as impressed with you as an individual. I have often wondered why a group of you “virus makers” don’t unite to use your obvious surplus of talent (and time) to do good upon the earth. For examples, you could build resources for the under-represented such as children or animals. Programs that allow animals to express themselves – not THAT would be an accomplishment!
The last question for now is regarding time. I have wanted to write this for over two years, and have only now found a few extra minutes to devote to this “extra” focus. I find that time is a limited resource, more so than power or money. Yet I see that somehow you have managed to create time to do this. I am assuming that you are not being paid to create viruses and worms for computers? Presumably you must also work, eat, sleep, talk with friends etc.? I am also assuming that designing a virus for computers is a time-consuming activity. Then how do you find so much excess time to devote to this extra-curricular activity? Perhaps you can advise me on how to generate time.
While many questions remain, I will stop here. If you are one of those people that starts computer viruses, please identify yourself. I promise to respect your anonymity. I simply want to understand.
—Infected
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
I firmly believe that the penalty for creating computer viruses should be that the creator gets infected with a virus themselves.
First offense – H1N1
Second Offense – Anthrax
Third Offense – HIV
No one would EVER commit a second offense.
because we…. er… they can. 🙂
this is exactly why you should be partitioning your HDD into an OS partition and then everything else… so you can reinstall the os (you still have all those drivers handy like a responsible computer owner, don’t you) and be up and running again within a couple hours NO MATTER the problem (assuming it’s not hardware related)
Fuck fixing it… they specifically design them as best they can so you can’t fix it…. just format the OS partition and reinstall the whole shebang.
ps. after you’ve done it a couple times, you’ll find tricks and hints to leave yourself so you’ll get better and quicker every time. A a computer owner in the computer age, this is an invaluable lesson to learn and isn’t really that difficult.
zZz for the win. absolutely correct, partition partition partition…oh and AVG FREE (google it, download it, USE IT)
There is a program called “sandboxie” which is great for safely browsing suspicious webpages, opening suspicious files, etc. Everybody should have thisinstalled on their PC. It can save a LOT of Grief! Look into it.
Google does much of this already and has algorithms to root out suspicious web pages – it will warn you when accessing them from Google search.
This is the equivalent to learning to change the oil and tires on a car…
you’re going to run into trouble, better you learn before you get to it.
And I wrote my replies after reading only half the post.
Now that I’ve read it, I thought I’d mention a couple more things:
the movie hackers is a horrible representation of ‘their world’… just as bad as ‘swordfish’.
in reality, half the time they are teenagers… and we all know how much time teenagers have and how much trouble they like to get into…..
for them it’s typically for mad props. they leave a signature and eventually get caught.
for the other half, the older, wiser folk… it’s for monetary gain.
installing keyloggers to get your accounts and passwords….
installing back doors to utilize your empty cpu cycles to front spamming software behind the scenes…. or repeatedly hitting sites for ‘click cash’…. or site publicity …. or their own sandbox to play in where tey don’t have to worry about burning their own system.
all valid, all illegal, and all money making in one way or another.
WHY? because they are a fucked up shit brained dickhead,that should cover it for their description.
eloquent as usual, LS
But all I want to do is look at porn, please don’t tell me it’s wrong?
zZz… you beat me to the punch. Yeah, partition the shit out of your hard drive. There’s absolutely no reason to have 500GB of storage on a machine, and not to use it properly. It also increases your computer’s performance by not having 500GB fragmented all to hell. AVG Free is certainly a good idea too. The only thing I can add to the whole conversation is this: never click a link, copy and paste it, be wary of software torrents (I can’t count how many Photoshop torrents out there are just packet after packet of viruses/trojans) and above all, be vigilant. They’re just out there to fuck with as many people as possible because they can.
I’m so paranoid about this kind of thing happening, that I store all my files in the cloud. You know, online storage sites. It completely defeats the purpose of buying a Macbook in the first place, but I’d rather have my computer gone than my files vaporized. I’m thinking of getting a notebook with Google Chrome OS installed sometime in the future…as Google’s products are making my pre-installed Mac applications look redundant. I’m sensing a possible feud between Apple and Google pretty soon.
word.
some of my friends are so anal that they partition for the exact size of their page file and set it to a static size in windows settings and then turn off the alerting windows likes to throw when you’re partition is nearly to completely full.
barely a performance increase but at least it’s never fragmented.
Ideally though i like to keep it on a separate disk from the one the OS partition is on so that the same disk doesn’t have to read back and forth from page file to os files… they read in unison.
anyone running XP (And knows that any non-cracked-slim-version is a glut) should check out http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?art… to get it under control.
plenty of tricks that anyone can do to decrease their startup and wait times.
i run linux. we don’t typically get virues. typically…
Or just get a 64bit os with 4+GB of RAM and turn off paging altogether! 🙂
I’ve been on the Internet since 1994 and I’ve never once had a virus or worm attack my computer files. Hackers do this kind of thing because people are too dumb to properly protect their computers. If you protected your computer you’d have zero problems. It’s not hard to do.
