Starling Advisory

Our common earthworms are immigrants. A legacy of settlers, they have replaced native earthworms, which are, it seems, extinct. Unlike viruses that cause epidemics, or imported birds that proliferate like starlings, these earthworms respect their environment. So why are computer viruses called worms? “Starlings” is more apt. Also an import, the starling has flourished on our continent for more than a century, earning a reputation as urban pest. Think about these birds congregating by the thousands, nesting here and there, stealing nests as soon as other birds build them. No worm was ever as obstreperous.

The other day I had to delete numerous email messages from computer network administrators advising me that I had tried to send a worm through email. By afternoon, I was an official scourge, like the starling: Felicia, the urban pest, distributing worms. Or was I? I never open unknown attachments, and my virus software is always up to date. A little obsessive, however, I logged on to another virus service and scanned my entire system. I then did a full search of all drives, from my computer to my network drive, for the virus. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t there, but it wanted people to think it was. This virus was as sneaky as a starling.

Computer viruses are sneaky and destructive. I guess that’s why they’re called names like “W32/Mydoom@MM.” That day, one in twelve emails around the world was infected with W32/Mydoom@MM, which created chaos. Imagine all the servers that had to deal with “my” email messages, the ones I didn’t send, along with all the others. Multiply this phenomenon by Internet providers around the world. The mess that resulted was sort of like the mess that results when two thousand starlings party on a cherry tree.

Evidently, W32/Mydoom@MM was intelligent enough to “spoof” email identities. It could generate random email addresses, some real and some fake, in order to spread itself far and wide. It didn’t matter if my computer was healthy or not. People all over the world who didn’t understand computer viruses were going to think I was derelict. Just as a starling will steal another bird’s nest, a computer virus was trying to make the world think that it had stolen mine and that I, in turn, wanted to steal others. How crafty!

Would a worm be smart enough to pretend to be me? The common earthworm is much less flamboyant or even intelligent than W32/Mydoom@MM aspires to be. A starling, in contrast, is intelligent as well as egotistical. Tens of thousands of starlings have been known to infiltrate neighborhoods, causing structural damage to buildings and even clogging water supplies. Internet viruses are like that. They accumulate in flocks and cause lots of damage, not just to other birds’ nests.

I was not sending the virus, but I still felt that my good name, or at least my good email address, was being sullied. Given the litigious nature of our society, I wondered if I should panic. All I needed was a server in Indianapolis to sue me for sending viruses through the Internet. Fortunately, email trails would help my case. One email seemed to originate in Parsippany, New Jersey, while I was seated at a desk in Washington County, Virginia. Starlings do have wings. And no offense, but they all look a lot alike.

I know that not every worm is as wholesome as an earthworm. Some worms are as creepy as viruses, causing problems from intestinal distress to elephantiasis. However, I’m still sticking with the starling metaphor because our starling population acts more like a rampant computer program designed by human folly. In 1890, sixty starlings were imported to the United States by a man who wanted to introduce Shakespeare’s birds to our country. Last count? About ten million. Unlike the most disgusting worm, the starling is a pest because people made it one: just like W32/Mydoom@MM.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 4 February 2004, p. A6. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2004.