Imagine if you will a fox that has just torn a hole into the side of a chicken coop. But instead of going in there and catching himself a chicken dinner, he instead disguises himself as a security officer and runs off to the poultry farmer and tells him that there are now 36 foxes in the chicken coop!

Better than that, let me imagine it for you.

The fox then promises the farmer that for a fee, he can remove the 36 foxes for him.

Now two things can possibly happen at this point. The farmer can say yes, conveniently forgetting that the security officer offering to remove the 36 foxes is himself a fox. He forks over the money. The fox now has access to the chicken coop any furshluggin’ time he pleases, plus he’s bilked the poultry farmer out of a nice chunk of change.

Or the farmer can say no, whereupon the fox dressed in the security uniform then proceeds to get in the farmer’s face 24/7, wailing long and loudly about how those 36 fabricated foxes will eat up his entire stock and bankrupt him within days. Or enslave the chickens, forcing them to mail junk mail to other poultry farms.

Don’t make a whole lot of sense? Welcome to the world of the rogue anti-virus program.

I support a legitimate anti-virus program for a living, and I get way too many calls from people who are already infected by the counterfeit stuff that behaves exactly like that fox I mentioned earlier. It’s getting to where I can tell just by the language the alleged anti-virus program uses whether it is genuine or counterfeit. A counterfeit program uses really scary language intended to panic the user, such as:

“WARNING! Your computer is infected with dangerous spyware! Your social security number and every credit card number you have is now officially the property of every identity thief in the Northern Hemisphere! Buy SpyBlabber to remove this insidious evil now, if not sooner!! Come on!! I don’t see you clicking that Download button!! Do it!! Now!! HURRY!!“

The fictional name SpyBlabber is my own. The distinctive characteristics of the anti-virus program, however, are painfully true. Some very good customers have even fallen for the lies told by the rogue anti-virus program. They’ve unnecessarily given up money, and left themselves infected worse than before.

I’ve noticed that the false fear that comes into my life tends to act precisely the same way, and in my next post, I plan to point out some parallels between the rogue anti-virus program and false fear.

Keep ‘er tuned right here.