18 August 2005

So my co-worker has 5 kids and they all download stuff to her computer at home. She told me she’s very frustrated because everytime she uses the computer she gets a million popups. I told her that her computer was infected with spywear and I really hoped she wasn’t checking her bank balance while she was on it or using any credit cards.

She gave me that blank stare as if it just occurred to her that someone could nefariously infect her computer and steal personal information.

I wonder how much of the “identity theft” problem is just knuckle-dragging windows users who go ahead and check their bank balance and buy thing with their MasterCard when their computer is infected.