SirCam

Week of July 23, 2001

The SirCam virus which is now spreading on the net is devastating mailboxes. It is sent as an attachment of about 200KB.

It should come as no surprise that the virus is counting on the stupidity of the user and the use of MS Outlook to do its dirty work. The attachment file names are given multiple extensions so that the ignorant user with a Windows box configured the way Billg thinks is suitable for what he sees as people with no brains will hide what Billg's excellent programmers see as the file extension.

And because the algorithm for hiding this file extension is so typical of the clumsy way Microsoft developers write code, only the final extension will be hidden, and to the clueless user of Billg's operating systems the virus will appear to be a MS Word file or whatever SirCam decides is appropriate for the moment.

SirCam would not have a chance of spreading if Billg's company did not make the sweeping assumption that all home computer users are idiots like Billg's own developers.