There’s an old Cornish prayer (author long unknown) that goes:

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!" I wonder if those ancient Cornish people secretly knew about computers?

We had all better revise this prayer and keep it near our PCs and laptops: From bugs and viruses and run-away technology and things that go crash in my computer, dear Creator deliver me!

This author has experienced some months of "computer anomalies". Not from failing to follow her own advice to "back everything up", and "keep a log of all strange computer behavior", but from the unknowable and sometimes dramatic effects of run-away technology. From a computer damaged during shipping to hardware and software upgrades, "guaranteed to be compatible with current systems". That means they were rushed to market before they were perfected, because the competition was doing the same. (Of course, my natal T-square of Uranus opposing Mercury square Pluto being made into a grand cross by transiting Uranus may have given me a hint of all this challenge - among other heavy aspects.)

RUN-AWAY-TECHNOLOGY

Remember the promise of the wine company not to sell any wine before it was properly aged? Now days, computers are programmed to keep track of the aging of wine, but hardware and software manufacturers exercise little restraint in the constant race for speed in computer technology. IBM has recently made a breakthrough in integrated circuit technology. Within 2 years, copper (Venus) will have replaced aluminum (Moon, Uranus, Jupiter: Rex Bills Rulership Book) in their ICs, tripling computer clock speeds, while lowering the cost of manufacture by 20 - 30%. This will move computer speeds into the gigahertz range, well beyond today’s top-of-the-line 300 megahertz PCs. Norman Edmund, founder of Edmund Scientific Company estimated the number of years it took throughout history for human knowledge to double.

At this rate, knowledge will double every 73 days by the year 2020.

Just trying to keep up makes us careless and keeps us uninformed, and reducing us to hostages of technology. It is difficult to find a plateau and stay there, while keeping our systems running and in sync with our colleagues. It’s difficult to ignore the new advances that promise to fulfill our dreams and provide tools for our research.

The market provides utility programs that promise to fix the problems: Some run out on the internet and bring the latest fixes and drivers back to your computer; some properly remove unneeded or old files and free valuable disk space; and some protect your computer from opportunistic or destructive files and others protect your privacy.

So, what do we do, when confronted with a time hassle with your time-saving device, the computer? If you don't have unlimited funds and a computer wizard on retainer, here is some information that can help start you on the road to recovery.

SYSTEM FAILURE

Let’s begin with system crashes -- the most straight-forward of all computer problems. If your system crashes, it demands immediate attention. If the problem is hardware, and you have everything backed up, your information will be recoverable, but the hardware will have to be repaired or replaced. If you have kept a log, the expense and time lost may be minimal. With a crash, all you need is money and time and a reliable repair facility. If the problem is software, read on.

Bugs

A persistent error in software or hardware. If the bug is in the software (a definite Mercury -Jupiter problem), it can be corrected by changing the program. Most software bugs are approached by software fixes, band-aids (temporary fixes), and upgrades from the manufacturers. If you are a registered owner of the software, you may be notified about an upgrade. Or, if the bug shows up in your system, you may obtain an upgrade from the manufacturer’s technical support. More probably, you will get an advertisement about the next version, accompanied by a discount coupon.

If the bug is in the hardware, (Most likely a difficult Saturn - Uranus interaction in the manufacturing process) new circuits have to be designed.

There are many myths about the derivation of the term, bug: One is attributed to the moth that was found squashed between the points of an electromechanical relay in a computer in the 1940s, another account was found on October 19, 1992, "I found my first "real bug" when I fired up my laser printer, it printed blotchy pages. Upon inspection, I found a bug lying belly up in the trough below the corona wire. The printer worked fine after removing it!"

Computer viruses are executable programs, such as Macros, system files, or those ending in .htm or .exe or .com. Viruses are designed to damage stored information in a computer by compromising existing files, destroying current instructions, and/or reformatting disks. Attributes are: timed execution of function (some are immediate), self replication, surreptitious placement and revelatory messages upon execution (they are seldom anonymously driven -- Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Scorpio). A more benign variety of viruses exist, which constitute the majority. These bury prank messages in the software of a computer, timed to emerge through special triggers. Prank viruses are presumably designed to exhibit the creativity and expertise of the author, to demonstrate his or her power and control, and to gain recognition (Mercury, Sun, Pluto, Gemini, Leo). But, all viruses eat up precious resources.

