Computers and Cops

Reading Paeng's post on computer viruses got me into thinking about the level of protection anyone has to employ vis-a-vis what is available for the system at large (whether computer systems or society in general).

He mentioned that viruses usually get blamed even though it's due to the foolhardiness of the computer user that may have caused it. That may be partly true, since if one's going to surf the net, one has to have adequate safeguards installed on his desktop, like anti-virus and anti-spam software. However, this negates the possibility that viruses can be malicious and overcome even an anti-virus software that hasn't been updated for one day. In addition, more web-based applications (e.g. web mail providers like Yahoo and Gmail) are providing anti-virus scanners for free. Although Paeng might come from a position where the World Wide Web is still pretty much an unstructured place where one relies as much on the next person's goodness and there's no real police authority (thank goodness for that); therefore, a netizen has to be extra careful in protecting his turf (much like the frontiersmen in America's Old West).

However, I can't say the same for non-virtual societies in general. Whenever I see a snatching being shown on TV, the first reaction of the keystone kops are that people should be more careful of what they do on the street… Excuse me? Aren't the taxes enough for these enforcers to do their jobs? And why do we find them lounging around and pinning the blame on the citizenry? Is this why the more affluent employ security guards? I guess there's a failure of the system since another one of this republic's distinction (in addition to divorce & short school system) is the largest number of security guards in a country.

Ok, given that the cops don’t have enough money, I wonder where my taxes are going. I take a look at the Globe Visibility / Smart Bro attached to my computer, the initials of ZTE are there...