September 2002

Who Is In Control of Your Computer?
By Beeb Ashcroft

Here is a tongue-in-cheek, only for fun quiz!

Look at your desktop. What’s on it?

• Nothing, except for the basic few desktop icons, arranged just so over my carefully selected ambient wallpaper.

• A bilious green background, with about 500 large icons linking to Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft, and god knows what else on it.

• Some random junk I saved and forgot about, and various programs and files that aren’t even mine. Hmm, wonder how that got there?

• If I could see my desktop over the constantly-appearing pop-up ads, I’d tell you.

You see an ad telling you to download Email Budee 4.0 NOW NOW NOW or you’ll miss out!

Your reaction?

• You shudder at the very thought of having such a horror in your precious hard drive.

• Hey, that looks useful! I’ll download it right now! And if Email Budee prompts me to install any partner software, I’ll go ahead and put that in too.

• That may already be in my computer…but I’m not sure.

• I won’t download it, simply because I’m sick of seeing ads for it every 2 seconds.

What are your thoughts on P2P software?

• You honestly think I’d allow my computer to be that vulnerable? Please.

• What’s P2P? Does that come with that AOL thingy or something?

• I don’t use it too often, but my little brother has about 20 Britney Spears MP3s downloading at the moment.

• I love it! MP3s, videos, software…I can’t get enough!

Your computer dies. What’s the cause?

• Old age. I’m going to install a new hard drive this weekend, and upgrade my RAM while I’m at it.

• Darned if I know. Computer Voodoo, probably.

• One of my friends was messing around in BIOS so they could “speed up my computer” - or something - and now it won’t boot up.

• I got a nasty virus after downloading a fake program off Kazaa. Oops.

How much of your hard drive space are you using?

• Only about ¼ . I only save stuff that I really need.

• I have no idea how to find that out.

• Between my files and stuff other people have downloaded onto it, quite a lot.

• I have 10GB reserved for my MP3 collection.

Lastly, how well do you know your computer?

• Like the back of my hand. We’re so intimate, we may as well be lovers.

• Well, I can turn it on.

• I know it pretty well. And so does Uncle Bob. And his nephew. And my friends. And their friends.

• Almost as well as all those adware companies.

Mostly 1s: Yours alone

Your computer is yours, and yours alone. You watch it like a hawk, making sure that nothing unwanted touches your precious machine. You probably have a firewall and run anti-virus software religiously. Email attachments and spyware are your worst nightmare.

Mostly 2s: Corporate Computer

You’re new to this whole “computer” thing, and don’t really know what all this stuff is. If a site prompts you to download the latest version of Kewelie Kursor, you’ll probably just shrug and hit “OK”. As a result, your computer is filled with a vast collection of useless software. Make friends with the “delete” button.

Mostly 3s: Everyone’s Computer

Your computer is everyone’s best friend. Between your mom checking her email and your know-it-all friends who “help” you by changing all your settings, your machine is quite the social butterfly. Look into password protection.

Mostly 4s: Spyware Computer

You are a pirate of the Internet’s seas – MP3s, movies, bootleg software, you name it, you probably have it in a queued to download. But there comes a price for having every episode of Spongebob downloaded; namely, every spyware company and their brother knows that you have every episode of Spongebob, and sends you ads accordingly. Just update your virus protection regularly, and your beloved multimedia should be safe.