Why they do it

If you got a computer virus ten or fifteen years ago, you probably experienced the digital equivalent of a mean and nasty practical joke: ink poured on important papers, stink bombs, bags of dog poop on fire, insults spray-painted on your house, your car keyed. Generally, virus/worm authors wanted notoriety, a rush of power, or just to stick it to someone who wronged them.

Now, it's all about cash money.

The Conficker worm recently woke up, as you may have heard. No, it's not the end of the world, but we are starting to see some of what it's designed to do- make money fast. Infected Windows machines are starting to present notices along the lines of "Hello. Your computer is infected. For $49.95, you can be cleaned!"

Malware authors are not maladjusted teens living in their parents' basement; they are professional criminals trying to make money.

Still kicking

Hello, my hopefully loyal readers. Please bear with me while I get back into the habit of writing.

Let me start this off with some pictures of what's occupied my time. I unpacked all of these boxes (nearly thirty):




Onto these shelves:




This is still a great feeling, to see my entire game collection out and displayed. I have never really seen it spread out before, and I cannot swear that these pictures really do it justice. The number's about 430ish, but some of those are expansions. I did a quick count on actual-never-played games, and that came to a shade over 100. That means that I've played more than three-quarters of my games.

My wife keeps saying, "Oh, right! I forgot about that one" and "I've never even seen that one before!" My friends are a little stunned and partially overwhelmed with choices. I need to start some plan and effort to learn unplayed games before cracking them to the group.