Ladies & Gentlemen of the FML, we got trouble, right here in Internet City &
I MEAN Trouble.
That's Trouble with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'C' and that stands
for:
Cyber-Max - the Virtual Ferret.
Now I know you're all out there laughing thinking he's such a cute little
thing, but Folks, this is serious.
This whole diabolical scheme has been presented as a whimsical prank, and I
don't know who this *anonymous* modern-day Dr Franken-Ferret-stein is, but
we HAVE to stop him.
Many of you have had system crashes or experienced the ravages of computer
viruses. We all know what havoc a power outage or a disk crash can cause,
but, my friends, you have no idea what a cyber-Ferret can do.
Remember, your computer isn't anything more than a bunch of little 1's & 0's
in *neat* little rows. And this is one place where neatness really DOES
count. Imagine cyber-Max's idea of neatness. "Dook! Dook! I'll just
stash all the 1's on the disk drive and hide all the 0's in RAM. Dook!
Dook!"
And it would be fine with me if this recalcitrant piece of code stayed in
the good Dr.'s system, but Nooooooooo, Cyber-Max as ALREADY become
"Web-Aware". Though there is still much for him to explore in his home
system, it seems a cyber entity of his voracity will quickly find ALL the
corners of that environment (as soon as the urge arises, I'm sure). And,
"Where will he go next?," you ask.
Well, I'll tell you. If there's anything I KNOW about ferrets (and I assure
you I don't know much), it's that they just loooooove tunnels. And just
what do you think that little cable that runs out of the back of the good
Dr.'s computer and plugs into the telephone jack is. Well, my friend, you
and I both know it's a phone cord, but what's it going to look like to
Cyber-Max. Yep, you guessed it, a TUNNEL. And, once he sticks his fuzzy
little nose down that little hole, do you think he'll ever come back?
NOOOOOOO WAAAAAAY, Jose!!!! No little squeaky toy or juicy ferret treat
will EVER get him back. The net's too much fun for the responsible, mature,
well-behaved, adult, Internet citizens like you and I, but for Cyber-Max,
it'll be ....well....er....ah.....absolute PANDEMONIUM. I shudder to even
think about it.
But there may still be hope. If we all band together and IMMEDIATELY take
preventative action.
I STRONGLY suggest that each and every one of you cooperate and follow my
plan to the letter.
#1) We have to form a committee. Now you all know that nothing meaningful
and worthwhile is ever done without the approval of a committee, an
important committee, a powerful committee, a committee with a NAME. And
the name of a committee can make or break that committee, so I'm
proposing:
The F.errets A.gainst R.ecalcitrant T.hreats Committee
For short we'd call ourselves, the FA__ .... well, er...ah maybe we
really need to form a sub-committiee to study and evaluate a PROPER name
for a group as important as this.
#2) And, we MUST have a committee chairman (er....ah) 'person'. aaaaah...
That's it, yeah, right, a ChairPERSON. Now if I could for just a
moment, in the most humble manner possible, explain MY qualifications.
I spend most of my time sitting in this here chair. Typin' & surfin' &
browsin', la de da, just hopin' & wishin' & dreamin', hmmmph. Hmmm, I
think that's another newsgroup. Anyway, a vote for me means a vote
against Cyber-Max, the scourge of the Internet. Thank you, thank you.
#3) And, we have to have a plan. You never heard anyone says, "The best
laid plans of FERRETS and men often go astray," did you? No? Good,
that settles it, we gotta have a plan.
So, here's my plan:
We have to write the following protection-scheme code segments:
a) Bitter Apple routine: This specialized piece of background code would act
like those automatic room air-fresheners in public bathrooms. You know,
those ones that startle you when they suddenly spray by themselves while
you're washing your hands so you spill water on your clothes as you turn
around. Well, this ingenious little program would spew a code segment
down your modem line every fifteen minutes that was artificial,
simulated, Cyber-Bitter-Apple to dissuade any cyber-ferret from coming
close to your system.
b) California Fish & Game virus: This little piece of code gets inserted
surreptitiously into the server of you Internet Service Provider.
Whenever a cyber-ferret even gets close to your provider's server, it
erupts with such an enormous volume of bureaucratic gobbledy-gook that
there isn't room for the cyber-ferret to get in. Of course, this
overwhelms the server to the point where you can't get out, but believe
me, that's better than letting the cyber-ferret in.
c) Web Crawler Sock Routine: Now this, my friends, is pure genius (if I do
say so myself). This is a little piece of self-duplicating code that you
turn lose on the web. Buried within it are special instructions to never
even come close to your computer again, and THAT is the beauty of it.
Once this little devil is far enough away from your computer, it turns
itself into .......CYBER-SOCK. To a cyber-ferret, it looks like a sock,
it smells like a sock, it feels like a sock, it even tastes like a sock.
But there are two very important differences between Cyber-sock and YOUR
favorite sock. First, cyber-sock is always on the move, AWAY from your
computer. Second, but very important, Cyber-Sock duplicates itself.
Every time a cyber-sock comes to a fork in the net, it reproduces itself
so there is no chance that cyber-ferret can loose the trail.
And there are other things we can do to protect ourselves, like
The Men's Cologne atomizer (with eye protection routines)
or
The Baby Gate interrupt routine
But, I'll leave those up to some IMPORTANT sub-committee. I have to hold
this chair down right now.
But, do NOT hesitate folks. This is very serious and can't wait. I do not
think Dr. Franken-Ferret-Stein has even realized what a scourge he is about
to turn loose.
And, don't forget we still have a marketing committee to organize.
Night all,
Ken Loomis
[Posted in FML issue 1468]
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