I have decided that since I am a computer professional, and getting on in years, now having passed the 50 mark, I am entitled to be a little more eccentric and crusty than the rest of you. Therefore, as a disgruntled individual living in a cyber society, I am creating the CyberSoapBox as a way to express my opinions to a CyberWorld.

The CyberSoapBox

Tirade #1 -- Computer Viruses...

It is now Saturday, August 24th, 1996 at 3:15am. The older I get, the more often I find myself falling asleep early in the evening, and then waking up at ungodly early morning hours with nothing to do but work. Cable TV being what it is, there isn't a lot to do between the hours of 2:00am and 6:00am, unless you're an astronomer with clear skies.  But, cable TV will be another future tirade. Thank God today is Saturday, and I'll be able to go back to sleep for a few hours.

Three days ago (August 21st), I became aware of  Hare, a new virus that was / is scheduled to go off on August 22nd and September 22nd. Hare is a real nasty little stealth virus that will eat all the data on your hard drive, if you are unlucky enough to become infected.

Over the years I have been asked a similar question more than a few times. Frankly, it beats me... but when a virus goes past the Ha! Ha! funny stage, it's just not funny anymore. It certainly can't be judged a practical joke when some obnoxious little cyber creation, conceived by a twisted and sinister cyber mind, is able to turn some poor unwitting souls, weeks, months or even years of  work, into garbage. What would make a mind intelligent enough to spawn a computer virus, actually go to the time and trouble to set something like Hare, or one of the almost 10,000 other known viruses loose on society. High levels of intelligence (actual or perceived) often breed stupidity, and a contempt for the rights of those less gifted. In other words, our world is filled with assorted nuts. I don't perceive myself as a mental health professional, but neither do I beleive that you have to be a psychiatrist to recognize a lunatic when you see one.

How many of you really back up your data on a regular basis? A regular basis being defined as more often than once every year or two.  Do you always scan those files you download, or those floppies you borrow from your friends or associates? Imagine the effect on your personal lives if you lost all your correspondence, records, invoices, artwork, forms, formletters, charts, presentations, spreadsheet files, and what else. What would your life be like if you were the MIS of an organization, and the hard drive that got chomped belonged to the secretary of the CEO, who didn't have a backup?  What would happen to the CFO whose financial records vaporized because his last six days of tape backups were bad and couldn't restore because of a dirty tape head?

The first time I heard the expression CyberTerrorist was in the movie "The Net". The term struck me as being the appropriate description of a computer virus author. After all, I can't think of too many other things that can strike terror in the hearts of computer users, professional or otherwise, then a computer virus appearing in ones' machine. If you have never felt the rush of adrenalin, a pounding heart, sweat rolling down your back and armpits or that knot deep inside the pit of your stomach, you don't know what terror really is!

Has anything ever been done to control these CyberTerrorists? If not, why not? Computer viruses are capable of doing far more financial damage than any mugging, burglary, bank robbery, act of arson, embezzlement or white collar crime. Can a virus author be brought to justice as the criminal he certainly is? Can he be sued in a civil court for damages? I think that I may just thought of a new field of  Law. Maybe attorneys could practice CyberLaw. (CyberShyster's?)

A significant bounty would probably be an effective tool in a campaign against CyberTerrorists. It is likely that the friends and relatives of a virus author would turn him in to the authorities in a minute for, as an example, a $25,000 reward. The reward money could be funded by the organizations most likely to suffer a considerable loss i.e., the governments and corporations of the world community. On the scale of world finance, the amount of money needed for a bounty program would probably amount to less than the pocket change of a pauper.

I sort of remember a quote from a Garfield cartoon a few years back, where Garfield remarked that "They should be drug into the street and shot!". Shades of the Boxer Rebellion! I suppose that most people would think that the shooting solution is a little extreme, but a fitting punishment should be devised that would act as a deterrent to future acts of terrorism. In order to keep things civilized, it would likely be best that an international court be formed to dole out justice and punishment. Something like a war crimes tribunal would be nice.

End of  TIRADE #1. My next job is to check the spelling and grammer. Since I'm not a professional writer, or even an English major, some errors will probably get past me. Don't bother sending me E-Mail telling me what I've done wrong.  This is my page and I'll do whatever I want with it.

Tirade #2 -- Paradigms...

Naples, Florida is one of the most affluent cities in the United States. In fact, Naples used to claim that during the Winter months, there were more millionaires in Naples, than anywhere else in the country. I don't know if that is still true, but there's no doubt that this town has a higher than normal concentration of the monied class.

This morning I paid a visit to the main branch of the local public library. Going off my beaten path, I decided to read an interesting article in one of the hundred or so magazines in the magazine section. As I was reading I looked up from the article and noticed an empty magazine folder on the bottom shelf with a cover that read....

When I looked around, I noticed there were several other folders with the same cover. The empty folders were for the following magazines: Economist, Fortune, Money, NY Times Book Review and NY Times Magazine. Please note that there were no empty folders for any of the other magazines on the shelves.

My wife always tells me that I am too ready to jump to conclusions, but when I showed her what I had found she started laughing too. Draw what conclusions you may, but it seems painfully obvious that the rich get richer any way they can, even to the point of stealing magazines from the public library. It's a sad commentary to our times that there are people that would resort to nickel and dime theft, to further amass their personal fortunes, rather then spend a few bucks for magazine subscriptions. All that matters is the bottom line; Right???

Future Tirades to Follow !!