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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
What with all of the Trojan horses, viruses, worms and other evil bits of programming whizzing about the Internet, seeking whom they may confound, I have come across the term "malware" as a collective noun to describe them all. The interesting thing about this noun is that it is defined by the (evil) intent of the maker. Is this word in sufficiently wide use to have earned a place in the lexicon or is it suspect, growing out of computerdom, of being a passing buzz word which will ebb into obscurity?
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Sounds like a useful enough word to catch on. (and all the useless stuff kids talk usinto buying at the checkout stands would be mallware  )
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Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Since my online time is divided bwtween word-related sites and computer-security related sites, I use malware almost every day. It gets rather tedious having to specfify trojans, worms, viruses, spyware, ec., and malware is a very useful catch-all. I can't speak for its life prospects, but the phenomena it describes aren't going away, that's for sure.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I like the word. a good coinage. glad I have a mac. not that there aren't bad progs, etc., for macs, just not nearly as many. not trying to start anything. truly.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
I confess that in a dark rarely-acknowledged corner of my mind, I think up appropriate tortures to which the people who write and propagate such malware ought be subjected. Dante has nothing on me! Of particular inspiration is this text from the Mikado:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time--
To let the punishment fit the crime--
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!
In keeping with this theme, it occurs to me that their telephones ought be so wired as to disconnect without notice several times during every conversation, their televisions to flip to another channel in the middle of the movie and refuse to flip back, their showers to switch from hot to cold and back again without pattern nor warning, their cars to wander off in the night so as to be lost by morning, their salt to turn sweet and their sugar to turn salty and all their chocolate to have laxative effect. And that's just for first offenders.
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Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
In keeping with this theme, it occurs to me that their telephones ought be so wired as to disconnect without notice several times during every conversation, their televisions to flip to another channel in the middle of the movie and refuse to flip back, their showers to switch from hot to cold and back again without pattern nor warning, their cars to wander off in the night so as to be lost by morning, their salt to turn sweet and their sugar to turn salty and all their chocolate to have laxative effect. And that's just for first offenders.Great ideas, all of them. Let's hope they all appear before your bench.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
All writers of computer malware
Who infect our systems with worms,
Shall write infinite programmes
On ’puters with no RAMS
For fictional software firms.
For the nerd, freak or anorak, driving us crazy,
Our punishment is quite noble:
With a screen that’s blue,
And a keyboard askew,
To write hacking progammes in COBOL
My object all sublime etc etc ...
(apologies to W.S.Gilbert)
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
For second offenders: may their shampoo be laced with itching powder; their beds levitate at dawn, to the heighth of a tall man; may they be infested with the worst sort of earworm (dah da DAH dah daaaaaah da dah...).
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
The Blaster virus has played havoc with many of the computers where I work. Since the antivirus software didn't know about it, it hit a lot of us. My lappie got snaffled, but neither of my desktop machines got hit. I ran the patch program on everything as soon as it became available, but for some reason it didn't always "take" on laptops. I ran it a second time and it fixed the problem.
There is no hell too hot or too deep for virus creators.
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