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Ahh, April Fools day. The day that it's acceptable for important news programs to release stories about UFOs, and for normal (cough) people walk up to each other shouting 'OH NO your Mum's dead! Not really hahahahaha'. However, this year it's been slightly more extreme than usual, with the news that the Conflicker virus will cause something along the lines of a doomsday. And guess what! Nothing happened! Or at least, I don't think it did. I haven't seen any angry mobs looting shops and the usual suspects are still online, playing WOW as if nothing's changed. Let me just sum up what I think happened with the virus. A company like Symantec (April fools! Everybody knows hat the makers of Norton are clueless) took the virus apart, looked at its code and saw when it was next going to be given new orders by its makers. The date was set for April the 1st, so they rightfully told the world. Either a news company or an excitable viruskiller-website-watcher picked it up and thought 'Oh lets blow his out of all proportion, much like I did with the Hadron Collider!'

As people like to do when they hear a depressing story that could potentially affect themselves, they passed it on to others. And so it spread, the virus makers thinking 'Oh look, this one become famous, lets make more and try to get the same success ourselves!' while normal people paniced, spread rumours and kissed their loved ones goodbye. Speaking of which, did you know there was a large outcry about a movie involving a gay Jesus and his sex life with his deciples? There were huge petitions to get it banned and- you've guessed it- there wasn't even a film about it in the first place.

What ever. You're probably thinking that the title of this blog has something to do with people trying to help by passing on messages which are actually fake and spam-like, but you'd be wrong. I'm talking about creative people. Those with imagination. Those who like to make a difference. My Mum always asks why there are people out there who write viruses. Why would they spend so much time making something to harm others? Are they sick, twisted people? Are they criminals, looking for money? Or are they people just looking for a reaction? Doesn't everybody love building up dams on the beach, only to make a small hole in it and watch as it gets larger and larger, until their dam bursts, proceding to destroy every other dam further down river with the resulting surge? (Yes I'm guilty of that). Take the Joker from the latest Batman film. What a great character. He's obviously very intelligent and acts as if he knows something that no one else knows. Things always seem to go the way he planned them to. Does he have a purpose? A goal? A... PLAN?!?! No! Or at least, not in the movie. If he was to write a virus, he'd leave something in the code saying 'April 1st' just to see if anybody else notices and gets all worked up about it. I'm tempted to make a game where there's a tiny, tiny chance of something weird happening when you play it. In fact, Scrumpy Ninja and the Bad Eggs has a 1 in 100 chance of spawning a window some where randomly in the game which then follows you until it catches up and kills you. I did this just to get a reaction, to see if anybody would notice or experience it for themselves. I'm sad to say that it hasn't happened yet. But it'll be worth it when I google the game and find a forum post on a Russian website with a worked up user talking about how he got attacked by a window. It's not out of malice or evilness, just simply out of curiosity. And I can assure you that if some one actually notices these things, I'll be more inclined to do them in future. In a similar vein, expect far more virus writers embedding hints ino their code, implying that it'll cause doom and chaos on a certain date in the near future... and more chaim messages via email and youtube, as they also get a response, normally fuelled by the large numbers of 'normal' people who seem to enjoy spreading stuff like this. Virus writers aren't necessarily evil. They're probably just bored and are fed up of being ignored. They need something constructive to do! I'm sure that all of those people who ask 'What's that song called?' on youtube (when the name is in the title itself) are actually just bored people looking for a reaction, too. Virus killers are a necessary evil, even if their presence actually encourages yet more viruses to be made. Think of the Batman film again. (WARNING: stupidly in-depth look at the plot coming up). Remember how everybody blamed Batman for the Joker's attacks? Remember feeling confused when everybody believed it and wanted Batman to turn himself in? This shows two things. Firstly, the way the majority just likes being able to blame something for a bad event. Secondly, it shows the sort of escalation they talk about at the end of Batman Begins (Normal bad guys, super hero turns up, normal bad guys get beaten, it results in more powerful bad guys turning up). Same with virus writers. If it weren't for Kaspersky and AVG, there wouldn't be so much hype about viruses. There would probably be fewer around (Or it would have led to the destruction of the computer industry). Some types of people are stuck doing the same things. Attention seekers will move about, based on what gives the greatest payback. Whether it's trolling forums, team killing people in-game or writing viruses, there will always be trouble makers.

So how can we stop these sorts of people? Encourage creativity. Ignore stupidity and chaos. It's harder than it sounds, what with the appeal of conspiracy theories and exciting news stories. However, i would be worth it to try and get these 'trouble makers' onto your side. Imagine what the virus writers could achieve if they spent all of their spare time making computer games. Or how the Joker could have improved Gotham City if he wanted to. Some people just want to make a big splash, and it's in out best interests to make it as beneficial as possible. Until people can do that... LOOK! your hair's on fire!