A page from Microsoft's web site where a patch is available to protect against the Blaster Worm (AP)
Software Rules, Worm Trouble Story aired: Tuesday, August 19, 2003
From childhood, we are taught to follow the rules. But, we also know when to break the rules.
Computers, however, are machines that follow rules slavishly. They're very good at it, which makes them powerful, but also sometimes ineffective and frustrating to the user.
Now technologists are discovering that some computers problems are best solved by skipping the rules altogether.
"Ours Weinberger normal of David of the commentator of the Internet it is here dirci more."
If the proceeding sentence makes no sense, it's because we used a set of rules to translate that sentence from English to Italian and back again. What we mean is that our regular internet commentator David Weinberger is here to tell us more.
Also in technology news, the malicious internet worm known as "Blaster" is still out there, infecting computers through a weakness in Microsoft Windows software.
The worm spread worldwide last week, but failed to cause serious damage.
And now there's a new worm, a so-called "good worm" known as "Nachi," which enters computers the same way the blaster worm did, but actually attempts to fix the security weakness, and then it deletes itself.
Guests:
David Weinberger, Internet commentator for Here and Now
Maryfran Johnson, editor in chief of the magazine Computer World
