Paxil! It's what's for dinner!

(We'll compare notes later about the effectiveness of both prescriptions....)

Curious: who came up w/ the term "malware" and how long has it been around? I had never seen it until quite recently and have since been seeing it everywhere. Over the past few weeks, I've taken the steps of not just doing Adaware and Spybot, but also switching entirely over to Mozilla, after my mother's recent interesting experiences w/ malware. But despite my paranoia, I am not fully aware of (a) who is responsible for malware (b) what it is meant to do. Just track your comings and goings for marketers? Steal your credit card numbers? Harness your computer's processor for nefarious side projects?

malware (MAL.wayr) n. Computer viruses and other software designed to damage or disrupt a system. Also: mal-ware. —adj. (from Word Spy, who attributes the earliest citation to Klaus Brunnstein, a German expert on computer viruses, in ComputerWorld, July 29, 1991.)

love, your resident linguist-in-training. :D

Thanks, Dot! Yes, Malware is a blanket term for evil software: virii, trojan horses, spyware, keyloggers, zombies, etc. The answers to both a) and b) vary widely. Here are some Ish entries relating to Malware, for your reading pleasure.