Peter H. Gregory

“Three or four countries do have state-sponsored hackers. I shouldn’t name these countries by name, but many of them are known to be hostile to the United States in other ways. Some of these same countries sponsor hackers in order to give us a little trouble.”

“data files aren’t executable, and viruses have to be executed. It’s safest to say that viruses hide only in executable program files.”

“A “better” biological virus — like a computer virus — will perhaps just make its host sick, but still well enough to keep spreading the virus”

“No legitimate corporations will ask you to send them sensitive information via e-mail.”

“virus writers lack the basic social and moral values and the “well-formed consciousness” that are the hallmarks of civilized modern societies.”

“Virus writers are, sociologically, not much different from taggers who spray cryptic symbols on walls, or even the “unofficial” graffiti artists: they feel (or say they feel) justified in doing their work, and have a wanton disregard for the dignity and property of others. They feel not mere justification, but pride in what they do.”

“The people who wrote viruses knew they had to stay one step ahead; they developed ways to make their viruses more difficult to detect.”

“Viruses don’t just happen; people write them deliberately.”

“It’s usually a good idea to restart the computer after changing the registry, as many changes do not take effect until restarting the computer.”

“Check, double-check, and triple-check that you’re deleting the correct branch! This is very dangerousterritory!”

“The Registry is a special database in the computer that contains a multitude (literally thousands) of configuration settings used by Windows and many of the programs installed on the computer”

“If the virus that infected your computer deleted one or more of your files, and you don’t have copies of those files elsewhere, they may be irretrievably gone”

“Be careful, and go slowly. Computers are intolerant of mistakes;they do just what you tell them to do, not what youmeant for them to do.”

“The antivirus program will not wake up your computer if it isn’t running — but if it’s already running, then it doesn’t need to be awakened.”

“It’s more important to install your antivirus software correctly than quickly”

“Buying antivirus software is like buying insurance: It’s important to make a good choice now just in case you need the assistance later.”

“the older versions of Windows that —rumor has it — are equipped with the fabled “time to crash!” feature.”

“if there’s any software you need to be comfortable with, it’s your antivirus software. It’s a lot like automobile tires or insurance: Reliability and performance are not optional”