20 August 2003
"HEY LOOK, SOMEONE SENT ME A COOL SCREENSAVER! I'D
BETTER OPEN IT!
or
"WHY CAN'T YOU FUCKS STOP SPREADING VIRUSES?"
The human race doesn't deserve to survive. We should have pushed the button years ago and wiped out all traces of Homo sapien existence in a big uranium-filled bang. We are simply too fucking stupid to continue to waste the precious oxygen, water, and other natural resources that much more intelligent creatures like sponges, cockroaches, and paramecium need to survive.
Forget all the trouble in the world, the Iraqs, the bin Ladens, the North Koreans, the reality TV shows. We have a new computer virus. Yes, it's been running rampant for two or three days now, slowing the World Wide Waste down to a mere trickle. It makes the Van Wyck Expressway at rush hour look like the fucking Autobahn. I have two groups of people to call fuckheads. Let's take them in order.
Surprisingly, neither one is the asshole, or group thereof, who created and sent it out to spread like wildfire. God created AIDS, and no one yells at him for it, so why should we yell at mere mortals?
No, group one is the idiot sitting at his computer who (a) gets an e-mail from someone he doesn't know (b) titled something like "Re: Your Application" or "Re: That Movie"and (c) has an attachment.
First off, let's forget the fact that you are deserving of a shovel upside the head if you don't own anti-virus software. Why don't you just go stick your dick into a leper wearing a T-shirt that says, "Come and get you AIDS right here"? Are you THAT fucking stupid? I could understand not having it in 1989, MAYBE, but these days? That's up there with believing the Earth is flat and Michael Jackson is straight. But I digress. To get an e-mail from FastCars@ferrari.com titled "Re: That Movie," you would first have had to send an e-mail to FastCars@ferrari.com titled "That Movie." See, you of no intelligence, the "Re:" means they are replying. Now, if you didn't send an e-mail to FastCars@ferrari.com titled "That Movie," or even "Your information" or "Thank you!", then why would you open an e-mail from them titled "Re: That Movie" or "Re: Your information" or "Re: Thank you!"? I mean, why the fuck would Ferrari mail a dipshit like you ANYTHING?
Now, let's assume that you've opened the e-mail, and there's the attachment titled "attachment.pif" or whatever, and you don't have it set where your anti-virus software automatically deletes anything it detects. Or, your definitions haven't been updated because you're too busy scouring the dark corners of the internet for that Tara Reid nude scene and you forgot to set your AV software to automatically check for updates. Here's an idea - DON'T FUCKING OPEN IT! First of all, if you don't know the merest basics of filename extensions, you shouldn't be allowed to own a computer. Files that end in .pif or .scr are almost ALWAYS viruses. OK, now you know. So, from now on, when doug_nichols@noaa.gov sends you an e-mail titled "Re: Your information" with a .pif or .scr attachment and the text of the e-mail is "Please see attached file for information" and you have no idea who Doug Nichols is or why he's apparently replying to an e-mail that you never sent in the first place, you are going to:
(a) delete it
(b) open it, save the attachment and open the attachment like the fucking moron you are?
Hint: the answer is not (b).
OK, enough of the assault on you, the stupid end-user who spread the virus, even though you deserve to be tied to a chair and forced to watch Yentl with the DVD player on auto-repeat until your eyeballs melt into your skull because it's your fault the virus spread because it can't spread unless you open the file. Let's leave you alone, you probably feel stupid enough and I hope your hard drive ground itself into a coaster. Let's beat up on Microsoft. Humankind has conquered the sea and the air, we've sent probes into the depths of space, we've mapped the human genome, and for some reason, the cunts in Redmond, WA after 20 years at this shit still can't find all the holes in their own software. As much as the United States and to a lesser extent the entire planet is basically dependent on Microsoft because they're in essence a monopoly but we'll leave that alone because again I digress and I fucking hate them each and every one of them andihopebillgatesgetsafuckinganeurysmanddies...
*deep breath* OK, I'm better now... 1... 2... 3... OK, where was I? Oh yeah. Since Microsoft software just about controls everything simply because no other company can compete, and it's their lack of quality control or testing that leads to problems like this, shouldn't they be held responsible for their incompetence? If General Motors built a car that, once a week, drove straight into a wall when people tried to start it, GM would be hit with government fines, class-action lawsuits, etc. etc. How much did Audi have to pay simply because some stupid fucking people hit the wrong pedal back in the '80s? Let's look at the basics: Microsoft has a major market share of all computer application software, basically by bullying other companies into either selling their competing ideas to them or into using their software, that is when they're not blatantly ripping off other innovations and calling them their own. The world has become, to a great and some may say alarming degree, dependent on computers and the internet. Failure of computer systems can cost companies millions of dollars, or even put them out of business. It can affect everything from national defense to your bank account. Therefore, shouldn't Microsoft be held liable for these attacks? I mean, if an Amtrak train blew up or derailed every week, people would be calling for heads to roll down the tracks. If planes just kept dropping out of the sky, there would be investigations of Boeing or Airbus or McDonnell Douglas and executives would be scrambling to save their skinny little necks. So why is Bill Gates and the gang of geeks in Redmond exempt? Why is there no formal investigation into computer security? No oversight committee, no task force making sure this shit is stopped before it spreads? It was thirty-eight years since the last regional power blackout and there have been cries for and talk of restructuring the U.S. power grid to keep another blackout like last week's from ever happening again. There have been two worldwide destructive virus attacks within a WEEK, and no one's said boo. We all blame the people that wrote the virus, and granted, they should be found and strung up by their unused nutsacks, but why do the viruses work? Because Microsoft has its head so far up its collective ass it's pooping out its own mouth. Not one of our Washington pundits has called for an investigation into Microsoft programming, not one task force has been put together to tighten up computer security, nothing. The internet is one big huge security hole. Granted, we have the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which means no one is exactly sure what they do, where they do it, or whether they do anything at all. My guess is, if it's anything like everything else the government does, it's the equivalent of a woman using a diaphragm made out of onionskin. And when you click on the following link at www.fedcirc.gov:
Notice: Variants of MS-RPC DCOM Worm re-infecting machines and causing excessive ICMP traffic on networks
which send you to this link:
http://www.fedcirc.gov/incidentPrevention/infoNotices/infoNotice20030801.html
You get a 404 page, because they're so good at computer incident responses that they either (a) can't make a hyperlink that works, or (b) forgot to write the article. Yeah, can't wait to file my taxes, thanks for the good value.
So, what have we learned from all this? In a nutshell, what was all that babbling I did above, that probably didn't make sense because I didn't proofread it and don't plan on it either, say?
(1) Don't open e-mails with attachments from people you don't know, you've only been told this for the last fifteen years;
(2) Microsoft programmers suck;
(3) We should sue the fuckers.
OK, show's over, everyone go back home, nothing to see here, ya lookie-loos.
