It has come to my attention that a lot of people don’t actually understand computer viruses. Many people seem to think that computer viruses can affect any computer, and can somehow be avoided by not visiting “shady” sites.

Let me clear something up for you: Computer viruses (and I mean actual VIRUS viruses)affect Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Linux, and the countless other operating systems are completely unaffected. The fact is that in order for an operating system, like windows, to get a virus it needs to have practically no security at all.

Furthermore you can’t avoid viruses by avoiding “shady” sites. Think about that for a second. What counts as “shady”? How does the computer know if it’s on a shady site? The fact is that it doesn’t know. Any web page could have a virus on it. Even the Google search page could have a virus on it. The only reason it doesn’t is because Google would never do such a thing. Also by the time that the page loads enough for you to see that it’s “shady” it’s already too late. The virus is in place because, and I can’t believe I have to actually tell this to technologically literate people, computers are really fast.

If you’re wondering “then how is it that I don’t have a virus?” the answer is that you most likely do and just don’t know it. Think about this for a second: If you were writing a virus, why would you want the user to know that they’ve caught your virus? Wouldn’t it be smarter to have it hide in the background until just the right time?

I’m sure most people realize that Hollywood doesn’t portray “hacking” accurately; but what most people don’t seem to realize is just how inaccurate their “hacking” really is. For example: the word “hacker” doesn’t actually refer to someone who commits computer related crimes.

Yes, that’s right, Hollywood actually got the term itself wrong and the misconception that hackers are all computer criminals has become so prevalent that it’s nearly impossible to use the term correctly any more.

Here are some links that will show you what a hacker really is:

Who are hackers?
What is hacking?
The true meaning of the word “hacking”*
*Warning: May contain a long rant about ethics.