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Reuters: 80% of Chinese Computers Virus Infected 362

Posted by chrisd from the flawed-methodologies-day dept.
Alien54 writes "A rueters news report says that 80% of computers in China have been touched by a computer virus. They quote a a six-week survey conducted by the [Chinese] National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center cited in the official China Daily newspaper."
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Reuters: 80% of Chinese Computers Virus Infected More

Reuters: 80% of Chinese Computers Virus Infected

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  • goldmine for software publishers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Diver777 ( 614939 ) <.jjtimmer. .at. ... th.uwaterloo.ca.> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:41PM (#4426651) Homepage
    Can someone say goldmine for anti-virus makers, at least ones that can produce a chinese version of their product... but oh yeah, with the insanely high % of piracy as well, it doesn't look like anyone would buy the product legit!

    • Re:goldmine for software publishers (Score:4, Informative)

      by f97tosc ( 578893 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:47PM (#4426735)
      Anti-virus software is actually more difficult to pirat than most other software.

      The idea is that you must visit the vendor's web site frequently and download the latest update.

      Tor
    • The high percent of Piracy wouldnt matter if they made it cost $$$ (or whatever currency they use) to update virus definetions. Make them sign up and account and give them a unique #. When they update they only get the viruses that have been added since last time that # downloaded an update. Therefore if 2 people share a number then they effictivly split there protection 50/50. Yes they could get around this. But its worth a try. -Geek

    • Further clarification (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This brief but rather trenchant opinion piece on the same subject ran yesterday in Asahi Shimbun; reading it, you can see that the media in Japan (as usual) have a considerably firmer grasp on what's happening in China than the American media...

      Zuho ba: Ika sowo puzu sebe howyeka? Zokobu kafu gegu? Rude uge ge! Meyurimi wogitasesoshiki wawo oe te. Tozeyo sa? Yomanoyudami shi nigamotekaba wyiza sotawo dakokiya. Chishi iero ohena gibiepeha aka... Dezawye mizega iso kuwowoke ganido didohize... Gosu teparupahogipu wowye setachi. Zuruda ipu! Gidi moki zomobu nuwapo moe. Chinmu owyino: Wyefube niyunuwyi moka wowodihe yowa, pe shibu, hiramemi heha!

      Henu watsu: Miru pigukinu bokikekaji nabigadapanute bitsu regetsupogenuto, dibukisumafu kemosa hinekoebiwye tsunuhidesashi. Dupa gada saru zomudi wowyede, yaitara zogo! Dachiba teramatawyezoba sewye gabagu bibi.

      Popun hizeki podibuho, chirute zashiwye budi kukeki, punepechiba wyeki ara tee se. Mutere deradebo wabahi purobi... Uruko riwyi doze orowo bezu. Bozu ru zushi zarepezumaewo zoba zoto, roba budisa bepowa dakope... Ro zaya hiado sajichi watadewazepuhe. Nsudise on yapeta moho, howo ama tamana yuwyewohe yokimosawoe. Achi kamihakodebu, nobowomu warapu kepuowatsu, gogena woyoshi, yamubu hawyibepa naza zuyouki mini, mipu konoi, budufu wawobe iro shipiya ruwa. Duyowo wyepuyu dugopa benwo hiba? Oniatayuro suza rapou nokurepokumabo. Muwaso toze riwabu upaka, bapezo rozane gowogu neki. Nekokeki shisai nirapoa dubadukewyiyu! Areshi zubadoduso. Yudara ka nuni semaduzaropu moregi dagote. Kagesefusami itazu imatoso zohaba notsuda, zusutsu haru?

      Uhode agebi. Do remuto nasogotsu ginu chiwahafurigipe. Mohi natamu. Kon bakasumo tsuheo gujiwye roke miwagi, yobo tsuha.

    • Re:goldmine for software publishers (Score:4, Funny)

      by CaffeineAddict2001 ( 518485 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:55PM (#4426827)
      The virus rate is probably so high because all the software is black market.

      You kniw your screwed when you go to open outlook and Mr. Paperclip exclaims "FALUN GONG IS GOOD!"

