the butterfly effect

The Butterfly Effect: Microsoft, Security, and the Developing World Charles Spencer Oct 17 2005

A year in China:

I recently completed a year teaching English, Computers, and Philosophy at a Chinese university. Around the university, a copy of Windows, on the street, cost the same as a copy of Red Hat Linux or about $1 US. Of course, most Windows software is similarly priced. You can literally find 1-10 guys on every neighborhood block selling copies.

What opened my eyes to the true danger of pirated copies, was the first day I entered a clbuttroom, with my 30 gig portable USB drive. My poor little hard drive, that had been kept safe, sound, and innocent behind a Linux firewall, and never mounted with anything but Linux, was suddenly exposed to the reality of computing in China.

It was a virgin drive in the Windows Red Light district of a Chinese university. I had spent so much time on only Linux systems, that I had forgot what it was to battle Viruses and Spyware with every click of the mouse. I no sooner plugged it in, then a complete ecosystem of viruses promptly installed themselves to every directory on the drive.

At that moment, it occurred to me that I had never seen a copy of a virus scanner or a firewall like Norton or Trend Micro alongside any of those copies of Windows or the latest Hollywood movies ...