Report On the psychology of computer viruses: By mine1
Table of contents:
Computer viruses are evil things that undoubtedly came about because someone with no life had nothing to do one Friday night. I hope that everyone has in come in contact with a computer virus in some way, shape or form. Whether it be through a friend, relative or reading a story about someone who has encountered these terrible things. That way everyone can know the extent of damage that these home made things can do.
I know how awful it must have been for Mr.Sasabe (to read his story click here) to lose his paper because I have lost my reports for this class twice already (in different semesters). Fortunately they were not due to computer viruses but, rather they were due to glitches in software and hardware. I am very disappointed in the school system because Mr.Sasabe used school computers and still (with their so called sophisticated system) they still were vulnerable to viruses. Of course no one is perfect but, Mr.Sasabe is not the only person I know of that has had a problem with the U.H. school computers.
I have never personally encountered a computer virus. Since the purchase of my computer I have always had virus protection on my computer. Right now I have the online version of MacAfee installed and this program is great because on a daily basis (almost every single day) I get new updates to install on my computer to protect me against new viruses that have come up.
Interview with a victim of a computer virus:
I have found someone in my present class (that will go un-named), who encountered a virus on her computer. This classmate (at the time) did not have any virus protection on her computer. The virus that she encountered came through an e-mail under a friends name with an attachment. When she opened the attachment her computer crashed. She lost everything, including all the school work she had done. This incident happened about two years ago and I've heard of viruses that send themselves as attachments to peoples' address book before it crashes the computer.
She could have prevented this by having virus protection on her computer because any virus protection automatically checks attachments and downloads that we try and open from our e-mail.
After reading the article; I find it frustrating at
what these "hackers" were trying to accomplish. What I get from this
article is that the virus simply gives a tremendous amount of bogus messages to
servers so that they have a hard time serving their customers that have real
problems. I'm not sure what the "hacker" gets by causing trouble for
someone else? Maybe it's because I don't understand such juvenile
behavior. These people create these viruses in hopes of erasing data or
deleting files so that no one can get a hand on them. It seems that they enjoy
the power they have over users and use this power to inconvenience people and
their work.
Online Resources on Computer Viruses:
This next section of my report concerns me going to different websites and looking at the information that they have on computer viruses.
A) The first website that I recommend is at: http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/virus/. This website is awesome because it not only gives you websites that you can look at for specific virus information but, it also gives you a little background on what a virus is.
B) The next website that I recommend that you go to is: http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Collateral.asp?CID=33330&ID=. This website gives an in-depth article about what a virus is; why any virus is not good; how a virus is spread and the website explains the different kinds of viruses there are.
C) Another website that is helpful is at: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html. This is a part of the Symantec website. This website gives you a kind of encyclopedia on the different varieties of viruses. It lists them in alphabetical order and you can find a specific virus very easily. This site is great if you aren't sure whether you should download something from an e-mail. You could just look it up here and see if you should or not.
D) This website is at: http://open.jeffersonhospital.org/tju/dis/virus/. This website is also very helpful because it not only gives you important facts about viruses. It also gives links to other helpful websites (that include encyclopedias) and gives advice on what kind of programs would be useful with what kind of programs and computers.
We can trace the roots of computer viruses to a 1940's paper by John von Neuman. He wrote a paper titled "Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata." The paper discussed the possibility of self-replicating computer programs, which is pretty much what a virus is, but the term "virus" wasn't used to describe these self-replicating programs until 1983. In 1983 Frederick Cohen used Jon von Neuman's paper as his doctoral thesis after he and his thesis advisor, Len Alderman, noticed a similarity between the way self-replicating programs and biological viruses propagate. But it wasn't until 1986 that viruses started replicating from one computer to the next on a mass scale.
So far I've given you some websites that are helpful but, let me try and summarize this topic for you...Computer viruses are: a program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Computer viruses spread because they replicate themselves. Viruses destroy computers by using up all of the memory on your computer. It is good to distinguish a virus from a worm. A worm is a different kind of virus that can destroy your computer but, it cannot attach itself to other programs.
There are many varieties of viruses. There are boot viruses, worm viruses, file viruses, macro viruses, script viruses and companion viruses (to find out what each does visit this link. http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Collateral.asp?CID=33330&ID=
Some Famous viruses
There are many kinds of famous kinds of computers viruses. Just to name a few there are: Melissa, "The Love you, Love bug", The Brain virus, The internet worm and The Michelangelo Fiasco. To learn more about these specific viruses go to: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3331295,00.html.
Melissa is a word Macro virus. When this word document is opened via email, Melissa sends itself to the first fifty people on your address book. This virus was sent to at least 100,000 people in its' first weekend of activation.
The Brain Virus was created by two software vendors that wanted to see the extent of piracy in Pakistan. The brain virus was the first virus to replicate from PC to PC. The brain was designed to stealthily put their contact information on peoples' infected computers. This virus spread world wide.
The next virus is called "The Love you, Love Bug". This virus was the most costly out of all of the past viruses. It spread faster then Melissa because it sent itself out to everyone on the victim's contact list. This virus not only spread itself fast, but also destroyed the person's media files on their hard drive.
The Michelangelo Fiasco was a mixture of media mayhem and coincidence. There was a virus on some computers that were sold. The media mixed up the report and said that everyone's hard drive would be erased on March fifth. As you probably guessed because of all the mayhem. People started to buy up anti-virus software. It turned out that the virus destroyed 10,ooo computer hard drives (much less then reported).
The last virus is called "The internet Worm". The creator of the internet worm created the virus to simply spread from computer to computer without doing any damage. Unfortunately the code was flawed and it rendered the person's system useless. It spread so fast and it was so disastrous that when the creator tried to send out information on how to remove the virus people could not receive it. This is a very unfortunate act on the creator's behave. I hope that people don't follow in this person's footsteps.
All of the viruses I have just talked about are labeled as the top five most famous viruses. You can go to http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3331295,00.html to check all of the information for yourself and to learn more about these viruses.
Virus Myths
There is a lot of hysteria concerning computer viruses and this has caused much confusion that has led to virus myths. Virus myths are just like urban legends in the sense that you've heard it so much you automatically think it's real. Some virus myths are: 1) If you're on the internet anyone can download a virus to your computer...this is false. The only way you can get a virus is if you open it and execute it on to your computer. Another myth about computer viruses is that if you have an anti-virus protection program on your computer; your automatically safe...that is very wrong. We should all get to know our anti-virus software and learn how it works and what it specifically protects you against. There is no anti-virus software that protects you 100%.
There are many ways to know if something is a hoax or not. The best way is to educate yourself on how to spot these hoaxes. I recommend the Vmyths website. The address is: http://www.vmyths.com/. This site is updated daily and you can read more information about anything on computer viruses there.
The significance to computer
viruses is that they can be very serious. These computer viruses are
continuously
spreading and if they are not stopped these viruses can be life-threatening.
Like biological viruses, computer viruses infect the system in the same way
biological viruses infect the immune system. For example, one the AIDS virus
enters the immune system, the virus weakens the entire body. There are medical
resources that can help prolong the immune system from "shutting down", but in a
matter of time, the system will be vulnerable to any bacteria that enters the
body.
I think that everything evolves, so in comment to computer viruses evolving, I
believe we will see new types of computer viruses that will continue to "infect"
the computer systems. I believe that they will be harder to detect, but it will
challenge the minds to really look closely at what needs to be dealt with.
According to the breaking news about illegal agents software that seek out and
attack hidden viruses, I believe that they already exist. The computer was
created by programmers, therefore there are ways of treating these viruses. I
feel that is another money making advertisement.