Here's an interesting thought; is the case of the ILOVEYOU bug and the NAPSTER case related?
What I mean is do they have the same legal issue at their heart for the companies that produced the software?
In the LuvBug case, Microsoft has created a monster with Outlook and VBScript that broke one of the fundamental rules of safe computing: "Never let outsiders execute on a box." They have opened the gates for these bugs, users of Netscape, Lotus Notes and other popular mail readers were unaffected not because their systems aren't popular enough but because they wisely don't allow this sort of thing. (To be fair, NS toed the line on this with JavaScript in HTML mail)
In the Napster case, their software allows you to search and retrieve files, often copyrighted material, from other users boxes. Metallica and Dr. Dre aren't too happy about that right now.
The difference is, in the virus case, mostly people are focusing on the guy who released the virus right now, rather than the software company who enabled the crime as in the music case. The ratio of legal to illegal use is different but the issue is the same, are software companies liable for the uses their software is put to?
Anyone near the age of thirty remembers as we were coming up on
drinking age, the big deal was being made about bar's being
responsible for cutting off heavy drinkers and helping them get
cabs home. Bars lost, society took a blow, and we all got a
little stupider. We now aren't responsible for our overindulgence,
bartenders are. A friend's comments on MickyD's Hot Coffee incident
a while back come to mind as another time where our collective
assumed intelligence and responsibility dropped.
Bars, fast food shops, cigarettes, guns, software, plastic bags
with warnings to not let children suffocate, air bags, sports
equipment (you have to be 23 to buy baseball bats in some cities),
internet gambling, credit card debt suits, and much much more.
Weak minded people blame the lawyers but they are the symptom of
the "Not me, it was them!" culture we are breeding; not the cause.
These cases in the news have reminded me to ask once again,
"How stupid do you want them to think you are?"
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