Love Letter from Hell

People who write, develop and/or launch viruses are bad people. Very bad people. Very, very bad people. I think a song from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut best describes what these people are (Hint: it involves an unnatural relationship with the brother of one of their parents).

As you can probably guess, I downloaded my first computer virus today - the "love letter" worm that is sweeping the nation. Amazingly, in the years I've had a computer it is the first one that has been able to get in and royally screw my system. Of course it is a brand new one that my Norton Antivirus™ 2000 didn't catch. Even going to the Norton site for an upgrade doesn't get me anywhere because, according to the site, I have the latest files downloaded already.

Yeah, the latest anti-virus files AND a computer virus!

I am especially irked because it is my own damn fault I got the stupid thing. I know so much better than to open attachments sent to me with vaguely worded "This is for you from me" messages. That is a classic virus wording, to sound slightly personal with no personal details. It even crossed my mind (for a milisecond) to write back to the sender to ask her about the attachment because I've paid attention to the virus scares in the past. But, I didn't do it.

You'd think a person could learn from other people's mistakes. Apparently not.

Shortly after attempting to open the attachment, things started to go wacky with my system and the realization dawned on me of what probably happened. I opened my other email server to a message warning about the legitimate virus problem (for a change) and saying not to open the "love letter" attachment.

If only I'd decided that I wanted to read my @home mail before my @chickmail mail…

I called Theovis' office (one of his co-workers sent me the message) to ask if they were having trouble with the virus. He said yes. Apparently offices everywhere are suffering. "It's in our system, too." "You didn't open it, did you?" "Um, yeah, I did."

He was so nice and understanding about it, which almost makes it worse. If he'd yelled or something, it might have been easier than "You should never open unsolicited attachments", because, damnit, I know, and I did anyway.

CRAP!!!!

So, for about 6 hours I've been trying to download some anti-virus software that will apparently fight this virus. Of course, everyone else in the universe with a computer is trying the same thing, so I have had zero luck with the download.

One lucky thing is that I've been using crappy ol' Netscape Messenger™ as my email thingy, so the virus didn't get passed along to everyone in my address book - apparently it is only targeting Microsoft Outlook for that. I think all I've been left with is a bunch of infected files and a corrupted registry, and any password I've saved on Internet Explorer sent to some schmo. I guess, in the grande scheme of computer viruses it isn't that bad, since I don't have anything worth breaking in to and I have my favorite MP3s saved on a CD.

I just wish those virus makers with the unhealthy love for their uncles could use their skills for good instead of evil. They could use their brains to wreak havoc by making patches that make Windows et al work glitch-free. Wouldn't that be the ultimate revenge? If they made it so we could work a full day without a crash, we would start demanding that the big manufacturers who have gotten away with selling us crap software until now because we haven't known anything else, provide us with a quality product.

That would have Microsoft quaking in their boots a lot more than yet another virus. The public is so used to our systems breaking down, that really, it isn't that different when they do it because of a virus. There is the initial inconvenience and panic but we will forget after a little while.

That is until that "cute little bunny" virus comes along…

I finally downloaded the anti-virus software which detected the virus in my system - well, duh. Unfortunately, it couldn't do anything about it, and I was forced to delete everything by hand anyway, which is what I'd started out doing in the morning. I could have saved myself a day full of anguish if I'd just gone delete happy in the first place. Sigh.