Tips on Technology By: Bill Michling

Welcome back, last week we talked about digital cameras and why you should be ready to switch from film type cameras.

This week We are going to touch upon the “ILOVEYOU” virus, as well as viri in general.

Remember, this article and all past articles are available online at: (http://www.mespn.com/techarticles ) as well as the online version of the Saipan Tribune, which you can access by clicking the banner on this page.

** I am Glad I use a Mac!

The threat of the new “ILOVEYOU” virus epidemic was very real! It brought down computer networks around the world. A Washington Post report says that “80 percent of the computers in Sweden, 70 percent of the computers in Germany and a third of the machines in England” were among those affected!

Can you imagine 80 percent! That means only 20 percent were still functioning. Those are bad odds, no mater how you look at it.

The stories about the new e-mail virus are everywhere. On TV here in the mainland I heard that local government email servers were shut down for days, so a major cleanup could be undertaken to get rid of the virus on their Windows PCs. Even the House of Representatives in Washington!!

It is interesting to note that Macintosh users were NOT affected and continued to hum along. We use the Mac for servers to provide high and ultra high resolution pictures to over 3000 media points. We also use the Mac for our email server. Can you imagine if our media customers could not get their pictures when needed? As well as
the email continuing to flow because our email servers run 24/7 on Macintoshes?

Lets admit it, if we were using Windows machines we would be in “deep kimchee”, “in hot water”, “up the creek without a paddle”, just pick your favorite phrase…..

** What was it anyway?

There were a lot of offices that are using the Mac and they continued to have 100% functionality…..

On the other hand many other offices, businesses, and individuals that were using Windows PCs had a major head ache these last few days. Not to mention the possible loss of information not only on their hard drive, but the private information that was not so private.

What I find interesting is this “ILOVEYOU” virus was nothing more than a script! A script is a line by line description telling the computer what to do. Like a program but pretty much in plain English. How do we know, we printed out the source code, using our Mac of course! Because of the opening in MS email clients and Windows
operating systems, this script was able to wreak havoc on thousands, maybe 10s of thousands, heck I even heard it was millions of systems!

So what does this mean? It means that almost anyone with a little computer knowledge could write their own script, creating more havoc. What if thousands of people decided to write there own variants of the script!! Talk about major, major problems……..

** What is the some of media saying?

The Washington Post story, for example, admits this fact, but way, way down in the body of the story, “It will not affect computers running variants of the Unix operating system or Apple’s Macintosh computers…” Friday’s edition of The New York Times didn’t even mention Macs at all in its full length front page article on the
“ILOVEYOU” virus!

** Why it did not affect the Mac

The Mac were not affected because they do not support the Microsoft
operating system or the Visual Basic code which the virus script was made with. This lack of support for Microsoft is a real blessing….

Of course a Mac user could forward the virus on to a Windows user. Even though the Mac would not be affected the Windows user could have major problems.

** Mac users don’t get too confident

Now that the Mac operating system is experiencing a resurgence, someone may decide to make some kind of virus for the Mac. For now at least, the Mac users are fairly unscathed, lets help keep it that way by having the latest virus software, and updates. Also it is a very good idea to do regular backups.

I also recommend your most important data be put on a CD or DVD ram, as these media types have a shelf life of about 100 years or more. You will be very happy you did, when the time comes.

So remember, the best way to protect your self from this type of computer invasion is PREVENTION!

See you here and on the web next week.

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Bill Michling is a computer professional and welcomes any comments or questions you may have. Just send email to: bill@mespn.com or michling@usa.net.

You may also go to Marianas Electronics and ask help from the friendly staff there, or call them at: 234-5424, Just ask for Annie, Jun or Joseph.

For world access this Wednesday column is also on the Saipan Tribune website at: (http://www.saipantribune.com) or at the mespn.com site at: (http://mespn.com/techArticles/ ), now connected to the Internet via broadband T1+………..