Can Tom Ridge keep the homeland safe for Internet surfing?
I started wondering last week after I got a call from a woman I did not know. She claimed my computer was sending hers a bunch of virus-infected messages. I did not do it honest. It was all one big head fake, by some anonymous software writer out in cyberspace, whose malicious code was worming its way through countless PC’s on the Internet. The virus, called SoBig.F, used e-mail address books to propagate itself, disseminating messages labeled “thanks” or “wicked screensavers” to randomly selected addresses. On Friday, a software time bomb was set to go off at 3 p.m. E.D.T., when all the SoBig-infected machines were to have received new instructions from 20 infected master machines. Cybersleuths, evidently, tracked down the menacing masters and had their Internet access cut off. All this happened only a week after another worm, doing business as Blaster among other names, had disrupted the Internet for millions of users. In both cases, which disrupted corporate networks and forced home
