By Chic Hollis – Philosophical Musings
Terrorism is considered to be the ultimate result of a wicked mind: the despicable acts of a forlorn personality directed at its perceived enemies. In some dark corner sits a deranged person who cannot accept reality. Such distressed humans are motivated to “get even” with the more “normal” humans in our society who are causing the numerous problems that exasperate the disturbed person.
Beware of malware! It is the latest form of Internet terrorism. It lurks unobserved ensconced in Internet connections waiting to be activated by the innocent folks who own a personal computer. This insidious virus is ready to attack any unsecured system. It’s a vengeance-inspired attempt to destroy the PCs of those humans who have driven the originator of the malware to this new extreme of mental disorientation.
“Nail them before they can nail you to a cross,” is the motive behind this sick behavior. If you are so inclined, better do it before the unfair court system sends you to a confined place that will make you even more of a psychopath! Any effort to destroy our complex system of information distribution is not funny. It can be disastrous for the “perp” and the decent members of society. Such malevolency illustrates once more how our sophisticated human society always creates the good seed and the bad seed.
“Damn them!” curses the loner who imagines that he is one of the victims of an abusive society. “There’s injustice everywhere. Someone has to settle the score with the heartless tyrants, the mean bosses, and the unscrupulous power-brokers!” He or she continues, “Someone’s got to pay. What’s the best way to harass ‘the enemy’ without getting caught? Distribute malware!”
Malware is the latest form of taking your frustration out on a group of fellow-travelers who are surviving the many challenges of the modern lifestyle and seem to be satisfied with the system in place. It puts PCs everywhere at risk of system contamination and destruction of files. It costs millions of dollars to repair damaged computers and thousands hours of PC downtime.
“All of them should pay for my misery!” grumbles the hacker and savvy initiator of malware.
Thus begins the Internet terrorism where security of files is a major business today. Theft of identity, passwords, and confidential information that can be sold is part of the scheme of these malcontents. There has to be an underlying profit motive besides exacting vengeance. Governments invading the confidential information systems of their enemies is another modern opportunity for these ambitious hate-filled software specialists.
“I’m smarter than those clods,” continues the arrogant misfit. “Let them suffer from my clever activities as I have suffered from their abominable treatment.”
Every day the local newspaper publishes the latest anti-social events that kill or maim humans in our metropolitan area. The culprits are usually humans who have lost their ability to properly judge the ultimate consequences of their actions. They reach a point of irrationality where doing harm to someone else seems justifiable to them. Acts like producing malware are premeditated. Harming others is a trade-off for the imagined offenses suffered by the unbalanced mind in the actuator. He or she is secretly seeking to harm their fictional nemesis somehow.
The ambitious human mind wants more than just to survive the negative challenges to its flimsy physical existence: disease, accident, mistakes, and natural disasters. The selfish mind seeks to dominate and control other humans, “get its way”, win at games of competing talents, and receive the respect of other humans through rewards granted to distinguished achievers. When such a mind is prevented from reaching its zenith (however that is defined by that individual), it becomes very frustrated and can turn to revengeful acts as a solution to exerting power over a suspected or chosen enemy. Inflicting “hurt” or inconvenience on someone else is the diabolical objective.
“Taking out frustration” on someone else can be a physical or mental act to relieve agony and replace it with a sense of victory that comes with dishing out discomfort to others. Sick as that seems to the more normal person, the vengeance of the redresser of a perceived wrong brings some solace to the redresser. Unless as Edgar Allen Poe predicted, “A wrong is unredressed if retribution (of the insidious act) overtakes the redresser.” But the vengeful actor believes that the punishment for his anti-social behavior will never catch up to him.
Producing malware is a major psychological triumph for the perpetrator of this heinous crime. Other innocent or naive people will suffer more than he. The initiator smiles at his hidden triumph over the members of the unappreciative society he loathes. He seeks their curses rather than their praise. He becomes sadistic and thrills at the potential suffering of his unseen victims. The war is on, and he is in charge of the conflict temporarily – winning a Pyrrhic Victory.
Can these sick minds be stopped is the question that throttles Internet security companies. Can the sick minds of killers, thieves, trouble-making gangs, and terrorists be invaded before the person takes drastic action? Friends, parents, associates, and casual observers need to be taught the signs of “unbalanced minds.” But in our present society, a crime is not committed until a person breaks a law and is apprehended. Evidence has to prove that an anti-social act which breaks a law has actually been caused by the individual apprehended.
Then, what is the appropriate punishment for the producer and distributor of malware? Should Sharia Law be used which didn’t foresee such a crime? Should both hands be cut off? Should the mad genius be stoned by all those that owned a PC that crashed due to his malfeasance? I leave that decision up to a jury of the defendant’s peers who no doubt will approve a sentence that fits the crime based on all the evidence!
Unfortunately, a bad seed like a good seed germinates and causes a mutation that can benefit a species or harm it. The more overpopulation there is of the Homo sapiens species on Earth, the greater the number of mutations that could be harmful. The question for modern scientists is: How can the bad seeds be identified promptly and re-programmed or eliminated?
