In the third part of the book, Mark
talks much more about the smaller viruses. Mark comes up with a creative
tittle, “An Oceans of Suckers.” By smaller viruses what I really mean are
viruses that target a lot of computers but do not cause physical harm. One
virus, named Melissa virus, clogged networks by sending out pornographic
images. The virus was able to spread itself by looking through peoples email
addresses and then sending out emails to those people. This caused a lot of
computers to receive this virus. The debate of this issue comes to play when
you hear of the punishment. David Smith, the creator of this virus, was fined
5,000 dollars, and received twenty months in prison. Do you think this is a
fair punishment? Is twenty months in prison enough, for someone who was able to
access someone’s personal information? I personally do not think twenty months
is enough for the crime that was committed. The virus this man made not only
put a virus onto the computer, but it went through that person’s personal email
and stole their email addresses. These types of email viruses continued and in
2000, a virus called I Love You was created. Two programming students in the
Philippines created it. The virus was
designed to steal passwords from the victim’s personal files. While the virus
failed it still managed to cause 5.5 billion dollars in damage. These email
viruses were only just the beginning. Viruses were becoming more deadly towards
computers some even targeting the main operating system and just shutting the
computer down. What the significance of I Love You did was encouraged the
bigger named companies to hire people to help find these security flaws in the
operating system. Consumer confidence was going down, as consumers were unsure
to open attached files in their emails. These email attacks and worm attacks
were brought to an end in 2004 when Microsoft released Service Pack 2.
Sounds like a book for the more technology-savvy reader. Are there any ways to prevent getting these viruses? Personally I also don't think that 5000 dollars and 20 months in jail is proper punishment for that man who created one of the smaller viruses. I at least think the person responsible should have had to pay much more money.
ReplyDeleteThis book is very orientated toward the technology-savvy reader, but it caused me to learn a lot about viruses that I did not already know. Viruses can be prevented through antivirus software, which helps warn you if your computer may be in danger. I have an older blog post, which also helps explain how to keep your computer virus free. I agree with you on the fact that I too believe 5000 dollars and 20 months in jail is not a very satisfying punishment. The person hacking the computers is able to go through many peoples personal files and passwords. These passwords can lead to money being taken from bank accounts and access to more personal information. This is terrible if were to happen to one person but when a virus attacks a set of computers usually hundreds of thousands of computers are involved. For what these computer hackers do, I believe there needs to be a larger punishment in order to keep people privacy more safe.
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