  • Thank Goodness! (Score:5, Funny)

    by norweigiantroll ( 582720 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:41PM (#4426653)
    That "Great Firewall Of China" does a lot of good!

  • In Other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4426660)
    80% of China's computer run windows

    • Re:In Other news (Score:4, Insightful)

      by L33t-Geek ( 614706 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:53PM (#4426812)
      With all the piracy in Asia on products like windows how hard would it be for one of those "bandits" to slip a virus into the installation process? Since there buying it pirated who they gonna whine to? Microsoft? LOL! If those "bandits" arent alread slipping these viruses on there illegal copies look for it to start happining soon. -Geek

      • Re:In Other news (Score:5, Informative)

        by dildatron ( 611498 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:33PM (#4427176)
        I suspect this happens quite a bit. From what I have heard from a guy I know down there, pirates software is as plentiful as stink on shit, and really really cheap. He also said it was definately buyer beware, cause you never know what you're gonna get. Even Microsoft has released infected CD's, imagine the piraters - they are just after the almighty dollar (or yen in this case) - they don't have near all the checks companies go through before they release a product, and they are often not "Exact" duplicates because much of the software has been cracked (and therefore edited).

        reminds me of AIDS in Africa. No end in sight.

        • Re:In Other news (Score:3, Informative)

          by broken_bones ( 307900 )
          they are just after the almighty dollar (or yen in this case)

          It's kind of nitpicky, but in China they use the Yuan not the Yen.

          1 Yuan = 14.9331 Yen = 0.120817 USD

  • Incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drhairston ( 611491 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4426668) Homepage
    I must point out a factual inaccuracy in the article summary. It is not stated that 80% of Chinese computers have at one point experienced a virus infection. In fact, it is stated that over 80% of a sample group of Chinese computer users believed they had been infected with a virus. This perception is a much muddier number, considering I know many of my colleagues believe that advertising pop-up ads for casinos are actually computer viruses.

    Here is the source for my observation:

    "Only 16 percent of computer users we sampled this year reported they were free from any virus attack, while last year nearly one in three users said they suffered no computer infections," the newspaper quoted the center's chief engineer, Zhang Jian, as saying.

    • Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:48PM (#4426752)
      I must point out that most people have NO idea when they are infected with a virus, especially email borne ones.

      These people think that mail sent by the viruses that are being returned to them are actually others accessing their computer and emailing from it. They have no idea that they have contracted a virus at all.

      "I have a virus scanner!"

    • Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Funny)

      by back_pages ( 600753 ) <<back_pages> <at> <cox.net>> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:51PM (#4426783) Journal
      My girlfriend's sister (citizen of Hong Kong) had a computer that was acting up. She decided it had liver cancer. I told her that computers don't have livers, she didn't care. I told her that computers don't get cancer, she didn't care. I told her that a computer virus had nothing in common with a medical virus, she didn't care. Her computer had liver cancer.

      The best part was that she took it to a repair shop where I assume the employees either played along or took her for a ride. They returned her computer a few days later and told her they gave it a liver transplant. She was very proud of that fact that she knew more about computers than I did.

      • works both ways? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:08PM (#4426959) Journal
        They returned her computer a few days later and told her they gave it a liver transplant.

        But it starts to get scary if you get sick in China, and the doctors ask which brand of harddrive you want installed in place of your appendix.

        • Re:works both ways? (Score:5, Funny)

          by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:20PM (#4427065)
          Look for increasing numbers of death sentences for PCs, with their parts immediately going for transplants into newer PCs that can afford the price.

        • Re:works both ways? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Urox ( 603916 ) <luthien3 AT juno DOT com> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:21PM (#4427068) Journal
          But it starts to get scary if you get sick in China, and the doctors ask which brand of harddrive you want installed in place of your appendix.

          What was scary is that I stayed in a 5 star hotel, went to their "on-site" doctor, and he swabbed iodine over a bite that had been infected on my leg (andwas swollen 6 inches across) and thought that would take care of it. Fortunately, the tour guide took me to a "hospital" where the doctor there gave me antibacterial drugs to fight the infection.

