viruses, urban legends, and you
In the late 90s I recall responding to harrowingly frequent assaults on common sense in the form of forwarded urban legend emails from friends, family, and other bystanders. The problem with these legends is of course that they were written just convincingly enough to cause real concern (and fear, my toilet spider-checking brethren) in gullible minds. About the sixth time someone forwarded me the Microsoft Email Tracking Offer or any of the seemingly unkillable chain emails, I copied a few lines of the offending message and pasted them into search at Urban Legends and Folklore. Inevitably, the hoax had already been caught, skinned and mounted by David Emery and his readers. I'd reply-all to the original distribution list, respond with the debunking URL, and pray that some day reason and enlightenment would again prevail. Something about information in network-delivered form, especially to someone new to the Internet, conferred unimpeachable credibility.
Today I read a Wired feature (last quote) in which George Smith from GlobalSecurity.org offered this thoroughly enjoyable wish for 2004:
"I wish people would treat regular virus frenzies like an IQ test. If you convene a congressional hearing in the aftermath of the next PurplePeopleEater Worm, fly 'experts' across the country to purse their lips and utter noises of concern, spout estimates of economic damages that are the same magnitude as a yearly expenditure to reconstruct Iraq and get angry at a Department of Justice flunky over its inability to hang someone, you flunk.
"What I'd like to see happen once would be for someone to have the nerve to stand up in such a national forum and call the exercise good phlogiston, state the electronic infrastructure's not fixable, that more education will never fix our computer virus 'problem' and that we'll all be back in three months to say the same thing for the rest of you nincompoops.
"But it won't happen -- everyone will continue to pretend they have an IQ of 60."
"Phlogiston?" Zowie. Calling anything phlogiston in a congressional hearing is likely to get you bounced out to the cafeteria's Freedom Fries line in short order.
I believe the computer virus defense game is 80% mental -- if you resist your hypothalamus' pleadings and don't click on that "YOU_WIN.VBS" attachment, you most likely win every time. Faith in urban legends and fear of a viral personal computing apocalypse get their power in the same inky pool of straightforward ignorance.
I still disable Norton Auto-Protect every now and then. I need to feel the rush.