I love you, I love you not

Forget blowing up buildings or unleashing incurable super-diseases into our water supply. The terrorist of the future will be much better served by simply bringing down the Internet. Although this won't directly kill anyone or create scenes of destruction for the evening news, the loss of e-mail, stock quotes and hardcore pornography could paralyze America.

And while normal terrorism generally affects only a few people, or at most an embassy full of people, the electronic kind reaches nearly everyone. Even an easy-to-avoid virus, like last week's "I Love You," can throw the world into panic, though all you really had to do to escape it was erase the infected e-mails.

Breaking the Internet also seems considerably easier and less messy than hijacking a plane or any of the other traditional options. In addition, while regular terrorists risk grisly deaths from guns, bombs or fire, computer programmers rarely get shot at - they might battle obesity or acne, but that's not quite the stuff of martyrdom.

Caused - at least according to current police reports - by a few 20-somethings working from a barely habitable tenement in the Philippines, "I Love You" was designed to destroy computer graphics files. That isn't like taking over the air traffic control system or changing everyone's ATM password. Still, it's a pretty major piece of badness from people living in a country where the average person makes less than an American homeless man.

Not generally considered a world power, the Philippines lacks the indoor plumbing, plentiful electricity and adequate food supply normally associated with countries capable of bringing the U.S. to its knees. If its residents can do this, you have to imagine that pretty much any 15-year-old with access to a Vic 20 could accomplish the same thing.

Causing worldwide computer crashes used to be strictly the domain of super-villains, mad scientists and other folks who live in secret lairs. These baddies wore flashy outfits, had catchy names and generally concocted technology-based schemes that involved either drastically changing the weather or stealing huge sums of money.

Unfortunately, today's techno-villain lacks these defined goals and has none of the flair for the dramatic we've come to expect from people seeking to cause global chaos. The bad guy behind the next computer virus is a lot more likely to be a 14-year-old nerd with pimples than a six-foot mega-genius with a giant brain.

Luckily, that lack of evil vision gives us viruses that destroy graphics files rather than ones that turn humans into statues, or the type that make us all worship Pat Boone. With teenage pranksters committing the crimes instead of mad scientists, I'm much more worried about technology problems that make my screen saver display a bad word than the kind that cause satellites to fall from the sky.

Despite all the hype, the actual damage caused by viruses like "I Love You" remains minimal. This type of crime might garner a lot of press, and it certainly causes huge headaches, but no one has ever died from lack of e-mail. Even if you can't order a new sweater from Gap.com or get a deal on a plane ticket at Priceline, it hardly compares to the inconvenience caused by being held hostage or having someone leave a bomb in your office building.

Last Updated: 06/01/00
WebMistress: Cathie Walker
Author, Author!: Daniel Kline
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