The morality of virus writers

In a previous column I wrote about the "cave", the place where those who have ascended to technological priesthood go to be alone, create and to ruminate about their mastery of the universe.

I return there today, to make another point. This time my point is that virus writers are probably not "evil", or even very ill intentioned. I believe they operate with the purest of motives.

I came to recognise that the same kind of person who in the early days overtly bragged about their tech superiority had simply gone into hiding after the massive popularisation of technology in the 1990s.

Carel Alberts, Journalist, ITWeb

The fact that these motives won`t stand up in a high school debate or that they may be considered anti-social is beside the point. The fact is that they probably mean well.

But back to the cave. I got an early inkling of the sense of superiority among some techies when I completed my first year in IT journalism in 1997. At a reunion of old friends that December, I attempted to explain to a software developer who`d studied engineering what it was I did.

"IT journalism," I ventured, trusting that it would be self-explanatory. "Yourself?"

He didn`t get it. "IT journalism? You mean like a reporter?"

"Yup," I said. "I report on IT."

"So you`re not actually in IT?" This was very funny to him.

"No," I said. "I`m in journalism."

He laughed some more. "You know, one thing I`m glad about is that I got into IT before it became popular," he said. I could feel the friendship crumbling.

What he told me that day has never really been repeated to me by anyone in IT again. In time, this us-and-them mentality seemed a thing of the past.

But recently, I came to recognise that the same kind of person who in the early days overtly bragged about their tech superiority had simply gone into hiding after the massive popularisation of technology in the 1990s.

It`s a lot like the situation in 'Little SA`, otherwise known as London. The only person who despises the masses of expat South Africans in London more than a Londoner does, is another South African. We seem to contract cultural cringe really badly once we leave these shores. Not that Londoners would ever tell you they can`t stand you. Yet you can see it in the frosty, brittle auras they wear. And if you`ve been invaded and conquered for centuries, you`d feel the same.

In just the same way, those who have been in IT for a long time and have seen newbies come and go, usurping their cave and leaving litter, have a certain superciliousness about them.

Strangely enough, we are for once in the same boat - the one made of spam.

The global network, specifically e-mail, killer app that it once was, is virtually useless to us now. Or if not entirely unusable, then we`ve arrived at the point where we have to ask - is it still worth it? Do we have to reconsider open communications? Have we become so vulnerable to spam and viruses that we have to look at conducting business in the old way again? It`s a serious question, and it can only get more serious.

Presumably, even those in tech-nirvana suffer the frustration.

But whereas the rest of us react by reconsidering our position in the World Wide Web, and think of building nine-foot firewalls and "alarming" our networks with ever more movement-restrictive security technology, the adepts and initiates are launching an all-out offensive with Trojans and viruses to make it even worse.

Why do they do it? The poignant truth is that we all want the same thing.

Call it peace and quiet and a secure communications and trading environment, call it ridding the cave of the "travesty" of pop-tech, it`s all the same thing.

We who are relatively new to it want the Internet to be what it once was - a place where you could walk around at night, throw your doors open and enjoy the vastness of it, a place where you could communicate with and over the ether and be yourself without fear of intrusion by cops or robbers.

But while we`re shutting windows and bolting doors to remove the lure of the vulnerable from the information streets, the techies whose ancestral ground it is, are making it as unsafe as possible. And in doing so, they may once again have the place to themselves. It`s understandable enough.

Change, however, is inevitable, and no sacred stomping ground will forever remain undiscovered by the masses. Perhaps it`s time we talked; about securing ourselves, about respecting others` information assets, about cyber-societal codes of behaviour and liability, about preservation of the sanctity of information and about getting along.