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Highlands Today

It just isn't fair

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Ramblings

Published: September 19, 2009

I ran a mental census of the computers in the county and came up with a number of 87,000 — give or take. So with such a large population of these mechanical minds why was mine selected to attract a near-death virus invasion? It didn't seem fair.

Then when I contacted Dan Zurcher, my computer guru, I found he was recovering from a mild medical procedure and couldn't look at my computer problem even though I offered to bring it over to his house and fluff his pillows while he was devirusizing the thing. How unfair was that?
Dan did however offer an alternative. "Call Gina," he said.

Gina? That sounded like a girl's name and everybody knows that computers and their devirusizers are masculine oriented. Still I gave Gina a call and confirmed my suspicions — she was a she; and as it turned out a really computer literate one at that.

She and he too
Gina is Gina Avis. She and her husband Alan own and operate Avista Computers and Consulting Services, which is tucked in a corner of the Sebring Plaza, an area that is going to be demolished when Sam's Club comes to town. The Avises have established quite a reputation in the area over the past 15 years. So why haven't I ever heard of them?

"We advertise by word of mouth," the petite computer fixer told me, and apparently their ad company is pretty good. Gina in general handles the in-house work while Alan is the on-the-road repairperson — dealing mainly in business computers.

Her work usually comes to her. "It gets pretty expensive if we have to come out to the house to fix a PC," she advised.

I delivered our laptop that, as it turned out, was in pretty bad shape. The intruding virus put up a false screen that overlaid what was happening on the real desktop. How she pealed the virus away and kept my machine from being used as a doorstop is one of the mysteries of computers that I'll probably never understand.

Who would do that?
As we sat chatting in her cluttered, but tidy, repair shop, Gina instructed me that there are basically four reasons that the hackers (this family newspaper will not allow me to use more descriptive titles for these people) send out viruses: Spite, Revenge, Hate or just playing a Game. Then there is also Greed, which enters the equation when money is involved: like with spam and pop-ups.

"These guys are smart," she said. So smart that the programmers can't write programs to block them.

"The industry needs better regulation," Gina declared. Right now she points out that there are no assurances that even the products sold in reputable stores are not contaminated.

And some of these viruses are so dangerous they can even cause physical damage to a hard drive.
It just isn't fair

It doesn't seem fair that such a small group of individuals can cause so much grief to such a large group. And that's not just confined to computers. Right now there are a lot of teenagers who are lamenting, "It just isn't fair," over the decision of the mall management to restrict the access by the youths. And it isn't. But, sadly, it's a way of life.

Many suffer because of the actions of a few. I'm not happy that I have to "pay before I pump" at a gas station because a few Neanderthals drove off without paying. And I'm infuriated over the cost and time spent on stepped-up security all over the country because there is a small group of cretins who don't like the way we live. But if we don't step up to the bad guys, the bullies, they'll just get badder.

So a lesson for those who are critical of the perceived unfair treatment at the mall: protest against those who are causing the rules to be made, not those enacting them.

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