Welcome to the Virus of the Month Club
by Mitch Stone, the Accidental Expert
Good morning, and welcome to the Virus of the Month Club. Your main selection for June 2000 is the Love Bug, third mutation. This special edition of our popular computer virus will wipe out your hard drive, rendering your PC even more senseless then usual -- but not before e-mailing copies of itself to all of your friends, family and associates.
What, you say you didn't sign up for this free service?
Please wait just a moment while we check our records. I show here where you own a PC. And this PC, it's connected to the Internet, is it not? Yes, I see.
Well, I'm afraid there's absolutely nothing we can do -- your subscription was entered automatically into our system when you purchased the PC. I'm pleased to report that you will be receiving a new, carefully selected, and potentially catastrophic virus from us at least once a month for as long as you own your computer.
No, no, I'm sorry, you can't cancel your subscription. It's against our policy. It simply isn't done.
Yes, certainly, you are free to purchase whichever brand of virus protection software you like, but don't expect it to be of much use. The filters in virus protection software can't possibly be updated quickly enough. We guarantee that our next amusing selection will be designed cleverly to thwart detection until well after it's caused billions of dollars in damage to computer systems all over the world.
I understand your concerns, but as I'm sure you can tell, we're awfully proud of our work here at the Virus of the Month Club. It's our mission to never allow the virus protection software industry to get a single step ahead of us.
Who else is subscribed to this service? As I said, everyone who owns a PC and uses the Internet for e-mail is enrolled automatically.
We've designed all of our selections over the past year to take full advantage of the exciting technologies contained in every copy of Microsoft Windows, including Microsoft Visual Basic and the Microsoft Outlook e-mail application. They allow us to create our pestilence almost effortlessly, and distribute it globally, with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Why, it's so easy, even a college sophomore in the Philippines could do it.
You've heard that not everyone is being afflicted by our selections? Yes, if you use an operating system other than Windows -- say, Linux or the Macintosh -- our next monthly selection would flop harmlessly onto your hard drive, where you could delete it at your leisure.
It'd be a complete dud, and thanks to you, the virus propagation would cease. What's more, your friends and associates could open your e-mail attachments with the confidence that comes from knowing that they won't be sprayed with digital shrapnel.
You're not one of those crackpots that doesn't use Windows, are you? Well, that's a relief.
Yes, disabling Outlook would prevent the virus from replicating, so at least it would fail to circulate beyond your PC. But what would you use for your e-mail?
Oh, well, we at the Virus of the Month Club fail to see why anyone would purchase an e-mail application from one of Microsoft's few remaining competitors, when Microsoft is so determined to have you use Outlook. That's why they give it to you for free, you know.
You say free is sometimes far too expensive? Well, if you're going to be so completely ungrateful, I'm certain there's nothing more we can do for you.
05 June 2000 |
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