First, get a virus scan and firewall protection. They’re available all over the place, often for free like Avast or AVG. If you’re really paranoid pay for Kapersky. Don’t use Norton. Delete Norton from your computer the moment you buy your computer
Second, don’t use Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is riddled with security holes. Use Firefox for your internet browsing. Use the add-ons Adblock and No Script. You can adjust the settings on these to your liking, depending on the sites you trust and whatnot. Most of the viruses out there are embedded into ads that pop up on your browsers. If you block them you never get viruses and you also don’t have to see the annoying ads.
Third, stop viewing porn online. The viruses that aren’t being sent through regular advertisements are sent through porn. One porn site will destroy your computer.
Fourth, if all of the above doesn’t work (and no reason why it shouldn’t) you should always have back ups of your files stored on disks or thumb drives. They make thumb drives today with ridiculous amounts of space for very cheap. If you get a virus that is difficult to fix you can reformat your computer and put all your files back onto it. It’s much faster and easier than trying to fix problems, especially when the software gets all muddled up and you delete the wrong thing.
Really absolutely no reason to be getting viruses anymore.
lol who still gets viruses, get Firefox and install a virus protector. It’s virtually impossible to get viruses unless you don’t know how to use email properly.
If you’re my parents and like to use my computer without any general experience in spotting viruses or suspicious websites, you will get a virus. THAT’S WHO.
For a little extra quid you can get a 1 TB hard drive and you’ll never have to worry about files again. Problem with online storage sites is that they’re constantly being attacked by legitimate hackers, and I’ll never trust ’em. Finally, don’t fool yourself. Mac users are targeted as much as everyone else, they’re just a little more protected because they’re not a common language.
I think some people overestimate the computer literacy rates of the general public. This comment applies to the coors light ads as well. Too many users only know how to point and click and not much else.
Maybe it turns them on? Like in a naughty sort of way!?
Until you experience the thrill of seeing even a single line of code you’ve written execute in perfect fashion you’ll not be getting your head around the creation of viruses or any software for that matter. The question is stupid. It’s right up there with “why doesn’t man stay on the ground where he belongs?”
You ask why?
Fifty years ago these types of juvenile minds were limited to dumping sugar in vehicle gas tanks or setting off stink bombs in high school washrooms or shooting out porch lights with BB guns (OK that last one is funny!). What they used to call “raisin’ hell”. They still do these things, but now internet technology has extended their reach and unleashed them on the world. Some of them grow out of it, usually when they discover women. Others never do . . . either one of the above.
I think computer viruses represent our modern version of juveniles “raisin’ hell”.
Of course, in the old days some juveniles went on to car theft and armed robbery – you know – they became REAL criminals. Instead of just fucking other peoples’ shit up, they graduated to stealing it. The same is true today, but computer technology and the internet have given these folks another avenue to becoming fucktards.
Some of the other comments included some helpful tips for avoiding these problems, but I thought I’d stick to addressing your original question.
miles, all they need to know is how to type ‘google’, ‘reinstall windows tutorial’, and click.
with all the information so readily available and all the tools provided, they need some damn initiative.
I’d never hitched a trailer to a car before (since I don’t have a trailer or hitch…) but took all of 4 mins to learn and help a friend out.
I have a theory that computer viruses are created by the companies that make the anti-virus software, so they can make money selling programs that combat the viruses they put out there.
nevermind,you aren’t far off there.i did many a new install,fresh from the wrapper,even win 98,and no net hooked up.to prove a point to someone,i took a brand new unopened copy of norton,and lo and behold,it had viruses out the ying yang.these things are designed so that you think they are doing something good.but all they do,is download their own copies of viruses,and then let you think, gee,i’m glad i bought that.the system i use now,has never had software for virus detection on it,and in the 4 years that it has been online,never once got one.with software installed,seems like you throw a red flag at these fools,to try and fuck shit up.i have anti locks on this thing,to even prevent a takeover from a remote server,like microsoft.they only see and get what i want them to.
Never mind – you are 90 percent correct ! MOst anti virus and or spyware adware sellers and manufacturers are staffed by IT I.E>: hackers that take control of their shit and hijack their systems and make them hire them . MAybe not so much these day but back in the day – thats how hackers got their jobs in the most part – spet one – fuck up and or hijack system – step two – get hired so it won’t happen again and create defenses. I don’t care how much security anyone has – for the professionals ( what virus creator is a professional anyways ) but lets use that – will take your machine over no matter what and no matter how much port sniffing,out going/ incoming algorthem checking you do, – your done . Thats what happens for every one person that write preventive script to block – the malisious will write one to get in always happens . But yea it’s a bitch if you get hit – partioned backed up dual boot systems are always the best way with os’s on a partions and your programs and stuff you want to keep on a SEPERATE none plug in hard drive saves your ass, Hijack my sytem go ahead – i can detect that and kick you out – but getting into my none plugged in drive with the good stuff on it – naw never happen and i have it all there just a matter of finding you and fixing what you fucked and plugging my save drive in and getting enverything back – hackers make it fun for me to learn more each day amd keep me on my toes .
This one is simple….Bored alienated youths from many countries around the world that don’t have the opportunities to do good where they are from….So they resort to evil.