People have strange ways of expressing their love. And sometimes they do so completely unintentionally. Because you see, love comes in many shapes and sizes. And viruses.

Take the recent outburst of love on the Internet. Loads of people got lots of love. But we all know that anything in excess can be bad. Even love. “I Love You” confirmed it. I didn’t receive a single love-note. After the initial depression wore off (no one loves me!), this was one time when I was glad to be unlucky in love.

Seriously though, casting humour and love aside for the moment, what brings forth the darker side of creativity in a human being? What prompts a virus writer to create a malicious piece of code? Or a cracker (the negative connotation of a hacker) to deface a website? Or to tap an online transaction?

Fanatical beliefs could very well be the motivation for defacing a website. So could financial rewards. Siphoning away a tiny, almost unnoticeable percentage of an online transaction would be a very tempting way to make quick money. I understand that. However, for someone to create and release something like the love-bug - what could be the reason? If I were a certain type of formally qualified medical professional (a.k.a. “a
shrink”), I may have speculated on the possibilities of an unhappy childhood. And other similar stuff. But I’m not a shrink. I’m just another netizen. And so I wonder… why?

I’ve already said that I’m not a shrink. However, I do have a formal background in software technology. To give you some perspective, I’m an Internet specialist (whatever that means), and have been on the Net for more than 10 years now. I have dabbled with the internals of communication software, email, websites and security related stuff, amongst other things. And I think I may have a hypothesis here.

It’s probably something to do with thrill. And power. Who would not enjoy these? I think I can attest to it. To share that with you, I invite you to accompany me for a short trip down memory lane…

I wrote my first Trojan-horse program while doing my post-graduation in software technology. It was a program that emulated the login screen of our mainframe computers. And I unleashed it in my lab. Discreetly, of course. Within a very short span of time, I had reasonable collection of usernames and passwords as fellow students fell prey to my program. Which also meant that I knew the names of a lot of their girlfriends or at least the girls they wished were girlfriends. (Yes, we had a male dominated batch :() Information is power and this felt good.

However, I soon got bored of this simplistic achievement. No one but me, knew about what I knew. I now craved for a rush of a higher order. So the next logical thing to do, was to use my newfound power to play some pranks. So I picked a few victims, logged into their account using their login ID and password and added some zest to their startup scripts. The result was that whenever they logged into the system, they got some
mysterious mail from themselves - the contents of which chided them for sending mail to themselves. That was hilarious. The exclamations of surprise when they logged in should have been recorded. The conversations that these mysterious occurrences sparked during our lunch hours were thoroughly enjoyable. Enjoyable for whom? Me, of course.

Power and thrill. That was fun. But you know what? I never really abused the power. I didn’t read anyone’s mail. Or tamper with their work area. Or delete their files. Why not? I don’t know. Maybe I had a happy childhood. Thank God. What I know for sure, is that doing anything more just would not be right. That would be crossing the line. And I’m pleased to say that I did not abuse the power.

Well, that one lasted a little longer and then died a natural death as I was introduced to the intricacies of networking on the Internet. And believe it or not, I actually made the merit list :)

Back to the present. Recalling these events of the past is what leads me to propose the “power and thrill hypothesis”. The power of one-upmanship. The thrill of being the talk of the Net. Likely reasons for the actions of virus writers.

I think that the P&T hypothesis helps, but it still does not make the “virus-writing phenomena” completely understandable. We know that the media highlights the exploits of the virus author. Will he or she ever be able to bask in that light? Openly? No. Then the thrill is really short lived. Assuming that the author is not identified and caught, he or she will seek a thrill of a higher order. And thus probably begins a vicious cycle.

I wonder if the authors ever realize what their thrill seeking tactics do to real life people? The heartbreak of the lady who lost her complete collection of poems that were about to be published in book form? The agony of the post-graduate student who lost his entire Ph.D. thesis? Both of these were people like you and me - who suffered because of the Melissa virus. What about the countless messages that got delayed by email systems
shutting down during the spread of the love bug? The billions of dollars of lost revenue for organizations. The plain inconvenience caused to people? I wish that this cycle could be broken by a dose of conscience. If only it were that simple.

Crackers are the reason for the existence of organizations specializing is security and anti-virus products, providing for the livelihood for their numerous employees. And for the chain of organizations who sell and support these products and services. And that is the best that can be said in the defense of the cracker.

For you and me, this breed (of gifted but misguided individuals) injects a dose of reality into our virtual existence. To remind us that just as technology can be used for good, so it can be for bad.

There is a dark side to creativity.

(Published in: CNET)