A computer virus is like a human virus, a mindless self-replicating entity that only has one driving force: survival (Sun, Saturn). In computers, a virus is softwarecode designed to infect a computer and to carry out the function of its author. The virus code is buried within an existing program, and once that program is executed, the virus code is activated. It replicates itself and attaches copies of itself to other programs in the system. Infected programs copy the virus to other programs, and the infection spreads.

A virus is not a data file. Simply reading a document file or an e-mail cannot activate a virus. However, e-mail attachments and Macros may contain viruses which can be activated when executed. Batch files, those that end with .bat can trigger viruses.

Viruses can also hide in shareware, public domain or freeware programs.

The National Computer Security Association claims that only about 5% of the more than 10,000 known viruses are harmful. The majority are benign and are more like pranks created for the sheer joy of power and creativity of the programmer. But an ounce of prevention can prevent your having to initiate a painful cure.

ANTI-VIRUS SAFETY BELTS

Prevention (Mercury, Saturn, Cancer, Virgo) should be the basis of any anti-virus agenda. If you are not a hermit, and have any contact with others’ computer files, or use the internet, or use shareware, or purchase commercial programs -- following these guidelines will help you protect your computer data from invasive destructive forces:

VIRUS HOAXES

Hoaxes spread faster than viruses. They use computer users as their replication engines to help them spread. They play on the user’s fear. They warn the e-mail reader of impending doom and insist that the warning messages be forwarded to everyone else on the planet. They are the equivalent of a chain letter. They also generate guilt: "Suppose I don't pass this warning on, and one of my friends is victimized by this supposed virus? "

Hoaxes emulate real viruses in that they mutate and evolve. Well-intentioned users add extra warnings or rumors of horror stories to these warning messages, making them more believable. They take up precious time and space on the internet and in your e-mail files, creating congestion, just as a human virus creates congestion in the body.

Hoaxes are reminiscent of Chicken Little’s message: The Sky is Falling!! The most obvious lie is that the "dreaded virus" has the ability to send itself by e-mail. Again, viruses must have an executable program in order to proliferate.

What can you do about them when they arrive?

Do not forward the false warning to others.

Delete them immediately.

Do send a message to the person who sent you the hoax message. Tell him or her it's a hoax.

You may also want to refer the sender to the hoax web site (listed in the Web Side Cafe, below), to help shed some light on the subject, and stop knee-jerk reactions to these time-wasters.

Here is a list of some of the most popular Virus Hoaxes:

TROJAN HORSES

Trojan Horse (Mercury, Neptune, 12th house) programs do not replicate and spread themselves as viruses do. Instead, they masquerade as legitimate programs, Users may download these programs, thinking of them as beneficial or a windfall, and run them. For the Trojan horse’s purpose to be fulfilled, users must manually download these files and consciously run them. The vast majority of Trojan Horse programs are written with a destructive intention. The following two examples have, in the past been known as true Trojan horses. All that you need to do is to delete them. Rumors (3rd house, Mercury, Mars, or Pluto) or hoaxes (Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, Mars) are more a distraction than an actual threat to the public. They have caused more damage and concern through their rumored existence than by direct action of such a proposed virus. Trojan horses are rare, such as:

AOL4FREE

This is also the name given to a virus hoax

3D TROJAN (alias PKZIP.EXE)

If you are somehow GIVEN a copy of PKZIP in any of its releases, please contact PKWARE to ascertain its authenticity at support@pkware.com, or go to the PKWARE web site, http://www.pkware.com/ where you can download the latest shareware version of the genuine PKZIP.

The preventive reminder for a Trojan Horse is: "TINSTAAFL" or "There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".

Have a cookie, little girl?

Internet cookies are small strings of text placed on your hard drive without your knowledge or consent, when you visit and move about in a web site. Much like the trail of bread crumbs left by Hansel and Grethel, to help them safely find their way home. Except this trail is laid down by owners of web sites, and has nothing to do with your safety.

