The closest that I came to Mr. Sasabe's encounter is during a blackout which completely "wiped" out a five to six page report without having to save the last three pages.  I don't believe that you can be virus "free" if you only use one computer.  According to Mr. Sasabe, he used a computer at a computer lab on campus and there is a greater chance of coming into contact with a virus.  Since there are multiple users throughout the day that uses this particular computer, there is a chance that a virus was infected by another person's disk.  I'm pretty lucky so far because I have not encountered a computer virus on my laptop, but I know of friends who've encountered virus many times.  One friend, who just bought her computer contacted a virus after going on the Internet.  She didn't know what happened to some of her programs until a computer consultant explained that she had a virus.
     I am quite worried about computer viruses because it is very common today.  It is a very serious issue that can be damaging in the near future.  I feel that after spent thousands of dollars on an important investment is not enough because there are anti-virus programs that need to be installed.  Right now, I have no computer virus scanner on my computer, but my roommate has one and I use her computer when I go on-line.
 

My interpretation of the news item in Edupage Online is a way to inform people to beware of what can happen while using a computer.  People who create these viruses may or may not intentionally harm computer system or networks, but those who do are using it to their advantage.  These people create these viruses in hopes of erasing data or deleting files so 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.
 

1. Ciac.llnl.gov/ciac
2. www.mcafee.com/support/techdocs/vinfo/default.asp
3. IBM's virus warning site
4. Computer Virus Myths
5. Symantec's Anti-Virus Research Centre
6. www2.offutt.af.mil/wipo/virushoax.html
7. csrc.ncsl.hist.gov/virus/

What are computer viruses?

In my own words, computer viruses are programs that infects computer systems or networks either by erasing data or deleting files.  It is like a foreign language that breaks the code and generally "messing" up the computer system.  According to the book "Exploring the Internet" by Marx and Graur, their definition of a virus is "a type of malicious software that can destroy the computer's hard drive, file, and programs in memory and replicates itself to other disks."

What is their purpose?

The main purpose of computer viruses is to destroy a computer's hard drive, files, and programs.  It is an infection that needs to be fought before it can spread into something more devastating.

Who creates them?  Why?

Anyone can create computer viruses.  It is usually a programmer who knows exactly what it wants the virus to be targeted at.  Sometimes even manufacturers of softwares or programs create them not knowing the consequences.

I believe that the reason for creating computer viruses is to destroy files, corrupt important data, protecting certain files, and to annoy or delay users from using their computers.  I also believe that is another way of making money.  Without viruses, companies wouldn't make money off of anti-virus programs.

How do they work?  How do they spread?

Computer viruses work by creator programming a "glich" in their programs.  For example, when a disk is loaded into the system, the program is programmed to decode messages therefore "infects" the entire system.  This is how they are spread.  They spread to the use of illegal software, they write-protection of master disks of any programs, the Internet, and the useage of infected disk inserted into the computer system.

What types are there?

The two most common types of viruses are WORM and TROJAN HORSE.  WORMS is self-designed to corrupt data on a computer's hard drive and it replicates itself.  They do not need to attach themselves to a host program.  They are two types of WORMS:  host computer and network.  The host worm is contained in the computer they run on and use network connections only to copy themselves to other computers.  Network worms consist of segments, each running off different machines and using the network for several communication purpose.  TROJAN HORSE is like a time bomb because it exists inside another program and causes its intended damage when a valid application is executed.  It is a non-replication program.
 

There have been numerous types of viruses that are commonly known, but I'll be focusing on three of them in detail.  The three viruses are known as the "Lehigh" virus, the "Jerusalem" virus, and the "Brain" virus.

The Lehigh Virus

     The Lehigh virus was founded in 1987 at Lehigh University when a messages was sent by one "LUKEN."  This virus "myteriously" made files disappear and it infected COMMAND.COM.  By residing in memory, any access made to another disk would also be infected.  It also was unable to  trap "WRITE-PROTECT ERROR," therefore allowing any unwanted files to enter into the disk.  One good thing about this virus was that it didn't spread off campus, but there is a slight chance of it being "released" into the system.

The Jerusalem Virus

     The earliest reporting of this virus was in 1988 that is a file, or program, infecting viri, that adds themselves to both COM & EXE files.  When an infected file is executed, the virus "goes resident" in memory.  It also carries a "date" logic bomb payload.  This bomb could be a message that deletes programs.  It is said to have spread far due to the number of bugs it contains.  It will "reinfect" the EXE files again and again.  Therefore, it will increase in size.

The Brain Virus

    The Brain virus is the earliest know MS-DOS virus.  When "brain" infects a disk, the "original" is relatively harmless.  That means that it does not infect hard disks, or disks with format other than 360k.
     The brain virus was designed by two brothers in Pakistan and was sold to Americans in punishment for their use of pirated software.  It was also seen as a form of advertisment for the Brain Computer Services.  The brain virus is an example of "steath" technology.  It has a booth sector infector which occupies unused space on a diskette and making them "bad" so they will not be used and overwritten.
 

     A virus myth is a traditional or fictional story that is used to explain some kind of phenomenon.  For example, this phenomenon would be reason in which computer systems crashes.  Here are some example of virus myths in which I found astonishing.

MYTH:  "some viruses can hide from all anti-virus software, making them truly undetectable."
This myth continues to linger leaving computer users frightened and feel they have no hope to fix the situation.  The reality is the "most viruses employ a character based "signature" which identifies it both to the virus and anti-virus software

MYTH :  "Virus infect up to 25% of all IBM PC's every month."
This is outrageous because if 25% suffered then in four months 100% would suffer as well.  By the end of the year, three times year.

Why people propagate them?

    Sometimes people may not intentionally propagate computer viruses, and then there is those people who get a "kick" out of it.  For example, I remember a classmate once told me that he created a virus just because he was bored.  Other people propagate computer viruses because they don't want data to get into someone's hand or they just want to erase data, or they want to play a prank on someone else, or they use it as a punishment towards another.  Whatever the reason they create viruses, I feel that these people want to let others know that although the computer is powerful, it is still in control by people.
 

MAJOR SCARE:

I remember my friend telling my once about her major scare experience.  She had just purchased a new computer and like many people, purchasing a computer is expensive.  Well, she need microsoft word so her friend installed her program into her computer.  At first, everything seemed to be working well, until she pressed she uploaded one of her saved files on her disk.  All of her words we scrambled up and her page was frozen.  She tried re-booting her computer up again and this time, nothing seemed to work.  In fact, she couldn't even shut down her computer properly, go she called up a computer technician to fix it.  It took a while for the technician to see what was wrong and found that it was a virus affecting her computer.  It took a long time to fix the problem and at one point the technican had lost faith in the computer.  When he found the problem, the technican was able to re-install her programs.  My friend was really lucky that the technican was able to find the virus and actually fix her computer.