The first time i heard VIRUS term was in the context of a Personal Computer and have seen it crash which made all the accounts and details inside it to be lost if there was no backup on non corrupt floppy disks. I saw my father go back to physical paper print outs from a Dot Matrix Printer of Larsen & Toubro Make to verify all the old data and accounts and get started again for data entry. It was painful. The effort was redundant in a cyclic fashion, every now and then we were used to seeing the computers crash and data being tallied. Then came the age of Hard Disks and more robust backups. I remember, as i was tech savvy and geeky my family and friends used to come down to me for recovering the Personal Computers and to help them fix things back. I loved the attention and fixing things back then. Now we live in a time where everything in on cloud and backups are not the thing of worry, VIRUS a thing of the past with Anti Virus installed on most computers, default defenders being provided by Windows, where Linux & MAC are less susceptible to catch a virus.
The first time after dealing with multiple attacks of virtual virus on personal computing from infected Floppies to Thumbdrives to Hard Disks and now relying on Cloud Storage, We are having to deal with a Real Virus attacking us in the real world and we are ducking in our homes, going out virtually under the cover of the Computers or Smart Phones (also computers). Few things are similar between the both:
Vis-a-Vis Comparison
Computer Virus
- Attacks Computers
- Loss of Data in absence of Backup
- Spreads from One to One Interaction (Pen Drive, Email, Floppies etc.)
- Search & Quarantine Files in an effort to Recover
Real Virus
- Attacks Humans
- Loss of live in absence of Immunity
- Spreads from One to One Interaction (Touch, Cough droplets, Sneeze, Any contact surfaces)
- Search & Quarantine Individuals in an effort to Recover
While we were growing up and got introduced to computers in early 90's with 286, 386 and 486 i.e.x86 processors based computers running on DOS with Floppy disks and then Hard Drives, the life was a sudden new Big Calculator which could write and read all the data being written on the disks apart from loving games like PcMan, Prince of Persia, Dangerous Dave etc.. Then came Windows 9X, with mouse and a cute desktop interface and stuff that began to transform the very outlook of a computer into a PC. Internet, Data Exchange started rampantly and then came the Virus issues in the computers.
While the Latter was Man Made, this could be Nature Made.
Probably we need to look a little backwards, learn, create a more balanced eco system and move forward. Its time to retrospect into our own lives in a very subtle and practical way to understand how we can mould the future for all of us especially for our Families and Children.
Lets Think.