When I was in high school, I had an experience with a computer virus. It was my first and only for experience (I was much more careful after that) with a virus. I was downloading music on Limewire, a program for downloading music and videos. I had known that viruses exist, and its dangers, but I had never felt the reality of it, and was very careless. I had heard about viruses on the news and from people I knew, but I had never thought it would happen to me. I do not remember what the file was called, or what song I was downloading, but while it was downloading, my computer automatically shut down. I had assumed it was just the computer malfunctioning, possibly from an overload of memory, and left it alone. The next day when I turned on the computer, the usual start-up screen would not come up, and instead, it was a black screen with white typing, in computer language that I could not understand. I tried various things, pressing buttons and restarting, but nothing helped. After my dad took a look, we brought the computer to the store to get it fixed, but there was nothing that could be done, and the technician told us it was a virus, while I explained how I was downloading music. We had to buy a new computer. On the previous computer, I had a firewall set up, but I did not have a virus blocking software. Thus for the new computer, we installed a virus prevention system, and I was not allowed by my parents to download music. However, I still download music today, and my virus prevention software is out of date. I should’ve learned my lesson, but downloading music for me is a necessity. But I can say that I have been more careful than before picking the files that I download.
If the person that created the file and the virus blamed the user (me) for being careless, and that it was my own fault that my computer was destroyed, I would have to agree. However, although it is my fault that I was careless, the problem would have never existed if it weren’t for virus and the creator in the first place. Obviously the creator made the virus for a malicious purpose. This purpose, whether it be for the self-interest of the creator, for any malware, to get private information or access to another’s computer or just for the evil purpose of destroying someone else’s computer for no reason besides enjoying that fact, will always cause harm or some kind of nuisance to the user. This is morally equal to verbal or physical abuse, but done online. Blaming the user is just an excuse, and can be used as an excuse for physical or verbal abuse as well. The only reason that viruses are treated more lightly is because it is done online and not in reality. Thus, although carelessness may be a factor of the issue, the overall existence of the issue originates from the creator, so it is completely unjust for creators to blame the users, and it is the creator’s responsibility, especially when regarding the law.
