Flashes of Panic

After filling my water bottle with ice and water, I stayed in the kitchen trying to explain to one of my co-workers how to deal with the virus which has infected her home computer. She’s been a relatively receptive audience for home computer advice, since she has two teenagers who work the poor thing to the limit. She’s installed Firefox and AVG and listened to my canned speech about how commercial anti-virus companies have a disincentive to completely stop the spread of viruses. (If they did their job too well, nobody would pay for virus-signature subscriptions, would they?) I think I conveyed the message that she needs to boot into safe mode and then scan again with AVG.

As we were moving back towards work, she said, “You need to write a book about all this.” I replied, “Why should I do that? Even if there weren’t dozens already, why would anyone spend $15 on a book before they get a virus?”

“I’m in danger of having to pay someone hundreds of dollars to fix my computer. I’d rather buy a $15 book,” she said. “Yes,” I answered, “But who does that math in advance? Cost-benefit analysis is taught in security classes; you estimate the potential cost of a breach and compare it with the cost of mitigating the vulnerability. Who decides to spend $15 on a book because they see the potential of spending hundreds recovering from an infection?”

“I know a good publisher,” she said. “We only publish biology textbooks,” I reminded her.

Does anybody really do cost-benefit analysis on home computer security? Enough that anyone bothers to publish books?

Now Playing: Crawling Back To You from Wildflowers by Tom Petty