The silicon.com Weekly Round-Up: 24.01.03

Thinking of writing a virus? Well think again - there are signs the authorities are beginning to take the matter seriously.

Simon Vallor, a 22 year-old Welshman, was sentenced to two years in jail this week for authoring the 'Gokar' and 'Redesi' mass-mailing worms which have infected around 27,000 computers across 42 countries. And it's not as if Vallor's work will go down in the virus-writers' hall of fame - there have been far more destructive examples. The Anna Kournikova worm of 2001 was a particularly vicious wriggler, but strangely its author was only sentenced to 150 hours' community service by a Dutch court.

Why the discrepancy? Well, international law on these things is non-existent - a bit of harmonisation wouldn't go amiss. But the Round-Up's of the opinion that our Welsh friend was punished in part for his rank stupidity. He may have got away with his misdemeanours if he hadn't gone round boasting about them in an internet chatroom. Idiot.

Meanwhile, another worm has appeared this week, but at least this one has a twist in the tale (no pun intended, because worms don’t have tails of course.) The Sahay worm looks for the presence of an earlier bit of malware, known as Yaha, on your PC. If the new kid on the block finds Yaha, Sahay - the worm with a conscience - actually removes it from the machine. But that's not the end of the story... if you've got Yaha and are then infected by Sahay, you'll receive this email in your inbox:

Title: Exchange viruses? Message: hi there... it seems you were infected with Yaha.k. That worm however, written by an idiot who sPeLls lIkE tHiS, abused my website and got me toreceive (sic) the complaints. Therefore I have just disinfected you.Don't (sic) worry tho (sic)... as I didn’t want to steal from you, I gave you this virus (Win32.HLLP.YahaSux) in return Greetz, Gigabyte [Metaphase VX Team]

It's a bit rich for someone who can't use a space bar properly to bemoan a rival's random capitalisation, but still... ten out of ten for flair and originality. But remember: if you do the crime, be prepared to do the time...

First came the man whose laptop overheated and burnt his nether regions (http://www.silicon.com/a56527 ). Then there was the girl whose machine exploded. South African Nikita Sooklal, 15, had been happily working away on her laptop - reportedly a Dell Inspiron - for all of five minutes when it blew up, causing her second degree burns. And that really isn't funny at all.

We've also heard from one silicon reader whose machine - also a Dell Inspiron - got a tad warm. He was working on it during a flight from Fresno to Dallas in the US and put it briefly on his lap as he folded his table up in preparation for landing - and got a nasty burn as a result. He complained to Dell, who replaced various components, but it was still seriously overheating. In an effort to prove his point to the company, he tried to find out exactly how hot it was getting. He held a mercury thermometer against the refurbished machine. That exploded. And hot mercury isn't very nice. This is beginning to sound like an unfunny episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em now, but we think it's all true. Our friend then called poison control who told him (helpfully) to move the source of heat away from the mercury, get it off his skin and dispose of it. Our man did so, and (inevitably) cut himself on the broken thermometer glass in the process.

So let this be a lesson: using a laptop on your lap top isn't necessarily a good idea.

Microsoft shareholders have long-wondered why the cash-rich company with over $40bn in the bank has never paid a dividend. Well now, finally, it has, bringing some joy to its shareholders who will benefit from a pay-out of 16 cents a share. Some may be able to go out and, say, have a Big Mac and fries on the proceeds. Bill Gates will be better off to the tune of $99.5m. He can probably afford to 'go large'.

If you read the national press you could be forgiven for thinking the net is populated with pornographers and paedophiles. So it's nice to be able to report that a website which tracked the progress of an injured pussy (no, not THAT kind) got over four million impressions last year. Frank the Cat was run over near his home in Linton, Cambridgeshire, in February 2002. His owner then (for some reason) set up a web cam to monitor his recovery. And the net population came flocking to see live pictures of a cat not moving a lot. We know. We were among them. Almost every day. It was compelling stuff. Really, it was.

American citizens will be able to get their hands on the Segway Human Transporter (aka Ginger) in March. They're currently on sale on Amazon for $4,950 - but let's hope no one from San Francisco has ordered one, as their city's big wigs have decided to outlaw the two-wheeled uber-scooter. They reckon they cause more problems than they solve, particularly for the disabled and senior citizens. According to Wired, one of the people who supported the ban said: "There were statistics submitted to us about injuries and the Segways themselves did not have adequate safety features to alert people they might be behind them."

Some sort of bell might be in order then... Segway's manufacturers say there have been no injuries in over 100,000 hours of public testing (although we know of one policeman who fell off one and bruised his knee). For the full debate, see http://www.silicon.com/a56466 .

We hope they become widely used in this country, if only because it may mean we get to see this picture of Prince Charles speeding along on a Segway more often (scroll to the bottom of this marvellous pictorial compenduim of our future king's bizarre life: http://uk.geocities.com/kateranshaw/ph7.html ). And while we're generously driving traffic to other people's websites, have a look at the Round-Up's favourite story of the year so far. It’s got nothing to do with technology. It just made us laugh. And as the Readers Digest has been saying for years, laughter is the best medicine (unless you've burnt yourself on a laptop, have glass embedded in your skin and a touch of mercury poisoning, of course).

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_740604.html?menu=news.weirdworld.animaltales

Until next week...