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How many different viruses live in your computer as you read this? What are they doing with or to your system? Are you the only one using your e-mail outbox?

All these are questions I had to answer in the past year. At one point, my office computer was so tied down by a "robot" virus that it was hardly usable at all. When the technician got finished with it, he found more than a thousand other malevolent pieces of computer "art" that hackers had apparently contributed.

To say that I was put out is an understatement of historic proportions. I didn't want these bothersome, anonymous people sent to jail. I had more creative ways for them to pay for their making my life difficult. Imagine a computer programmer/hacker without access to any programmable electronic devices for the remainder of their life. Envision this same (usually) young person being taken to task for the costs incurred in cleaning up (usually again) his messes. These are punishments I believe would be effective. But what are the realities?

FREE AND OPEN INTERNET
The Internet is not a perfect tool; things sometimes go badly wrong. I should point out that it is the USERS of the tool, not the tool itself, which make the mistakes, commit the crimes, and screw up lives (sometimes unwittingly). For that reason, just as with crimes and errors involving cars, skydiving, guns, and a host of other tools and sports, it is the people who intend harm who must be tracked and taken out of circulation.

The antivirus industry must update its consumer files daily in order to attempt to keep up with the intentionally hazardous output of hackers, crackers, and probably a thousand other unfriendly and antisocial types of criminals. That industry's output must be purchased by people like you and me at an annual cost in the billions of dollars. Is there no way to stem the tide, so that the full promise of the Internet's communications potential may someday be realized?

Microsoft Corporation has in recent years put some of its considerable resources to work tracking damaging attacks conducted via the Internet. The U.S. government funds an FBI effort to do the same thing, with prosecution and homeland security issues in mind. But if we catch them, short of cutting off their arms at the shoulder, how do we ensure the safety of the millions of active nodes which comprise the Net? We don't!

LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE
Regardless of the efforts we field to combat crime, whether IRL ("in real life")

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