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02/17/2004 Entry: "A sociopath by any other name..."

"Many people might wonder why virus writers aren't simply rounded up and arrested for producing their creations. But in most countries, writing viruses is not illegal.

"Indeed, in the United States some legal scholars argue that it is protected as free speech. Software is a type of language, and writing a program is akin to writing a recipe for beef stew. It is merely a bunch of instructions for the computer to follow, in the same way that a recipe is a set of instructions for a cook to follow.

"A virus or worm becomes illegal only when it is activated - when someone sends it to a victim and starts it spreading in the wild, and it does measurable damage to computer systems. The top malware authors are acutely aware of this distinction."
The stealth worm era. With the pace of virus development accelerating, experts fear even nastier criminal attacks in future, by Clive Thompson, Toronto Star, February 15, 2004

Isn't that a little like the guns argument? 'The virus or worm doesn't wreck your computer, downloading them does.' Sigh. Doesn't quite work for me.

Symantec's Sarah Gordon also says the authors are ethically naive.

Doesn't that just make them plain, old sociopaths?

So, how soon do we get Sci-Fi about sentient computer viruses? And if it's out there already, can somebody point me to it? TIA.

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