It would have been nice to convince him he should use his skills (and it didn’t take long to determine that he knew the Amiga inside and out) creating virus killers or games or just about anything other than viruses, but Pm not an evangelist or a psychologist, and I’m not vain enough to think that one phone conversation with me is going to change his thinking. I also got the impression that he wasn’t going to be sitting at his computer all day working on dozens of new and more devious viruses. 1 think this was a one- shot deal. He likes the Amiga for what it is (even with its problems) and hopes that viruses aren’t going to hurt future sales of the Amiga. Now, there isn’t any way to condone this person’s actions, but it is worth noting that perhaps it was not completely intentional. The creator of this virus may not be an evil vampire, sleeping by day; dreaming of ways to terrorize by night, but more of a Dr. Frankenstein whose creation gets out of control and starts terrorizing the local villagers. Yes, the result is the same. Either way, we local villagers get the short end of the stick. A lot of people, including many here at the AmigaWorld offices, are all set to sharpen die stakes, light the torches and head out for the castle. I’m not convinced that this will do much good at this point. The Byte Bandit isn’t the monster, the virus is, and it has come out of die lab and into the streets. We should be draping garlic on our windows, bolting the doors, and systematically destroying the viruses we encounter. A curious question occurred to me while going over all this. Have the Byte Bandit and the other virus creators broken any laws? They don’t sell their viruses. They aren’t stealing data. Is it vandalism? Perhaps it is equivalent to leaving- poisoned candy bars on a park bench. I’m not sure. So, what do we do about the mad scientists out there sewing together new creatures? The death penalty is a bit extreme, and doing nothing isn’t much of a deterrent either. Finding the creator of a virus is difficult, and in most cases, impossible. If you are curious about testing your own programming skills by writing a virus of your own, how about working on a virus killer instead. Tougher challenge, better result. On the constructive side, AmigaWorld is going to start compiling information about viruses and virus killers.