"Viral Warfare"

Let's start at the beginning. Once upon a time, my little steam-powered nigh-obsolete computer acquired a couple of nasty virus worms that ate holes in my Windows like cyber-termites, resulting in a great expense of both money and profanity. After that, I went out and purchased one of those big boxes full of software guaranteed to keep me safe from viruses, hackers, porn merchants, Nigerian scammers, and the Patriot Act.

For a year, I was safe as a newborn websurfing babe, confident in the cyber-body armor I was wearing. But then, as it always seems to happen, my subscription ran out.

I actually went for a month without updated virus protection, which is the equivalent of running naked through the Serengeti with raw meat glued to your body. Then I started to hear about the new viruses, the awful worms that didn't come through email. They actually waited until you were asleep, climbed out the front of your disk drive, and attached themselves to your brain while you slept.

Now bear in mind I had no reason to believe my sheer force of will could keep my computer safe. In computer terms, I live in the really bad part of town. I received sometimes as many as fifty virus emails a day. A brief flirtation with filesharing had grafted something called "games.exe" onto my hard drive that was undeletable, started before my computer did, and occasionally manifested itself in advertising pop-ups even after my computer was unplugged.

To make matters worse, my incoming email was so full of profanity, I was convinced it was infected with some kind of techno-Tourettes. However, I soon discovered that was just from angry Lakers fans. Oh well.

Anyway, for some reason I decided to switch things up on the home defense front. I had been using one brand, we'll call them Normal Anti-Virus to spare me any nasty lawsuits later. When it came time to renew my subscription, my naturally inquisitive nature led me to wonder what else was out there, and more importantly, could I save $5 by buying it?

Let me explain the nature of the Reid, here. I am a compulsive purchaser of bargain items. The sight of me entering a Big Lots causes stock to soar. If offered a deep enough discount, I will buy things I wouldn't take if you gave them to me. I am the reason for dollar menus at fast food restaurants. I have said things like, "How much is the McChicken? A dollar? I'll take five of them."

So when I saw the other company that makes Anti-Virus software, which we'll call McNasty, had their protection suite for twenty dollars cheaper, I jumped at the chance. Literally. It was sitting on the top row of the shelves.

I brought the product home, and installed it. Or at least I thought I did. McNasty software didn't really have a easy way to figure out if your virus definitions were up to date. So I checked, then tried to update, and checked again.

McNasty had found a bunch of viruses, including the leftover "games.exe." It asked if I wanted to delete them, I said sure.

Not to slide off topic, but why would the computer bother to stop what it was doing to ask me what to do with the virus it found? I didn't spend fifty bucks on some kind of U.N. Fact Finding Mission Virus software. If you find it, eliminate it. That's like your maid waking you up to ask if you want her to clean up that vomit in the den.

McNasty deleted it and all the other files that came up with it, then I restarted the computer. Whenever you install a big piece of software, you must restart your computer at least six times. Can't explain it, but it's the law.

-- Continued On Page 2