It’s your computer. It should act like your computer.

It’s your mind. It should act like your mind.

You should have the freedom to compute the way you want, or think the way you want, without fear of anything weird coming in and hijacking it and making it do stuff you don’t want. You were meant to have that freedom.

That’s why I get so royally honked off when I hear about a customer tell me about how a rogue anti-virus program downloaded itself into their computer. The first thing the program does is demonstrate how control over one’s own computer can be ripped away from them by a nefarious third party somewhere out there. And it basically says, “You want more of the same of someone else controlling your computer? You don’t? Then come to this such-and-such web site, credit card number in hand.”

And it’s the same way with your own mind when false fear downloads itself right in without your permission.

It drops in uninvited

Rogue antivirus programs are not in the user’s computer because the user consciously wanted it there. They download themselves into the computer without the user’s knowledge, in a process called drive-by downloading. You arrive at a seemingly innocent site, and in the pesky program comes, all by itself. Automatically. Nobody asked you if you wanted it.

In much the same way, false fear and false guilt drops in uninvited, in pretty much the same way. It really does feel like drive-by download. I just look at something I shouldn’t just two seconds longer than I should, like bad news in the newspaper, and ZAM!! The fear is in there, and I can’t get it out.

You can avoid drive-by downloads with the same common sense that keeps you out of trouble in the physical world: by staying out of bad neighborhoods. Stay away from the peer to peer (P2P) file sharing sites where movies and music are commonly pirated, for instance.

Fully seven days have come and gone since my last post, and I have to publish this one, ready or not. Please forgive me if it is not the kind of masterwork of teaching you expected, but time has run out, and I have to put it in front of your eyes now if not sooner. I’ll try to do a bit better the part about how rogue anti-viruses—and false fear—incite unnecessary panic and ill-advised actions.

Good day.