Every now and then Frank catches me talking to my computer. It’s usually something like this, “This stupid thing; that is not what I was looking for.”
Frank then says to me, “The computer can’t think. It is just doing what you tell it to do.”
I’m not so sure about that. I saw Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I know about HAL 9000, that smooth talking supercomputer. Do you remember that calm voice saying, “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that.” HAL even had a birthplace, a birth date and feelings.
All right, so maybe computers really only have personalities and intelligence that humans give them–for now anyway. But, it is only fitting that we share the good and the bad with our artificial intelligence buddies… the pox, if you will. The dreaded computer flu. A virus.
Humans can’t help but send viruses into the electronic milieu.
A computer virus is a small piece (a few bytes) of programming code that can disrupt the normal function of a computer. Just like the influenza virus that can make a healthy human too sick to get out of bed in the morning, a computer virus can thwart the proper boot-up of a computer. The computer hardware, the chips and electronics are fine, but the software has the wrong information-which makes it “sick.”
A computer virus is truly like a human virus in that the virus code (bytes) must be inserted into the normal computer program code in order to cause a problem.
Think about it like this. The common cold virus is harmless as long as it sits on a doorknob. But once that same rhinovirus genetic material can get into the human body, enters a human cell, and attaches itself to the human DNA strand–it comes to life! At this point, a human virus not only can cause enough damage to the cells of your body to give you nasal congestion, but it uses the human cell DNA to make millions of copies of itself.
Computer viruses also are designed to use the normal computer software to make lots of copies of itself. And, yes, these copies are designed to find a way out of one computer and spread to many others. Computer viruses are contagious.
How does your computer “catch” a virus?
Just like the human virus that travels from the doorknob to the mucus membranes of your nose on an unsuspecting hand, a computer virus must enter your computer hidden on an email attachment, a file transfer, or a contaminated floppy disk.
Computer viruses of all kinds are just out there. The computer virus security forces –those humans that are fighting the viruses — keep a library of all known viruses to date. They are like the Center for Disease Control in the U.S. that keeps track of all human viruses around the world, their names, where they originate, what diseases they cause.
But how do you avoid a computer virus? Your best computer virus vaccine is a strong computer surveillance immune system. Examples of common anti-virus software include Dr. Solomon’s Software, MacAfee Virus Scan and Norton Anti-virus. Anti-virus software scans your computer programs every time you start your computer in an effort to track down and eliminate any known virus computer code.
Some computer viruses can be simply annoying–like the computer virus that is set to activate on your special day with a “Happy Birthday” message that covers your computer screen. Other viruses are more serious and can erase computer files that store critical data. They’re the ones that are making the headlines these days.
Since computers are sharing such a typical human experience as viruses I wonder how they respond to other human issues such as jealousy.
I sure felt it the other day when my friend, Jim, showed me his brand new Apple personal computer. It was all cute and neon green and it had that user-friendly Mac attitude. It makes my IBM PC clone look rather boxy and tan.
I am thinking that my computer and I may need to send over to Jim’s Mac a chicken pox virus with a little byte to it. That green and red polka-dot Mac won’t even have a hand to scratch with!
“Sorry, Mac, we just had to do it.”
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