Here's Why I Love My Mac.

Edition #105 — April 21, 2008

This morning I received a tragically misspelled and ill written email. The subject header declared: Special issue of news from Reuters! Urgent Apocalyptic News Usama Ben Laden! and instructed me to click on a link in order to watch a video about "Usamy Ben Ladena" in what was supposedly a CNN story of an emergency of "Apocalyptic" proportions.

I copied the link and pasted it into my browser. Looking at the url I first removed the tracking system information at the beginning. This is the extra code before the actual website link that advertisers and scumbags use to track how many people or even who visits their website. I then proceeded to the website. The minute I entered my browser downloaded a file named "videousa.exe"

Luckily I'm On A Mac

No CNN videos are 76k in size. That was the size of the file that my browser had downloaded. My suspicion is that it was a virus that would immediately enter my computer the minute I clicked on the link. That is, if I were visiting the site on a PC. That's because .exe files are only relevant to the PC Windows operating system.

Thankfully my Mac saved the day (again!) and that .exe file did absolutely nothing but sit there looking suspicious. Almost immediately I thought of all those who DID click on that link and were using a PC instead. Is someone now looking at their address book? Or did they delete it?

There are so many scenarios I can imagine in which such an uninvited guest could wreak havoc. How about if someone is planning to vote in an election via their computer, or is sending out invitations to a party? It is very likely that they may now be unintentionally broadcasting some twisted person's ill will toward humankind within a little application sitting inside their computer.

This sucks. This totally sucks. And it has been happening for as long as there have been computers in the hands of the public. But most of all on PC computers. I don't know for sure that it was something malicious. But one thing is for certain: whoever sent us this email didn't want his visitors to have a choice, otherwise there would have been links or a welcome page. But all that greets us is that little 76k file known as "videousa.exe"

I count my blessings as a Mac user. I once had a virus from a free application I downloaded. That was about 9 years ago. I saw it and my software killed that virus in about 2 seconds, system wide. And that was the first and last time I have ever had even a slight hint of malicious intend on the Apple or Mac side of things.

The Dark Side?

I don't know if it's the kind of people who gravitate toward Macs that makes them less likely to be angry at the world - or too busy enjoying their contribution to society to feel a need to lash out at it. But what is it about PCs that attracts those dark forces? Why would somebody, a complete stranger who doesn't know you, want to ruin your life by corrupting or compromising your computer system?

What's in it for them to know that you are suffering? Maybe some people deserve to have their computers corrupted - like spammers. But what about the good people who need these machines to work in peak form each day to ensure that they can pay for their housing, their food, their medicine, or their child's braces. Healthy people don't think in such a sick way. This is the equivalent of someone with firearms entering a school.

My own opinion of people who create destructive viruses is that they are computer nerds who, like Al Quaida suicide bombers, feel beaten down and left out by society, but whose voices are too small to be heard. So they reach for the kind of notoriety that always makes the front page news: destruction, and suffering on a massive scale.

Today, I somehow suspect that it will be PC users worldwide. I hope it's not you.

Good Luck.




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