Cookies were created as marketing or statistical analysis tools (Mercury, Virgo, 6th house). At worst, they can be insidious spies that insert information on your hard drive that enable web site owners and others to gain data about you that may be stored in your computer. At best, cookies enable commercial web site designers to gather design information to create web sites that are more efficient, pleasing, and usable to web surfers, or to make your address accessible to sites with similar interests. They can be a nuisance -- interrupting the flow of your browsing, but since they are a fact of cyber-life, cookies can store a password, or ID that some sites require as the "price" of entry, so that you need not reenter it when re-visiting that site.

When it comes to on-line privacy, cookies are probably the most discussed and least understood of all issues. Cookies have a distinctive Scorpio trait. They are stealth technology at its most creative. They claim to be benign, but they strike chords within some net surfers that create paranoia and feelings of intrusion (Mars).

Many folks who surf the internet never know that electronic crumbs have been placed in their computers. The default setting in your computer is to allow all cookies to be set. If you are a regular user of the internet, and want to discover the cookies that have already been placed in your hard drive, look in your cookie jar. Search your system directory for a file called cookies.txt on a Windows system, or one called MagicCookie on a Macintosh. Explorer 3.0 places each cookie in its own txt file in a special folder.

The cookie collection file is self generating, so if you delete it, the next time you visit a web site that uses cookies, a replacement file will appear.

Cookies come in many different flavors: Some are bland, and are only read by the web site that places it. Others are spicy, and can be read by others interested in the same subject. Many cookie requests are dated, and are only viewed until the posted date -- usually a year or two in the future.

You can choose whether or not to accept individual cookies. In Internet Explorer through the View menu and Options selections; in Netscape Navigator through the Options menu and Network Preferences/Protocols selection. Click on "Show an alert before accepting a cookie". From then on, whenever a web site wants to set a cookie you will see a pop-up box that gives you the cookie’s description, and a choice to accept or to cancel.

Some cookie requests just give up when you refuse them, others have a bulldog, Mars in Taurus persistence, and keep on asking with every increment of a web page’s download. There are programs on the market that protect your systems, and cookie condums that allow you to block cookies entirely.

There is a real concern that cookies may harbor viruses, but viruses are limited to executable files.

CYBER-SLEUTHS

Privacy is a two edged sword: We astrologers definitely do not like to be categorized or classified (Uranus). Some decline to share their birth data, but will search unrelentingly for such information about others (Sun, Aquarius = the paradox of one’s Sun sign being individual to a person in the context of the natal chart, while also designating him or her as being a member of a group of people with that same Sun sign). While privacy laws in many states forbid the unauthorized distribution of birth data from official sources, we still like to cite the freedom of information act (Saturn, Uranus).

Information is what the internet is all about. Even if you have never owned a modem, or surfed the net, information that you thought was confidential is stored electronically and available to whoever knows how to access it. If you have ever filled out a job application, applied for a social security card, purchased insurance, opened a charge account or a bank account, entered a hospital, or filled out a warrantee card, your electronic crumbs can be traced by those in the know. Any message that you posted to a Usenet newsgroups with a population of over 16,000 can be traced through a site called Deja News. They have been archiving every posting since 1979 when Usenet was founded.

Even without cookies, information about you is accessible when you visit a website. Check out a site called Anonymizer (see THE WEB SIDE CAFE) to see how easy it is to get information about YOU.

DELIVER ME...

So, what about that updated Cornish prayer? Can we shorten it and use it instead of a string of cuss words when the computer goes "Bump"? We have all these potential disasters to look out for: Technology’s time compression, hardware failure, software errors, component incompatability, pilot error, electronic diseases, cybernetic terrorism, diverting projects from well-meaning friends, agressive and stealth marketing, and my own fear and naiveté. And what can I do to support my supplication to the computer gods and goddesses?

The best and most immediate course of action is to address my fears. I can educate and inform myself -- there are plenty of answers available if I make the time to look and ask. If I make it a part of my computer experience to keep myself knowledgeable about this wonderful tool, and to be prepared for major emergencies, my prayer can be shortened to,