It wasn't always that way. Just a few years ago, before the popularity of the Internet took off, it was only Geeks using computers. Or so it seemed. Anyone who had a PC in his home back then just had to be an anti-social, thumb-sucking, self-stroking, techno-travesty of a human being who spent his life talking to computers to make up for his inability to speak to real people. Why did computers users have that kind of reputation? Because of guys like David Smith.
This week, the New Jersey State Police arrested David and charged him with writing and propagating the "Melissa Virus." Melissa was an e-mail containing the message, "Here is that document you asked for ... don't show it to anyone else" along with one of those cute winking smiley faces formed by the punctuation marks ;-). Who could resist that? Nobody, as it turned out. Once you opened the document, Melissa The Virus would find your address book and send the e-mail to the first 50 names it found. That chain reaction quickly clogged e-mail systems around the country, causing many corporations and even the Marine Corps to close down e-mail capability altogether.
Just as you might expect, David is a real Computer Geek, employed as a network programmer for an AT&T sub-contractor. His next project may be to hack into the federal prison computer system, as he is facing 5-10 years there on charges of interfering with public communication and theft of computer services. David says he created Melissa just to see if he could do it. Where did the name "Melissa" come from? She's a topless dancer he met in Florida. It's a good thing he didn't use the name "Sweet Melissa", or he'd not only be facing jail, but thousands of irate Allman Brothers fans, as well.
But is David really a Creep? There was no real damage done. In fact, it was pretty entertaining to watch all those computer security weasels run around trying to figure out what was going on, wasn't it? David's not such a bad guy, is he?
Au contraire, mon frere. David is the stereotyped Computer Geek who sets the example the rest of us have to live down. Think of him sitting there in his darkened, pizza-box-strewn, semen-stained apartment, watching the progress of his virus, laughing like a hyena, holding his dick and dreaming of the real Melissa cavorting around on-stage. He's the reason why wild-eyed, Puritan lawmakers at all levels of government are trying to control the Internet and its content. David is also personally responsible for those never-ending complaints you hear from your (Pick one: parent / sibling / spouse / significant other / roommate) to "get the hell away from that computer screen right now or I'll shove it up your fat ass!"
I wonder if this is what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet.
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