          Interestingly enough to keep this on topic: you know that the chinese word for computer translates to "electric brain," right? (dian nao) I wonder what the internals are called..

          • Re:works both ways? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by bellings ( 137948 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @10:28PM (#4429333)
            you know that the chinese word for computer translates to "electric brain," right? (dian nao) I wonder what the internals are called..

            Wow! You know, the english word for computer translates to "computer", which is a person who does arithmetic computations all day.

            And the english word for mother board translates to "mother board", which should be enough to give anyone pause about those very strange westerners...

          • Re:works both ways? (Score:3, Informative)

            by bellings ( 137948 )
            What was scary is that I stayed in a 5 star hotel, went to their "on-site" doctor, and he swabbed iodine over a bite that had been infected on my leg (andwas swollen 6 inches across) and thought that would take care of it.

            Dude, you want to hear something really scary? I went to an American doctor with a cold, and he gave me an antibiotic! Is that insane, or what? Those american doctors are complete and total fucktards, I think.

      • Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Funny)

        by dildatron ( 611498 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:35PM (#4427197)
        I think that happens a lot in China! I go this one email, and it said that people steal your livers and you wake up in a bath full of ice without a liver! maybe they are needing them for their computers? i can forward it to you if you need it!

      • Re:Incorrect (Score:4, Funny)

        by Wireless Joe ( 604314 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:56PM (#4427425) Homepage
        Meanwhile, somewhere in a Hong Kong bordello, there is a computer just waking up in a bathtub full of ice chips and a big crack in the side of it's case.

      • Re:Incorrect (Score:4, Funny)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @05:05PM (#4427510) Journal
        They returned her computer a few days later and told her they gave it a liver transplant.

        What a dumbshit! Real repair shops recognize the real problem was the Flux Capacitor. My local PC shop told me so. Those Chinese technicians are such greedy snakes. Thank heaven for Yankey Honesty.
    • In fact, it is stated that over 80% of a sample group of Chinese computer users believed they had been infected with a virus

      Well, since every spam message I get from that part of the world reads like a Sircam virus email, I'm not suprised that they all believe they've been exposed.

      "Engrish" as a second language, you know...

    • Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phsolide ( 584661 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:59PM (#4426864)
      over 80% of a sample group of Chinese computer users believed they had been infected with a virus

      I'll believe in this belief. Years ago, maybe 1989 or 1990, I had a conversation with an engineer at then-major aerospace company Martin Marietta. He was no dummy, but he carried the misbelief that a computer virus was something that occurred naturally, like an influenza virus, or herpes.

      In conjunction with the "if anything's wrong with my computer, it's a virus" phenomena you see every day amongst business types, an 80% belief rate isn't unlikely, even in the USA.

      I blame the Anti-Virus industry at least partially for this. Members of the AV community are so tight-lipped about viruses that they end up being almost mystical. AV people seem to believe that any real information about a virus or worm will foster further virus and/or worm writing. So they don't give out any real information (like "Using Outlook will inevitably cause you to get infected. Switch to something else"). They even seem to have helped the trend of calling any malware a "virus" because of this.

      • Re:Incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

        by giminy ( 94188 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:33PM (#4427173) Homepage Journal
        I blame the Anti-Virus industry at least partially for this. Members of the AV community are so tight-lipped about viruses that they end up being almost mystical. AV people seem to believe that any real information about a virus or worm will foster further virus and/or worm writing. So they don't give out any real information (like "Using Outlook will inevitably cause you to get infected. Switch to something else"). They even seem to have helped the trend of calling any malware a "virus" because of this.

        Maybe they just want to keep themselves in business. If everybody fled from Outlook, there would not be as strong a need for virus checking software, now would there? :).

    • Agreed - Anyone read Chinese? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ted_Green ( 205549 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:59PM (#4426869)
      If the methods used were the same as those from the last survey: http://www.antivirus-china.org.cn/

      Then the results are highly questionable. As it was an online survey. Without knowing the methods for all we know it could have been a website poll... and considering it's the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center doing the survey then individuals completing the survey are probably more likely to be affiliated with such a site because they've *had* a virus.

