by Thomas Caldwell

A virus in the eyes of the law?

Not too long ago, I received a rather disturbing and almost frantic e-mail message from someone working at a company I regularly communicate with. It seems he had picked up the latest *.ZIP virus from a message sent by one of his co-workers. About one hundred people and myself were on his cc. list, just in case we had also received a contaminated message.

I had had better mornings. However, my system was secure and, being a Linux box, damage from Microsoft-specific viruses is not something I spend a lot of time worrying about. And such warnings from friends and associates are, sadly, becoming a common sight in just about everybody's inbox. What I found surprising was the reply sent back to everyone. It turns out Patient Zero had made a "fake" virus consisting of a ZIP file that contained harmless text: "Gotcha," or something similar. He didn't call it a joke; he called it a "test" to see if the people in the recipient's department were on their toes.

I'm not going to pass judgment on the wisdom of such a test, yet the episode did arouse my interest. So I began to dig for information on the legal ramifications of sending a fake virus to someone on the Internet.

My research led me to a person employed by the US Government who is somewhat of an authority on these things. I was told that creating a virus is not really a crime in and of itself, but spreading it is. If anyone knowingly passes something -- anything -- on to someone by e-mail, floppy, or other means, and it causes any disruption to a company, institution, or individual that results in damage to property, monetary loss, or any other unpleasantness, you could end up spending some time in the pokey. Real virus or no. No joke folks! If the system administrators have to shut down a company's servers and suspend operations because of a virus scare, losing money in the process, nobody is going to care if it was real or imaginary. All that ever matters is what the crime scene looks like when the smoke clears. The details of "how" are not as important.

Most people shouldn't find this surprising. After all, phoning up a company with a bomb threat might not mean you planted a bomb, but it is just as real a crime.

WordPerfect updates

I tried. Boy, how I tried.

I have been trying for more than six months to get a simple yes or a no answer to the question: Does Corel offer a method of upgrading WordPerfect 7 for Unix/Linux to WordPerfect 8 for Linux? As of press time, I have not gotten a satisfactory answer. I take this to mean no.

If you have WordPerfect 7 and want to upgrade, it is best you just purchase the new version all by itself and forget the past. They just don't want to hear about it. Corel is sold through retail chains here in Japan, but it is not supported. What they offer instead is a local customer service department (actually Softbank). The phone number is 03-5645-8567, but I found their familiarity with Linux less than impressive (check out my column in CJ, Nov. 1996). I was instructed to go to the website, at http://linux.corel.com for any necessary downloads. To be fair, Linux users want things by e-mail anyway. However, it took Corel's Linux support department one month to get back to me with completely irrelevant information. Not cool.

Conclusion: WordPerfect 8 is still the best, office-quality word processor running on Linux at this time. But if you are based in Japan, then you are on your own. In terms of handling their customers in this country, they haven't got a clue. As Linux grows in popularity, the fate of WordPerfect will be interesting to watch.

RSI

About once a year on average, a reader contacts me about a story I did, oh, back in 1995 (see CJ, Dec. 1995) describing the horrors of repetitive strain injury, better know as RSI. To answer the question of the professional translator living in western Tokyo: YES! It is as bad as I described it. I have met people who will never be able to hold a piece of paper again, let alone type on a keyboard. At the time the article was written, few hospitals were seriously treating RSI. The best one that I mentioned at that time -- and still recommend -- is Shiba Byoin (near Shiba Koen) in central Tokyo.

However, these days, most major hospitals in the metropolitan areas are able to diagnose and treat the problem. Good news in some ways. Bad news that it is becoming a very common affliction. If you think you have it, seek medical attention without delay. If you use a keyboard (and who doesn't these days) learn how to avoid developing it. With a little common sense, you'll be playing Quake for many years to come.

Back to the Table of Contents

Comments or suggestions?
Contact cjmaster@cjmag.co.jp