B Larson - Spyware

Classes had begun for Ray, and he was indeed burning.

His eyes and throat burned, even the skin on his back seemed to burn. As he had often pointed out to others who said things like: Well, teaching doesn’t pay much, but it sure beats working! the one catch about teaching was that you had to perform when it came time for class. In college, there weren’t even any substitutes. It was a live show, mostly improvised everyday, and there were rarely any rehearsals. You went to class and you performed, or there wasn’t a show. Everything you did was stared at and evaluated by many sets of eyes. A bad day for the professor was a bad day for everyone.

Today was a bad day. Students sat with their heads cradled in their hands, trying to keep them up. His tiredness had left them bored and fatigued, as if just watching him was somehow draining their energy. Students listlessly checked their email on their netbooks and slate computers. One young man in the back was asleep at his desk, his baseball cap pulled forward to block the harsh glare of the fluorescents overhead. Ray had sympathy for them, and tried to keep his energy up, but it was a losing battle.

Ray felt his armpits go slick and his face began to burn with a wave of embarrassment as he slurred his words and repeated himself. He was bombing and he knew it. He hated the feeling and wondered briefly if this was how it felt to be a comedian with a silent crowd. He paused for a moment, fumbled with his notes and tried to think.

Then he decided to switch topics to a sure-fire winner for this class. The long struggle he and Brenda had had with the system last night gave him the idea.

“Class,” he said suddenly. “Let’s talk about viruses.”

The effect was electric. Slumped students whom he’d long considered narcoleptic sat up blinking. Ray gave them a gratified smile. Setting aside his notes, he turned his full attention to the class. For the moment, he had theirs as well.

“Viruses are a major topic for this class, of course,” he began. “In years gone by, I would have assigned you all a final project in which you created your own virus for purposes of study.”

“All right,” muttered someone.

“I’m listening,” said a student who appeared to be sleeping in an upright position. Her name was Magic Avila and she normally spent every class with her eyes closed. She never took notes and rarely asked questions. True to her name, when it came time to take a test, she would get a perfect ‘A’ every time. Her effortless method of learning did seem like magic.

“Fortunately or unfortunately, those days have passed us,” Ray continued.

A collective groan of disappointment rose from the class.

Ray smiled and felt their attentiveness. He took a deep breath and pressed ahead.

“I know all too well why you want to hear about viruses. People are always fascinated by the dark side of their craft. Viruses represent power. They are destructive and illegal. Among software professionals, there is no greater crime than their creation. People who create and release software viruses are vandals, nothing more nor less. To us, they are what an arsonist is to a firefighter-what a biological warfare researcher is to a family doctor -what a heretic is to a cleric.

“I will not ask you to write one, but you will gain the knowledge nonetheless. I can’t help that, for in order to understand them you must surely be given the secrets of their creation. Who, after all, would make a better arsonist than a firefighter?”

There were scattered chuckles and the class leaned forward and settled in. He knew he had them now, they were ready for a good lecture. His head still burned, but he could push that aside now. He had a topic that he loved to lecture on and an interested audience. It was times like these that made teaching fun.

“Let us first define what we are talking about. When your computer is infected with a virus, it isn’t an organic thing, like one of the two hundred-odd variations of the rhinovirus we call the common cold. Computer viruses are software, programs, sets of instructions for computers to follow that someone has deliberately created and distributed in order to cause others annoyance, grief or financial loss. Unlike the common cold, which has been with us for millennium and was never purposefully created by humanity, viruses don’t occur naturally. They are specifically designed and ingeniously constructed by one of us . Most often, in fact, by one of you ,” here he paused and swept an accusing finger and eye over the crowd. The students responded to his dramatics with smiles and side-glances to their friends. They knew his lecture style by now.

“Most viruses are written by graduate students in computer science. Many others are written by intelligence agencies, ours or those of foreign powers, for the express purpose of wreaking havoc among the computers of an enemy government.

“Why us?” interrupted Alicia, a female student who always sat in the front row. Ray turned to her and noticed that she seemed more surprised by her interruption than he was. She was the quiet type, who rarely spoke out of turn in class, unlike some of the other overly-bright hooligans that Ray had to contend with on a daily basis.

“Because,” sighed Ray, “you’re young, you have time on your hands, and most of all-” he paused, “-because you want to see if you can do it. You want the challenge.”

“But that’s awful,” said Alicia, her face pinched.

“Yes, possibly, but predictable. At this point in your careers, you have the time, and you know just enough to be dangerous. You are at the point in your lives that you are impressed by feats of beer consumption, last decade’s muscle cars and empty sexual conquests. If you’ve made it this far in the difficult field of computer science, then you are also impressed by original and creative coding.

“But let me tell you right now, class, that the creation of wantonly destructive software is a federal crime and that I would not hesitate to turn in any of you who created and distributed such a thing.

“You’d turn us in? Your own students?” questioned Magic. Her eyes were uncharacteristically open. There was a slight, pouting smile on her lips as she asked the question. She was an attractive girl, and the look on her face made Ray wonder if she had a crush on him.

“Just as surely as I’d turn you in for building a bomb or setting fire to the dorms,” replied Ray evenly.

“But it’s not the same thing,” protested Magic, “No one gets hurt.”

“While it’s true that viruses have yet to cause any known deaths-unless you count the viruses used to disable Iraqi air defense systems in the Gulf Wars, that is-it is only a matter of time until they do. Please realize that there are millions of chances a day for software to cause a death. Car ignition and braking systems are controlled by software. Pilots fly airliners in blinding conditions, trusting their intelligent instruments. If these systems become susceptible to attack, many lives are at risk.

“But let me backtrack a bit. In order to more thoroughly understand my position on this, we must examine the nature of viruses in greater detail. Classifying them in terms of behavior, viruses come in three primary flavors. One: the annoying virus. Built to sell something in most cases, rather than vandalize, the annoying virus is more of a prank than a felonious assault. One example I recall vividly. It simply caused a large image of a person’s hand to be drawn on your computer console every time you booted up your machine. The annoying part was that middle finger of this blue hand was extended upwards in a pose that we are all probably familiar with.”