Beware This Computer Virus

Last week, I noticed about 20 e-mails returned to me from the "system administrator” saying that my sent e-mails didn’t reach their intended recipients. I saw that the e-mails I supposedly sent were past columns I’ve written for NewsMax.com that went back as far as six months ago. As I watched in horror, I started getting these bounced back e-mails at the rate of about two to three a minute. Clearly, somebody was up to computer mischief.

As my worried radio show engineer and computer expert came running into my office to investigate, he asked me if I had tried to open any files attached to e-mails lately. As a matter of fact, I told him, I received an e-mail that very morning from an old friend of mine from San Diego. It had a rather odd message: "Hi, how are you? I send you this file in order to receive your advice.” I figured my friend needed my help, so I double-clicked on the file. Big mistake. I had activated the so-called "sircam worm.”

Now if you haven’t read about it yet, get what this worm/virus does: when you double-click on the file, you activate a program that attaches itself to your personal files in the "my documents” location. Subsequently, your files start getting sent out randomly to various e-mail addresses all over the country. If and when THOSE people open your e-mail and attached file, their computer becomes infected and does the very same thing.

In our offices and studios, we had three separate computers infected with the sircam worm. It took a computer expert about eight hours to fix the problem, so at his rate of approximately $50 an hour, this prank cost us about $400. Not to mention the embarrassment of knowing that I probably infected hundreds of computers of listeners to my radio show or readers of my NewsMax.com column. You see, the files in my computer’s filing cabinet were all past NewsMax columns. So that’s what this worm/virus sent out all over the country.

Had I kept personal and confidential information in "my documents,” those would have been sent out, too. That, of course, is the whole point behind the creation of this computer worm: to embarrass, harass and annoy thousands of people all over the world who did nothing more than open up an e-mail file from a friend.

I continue to be worried about the Internet. Pedophiles cruise chatrooms looking for children, kids can log onto all kinds of porn and violence, and people can invade our lives in the most amazing of ways. Think about it: the sircam worm is the equivalent of someone taking the keys to your home or office, breaking open your filing cabinet, stealing your files and sending them to people all over America. If that happened, no one would dispute it as a crime. But the sircam worm is just viewed as an annoying virus by the computer-loving geeks who think that anything goes in the world of the "information superhighway.”

Someday, we’re going to wake up and realize that computers are turning into dangerous weapons. Sure, it’s the idiot hackers and troublemakers who initiate the problem, but let’s see how easily they can infect your personal property without a computer. Let’s see how easily kids could find out how to build bombs or be exposed to bestiality without a computer. Let’s see how many pedophiles can prey on children without a computer.

There are days when I really believe the world would be a better place without putting computers in the hands of a bunch of kooks and screwballs who have nothing better to do with their time than figure out ways to harass or hurt people.

In the meantime, please be warned: If you get this kind of e-mail from me or anyone else, delete it immediately. Don’t forget to also delete it from your recycle bin. The old advice was to never open an attached file in an e-mail from a stranger. Now, it’s pretty obvious that we shouldn’t open e-mail files from anyone, even our friends. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.

And despite the fact that I didn’t do anything intentionally to send this virus to anyone, if you got it from me, I’m really, really sorry.