The Internet was under attack this weekend. In South Korea things got so bad that net service for the whole country was actually stopped for a few hours.

While in the US people trying to use Bank of America cash machines were left empty-handed. The problems were caused by a program called ‘Sapphire’ or ‘Slammer’.

It works by taking over a computer running a particular Microsoft program and then looking for other computers running the same program so that it could take them over too.

Every time you enter a web address in your browser and click ‘Go’ your computer sends a message over the Internet, trying to find the page you want.

Each copy of Sapphire sends out lots of messages when it is looking for other computers to take over.

Then the whole internet rapidly became clogged up and even computers which were not directly affected by it were unable to connect to each other.

Fortunately it was easy to get rid of Sapphire once you knew it was there, so the attack was dealt with pretty rapidly and by Sunday evening things were back to normal.

Slimy Worms

Programs like Sapphire, that spread from computer to computer over the internet, are called worms because they crawl over the network.

In summer 2001 a worm called Nimda worried lots of people when it started to spread, but it did not do nearly as much damage as Sapphire has done.

Sapphire isn’t the sort of program that affects home computers. The program it attacks, SQL Server, is used by businesses to store vast quantities of information.

We only notice its impact because the net slows down or we can’t get through to websites which use SQL Server.

The good news is that this worm, which could have done so much damage, was dealt with efficiently by thousands of computer experts around the net.

But the bad news is that there will be more and more attacks like this, and some of them will be launched by people who really want to stop the net working. One day they might manage it.

The programs we all use have lots of errors in them, but normally we don’t notice or care about them.

These errors, called bugs, can be used by clever programmers to stop our computers, steal information or clog up the network.

Sapphire relied on a bug in a program from Microsoft, and their chairman Bill Gates has promised to take security a lot more seriously in future.

I hope he means what he says, but perhaps we need some changes to the law to make sure that he does.

After all, if every business that was knocked offline by Sapphire could sue Microsoft then I’m sure they really would take notice.

Do we need changes in the law?
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There are few things more exciting than the first ever email message you get from a friend. It really makes you feel you’re arrived online.

And there are few things more depressing than your first ‘spam’ message, the unwanted and unasked for adverts that make so many of our lives miserable.

You might be offered the opportunity to ‘copy any dvd with one click’, ‘get out of credit card debt’ or even ‘order viagra, diet pills & more with NO PRESCRIPTION’.

Often you might get an invitation to visit an adult website - complete with some sample pictures.

Or, be asked to help a dodgy Nigerian civil servant smuggle money out of their country (of course, this is a scam which will end up costing you money instead).

These are all among the most irritating spam messages of 2002 according to Surf Control, who make a program to help you block them out.

And they are becoming a bigger problem for all net users, as the volume of spam increases.

And my personal hate? The spam messages that say ‘click here to unsubscribe’ when they are really only interested in finding out that your email address.

Their aim - to find out if it is still current so they can send you even more rubbish!

Fed up with Spam?
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