Stephan Burnett
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 08/03) - The recent spike of spam and viruses has PC users blurting out words not meant for general admission.

Martin Male, manager of information systems for the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, says his organization was recently hit by the Blaster virus.

"Someone sent us Blaster before there was a virus definition and it created a mail-send on our server and started shooting out spam to the Web.

"We closed off the port it was using and used the fix tool that was put out by Symantec," makers of Norton anti-virus software, said Male.

While the fix might be in for the Sobig and Blaster viruses, hackers will continue to create other worms and viruses.

Tom Zubko, owner of Inuvik-based New North Networks, says virus programmers are all about jealousy.

"I guess if you look at the hackers that have been caught, there's not a single type of persona but I think a lot has to do with people who are envious.

"They see someone with more success and they really become envious and destructive," said Zubko.

Saskatoon-based Web consultant, Greg Paulhus, says the recent spate of re-mailer viruses is costing corporate North America billions.

"They're ruining the Internet, I don't know why these guys keep doing it," said Paulhus.

A recently penned Wired Magazine article speaks of the fight within the U.S. Congress to bring in various anti-spam regulations and last Tuesday, Microsoft brought the hammer on spammers, levelling 15 international lawsuits.

Zubko explains the best policy is to never open a document of unknown origin.

"If you don't know what you're getting or who it's from, don't open it," said Zubko.

Zubko has based his business on MacIntosh and UNIX systems, which seem impervious to the re-mailer viruses, but Mac and UNIX users need not stand up and cheer their home team just yet.

It's not that Mac and UNIX are better platforms, it's just that, by-and-large, they're being ignored.

Mike Campbell, with MicroAge Computer Stores, explained virus programmers write for the biggest effect, which invariably lends itself toward coding viruses for Microsoft products and PC users.

While Zubko believes updated anti-virus detectors will do a good job of getting rid of 90 per cent of viruses and worms, Paulhus said the issue of spam will soon become more complicated in the North.

Many long-term users of the Internet are now using e-mail to pass important legal information, said Paulhus, and if important information is misconstrued for spam, there could be significant consequences.

A Wired Magazine example speaks of a lawyer whose spam protector deleted an important document.

"If Internet service providers' (ISP) spam filters are too aggressive, they could be blocking important information, and legal clients could lose lawsuits and if that happens, the ISP is liable," said Paulhus.

The IRC's Male agreed with Paulhus' argument and added it is the responsibility of every individual company and organization to tailor their spam and virus-filtering responses to suit their individual needs.