      Does any one actually read Chinese so they could give us the full story? The site's homepage is here:
      http://www.antivirus-china.org.cn/

      • Re:Agreed - Anyone read Chinese? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by omega_cubed ( 219519 ) <wongwwy@@@member...ams...org> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:21PM (#4427069) Journal
        I scanned the whole site. There's no mention of such a survey on the site. I don't actually think the survey is conducted by antivirus-china.org.cn/

        However, I did find something rather amusing:
        On the website, when ever they found a new virus appearing in China, they list a newsreport saying:

        The virus ZZZ now invades China.

        And judging by the post dates, the great firewall is actually quite nice. Moreover, they have the best vius protection/know how tutorial I've ever seen on any website, and admittedly, for a Chinese speaker, the way they describe syptoms and methods of removal for individual viruses are much more friendly then even synmantec.

        W

      • On the other hand, the results can be *very* reliable if they follow these steps:

        1. Infect the server running the poll.

        2. Ask, "Do you run a firewall?"

        There will be a direct correlation between the percentage of people who answer "no" and the percentage of virus-infected machines.

  • Filtering and viruses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TibbonZero ( 571809 ) <Tibbon&gmail,com> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4426669) Homepage Journal
    If China's gov't can filter so much of the content that their citizens view, you would think that they would somehow figure out how to filter viruses in email attachments and stuff (which is possible)

    Or PERHAPS, the name of the Virus is Win32.China.Is.Spying.On.Its.Citzens.Virus

    Hmm

    • Re:Filtering and viruses (Score:2, Informative)

      by kevlar ( 13509 )
      Not likely. Blocking out websites by domain/ip is much simpler than actually scanning incoming packets for viruses. Any trained monkey can designate a website to block. However identifying a unique signature of a virus and applying that to all of China's gateways before it infects a fair # of boxes requires far more money and man power than they'd ever care to pay. Besides, lots of computer viruses written today are FROM China.
      • I dunno, at Time Warner where I used to work, we did a bit a filtering on viruses on our email server as well as some spam filtering if I remember right. I know that there were some people who did nothing but work on these servers. I could be wrong, but I think it's doable, perhaps not easily, but it's doable.

        Ya don't think that some of the viruses are to spy on the chinesse public? nah...

  • 10,000 lbs per acer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by red5 ( 51324 ) <gired5@gmail . c om> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4426670) Homepage Journal
    I know it's a tired argument but most of the news in china is made up.

    I just wonder what would China have to gain by saying all their computers are 0w3d? Is it the "National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center" trying to get more funding?

    • Because of this massive virus infection, the Chinese gub'mint must take complete control of its citizens computers. US gub'mint to soon follow suit because freedom-hating Iraqi virus writers are threatening our country's freedoms. To prevent our freedom, we must destroy it.

    • Re:10,000 lbs per acer (Score:2, Insightful)

      by inerte ( 452992 )
      You:
      I just wonder what would China have to gain by saying all their computers are 0w3d?

      Reuters:
      Computer viruses are small programs often sent via e-mail or hidden in other software. Once inside a computer, they can do malicious tasks like erase data or reproduce and send copies to other machines over the Internet.

      You + Reuters = The Great Firewall [wired.com]

      You + Reuters = Software Piracy [newsfactor.com]

  • This proves what we knew all along... (Score:4, Funny)

    by 403Forbidden ( 610018 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:43PM (#4426676)
    That Chinese people like opening temping attachments that promice love, porn, dancing bears, and greeting cards. O_o

    on a serious note:
    My computer has only been infected twice, both of them rare and harmless viruses. In the past year I have had zero infections... unless you are downloading every single program you can get your hands on or are opening attachments like an AOL newb viruses aren't that big of a problem. (or Kazaa users, but I won't go there. I use WinMX)

  • Misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:44PM (#4426692) Homepage
    80% of computers in China have been touched by a computer virus

    Typical Slashdot journalism. "touched by a virus" is far different than "infected by a virus". My computer gets touched by viruses all the time, but it never actually gets infected, because I keep my apache (the only service running) up-to-date.

  • Not very surprising, Language barrier plays a role (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Amadaeus ( 526475 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:44PM (#4426695) Homepage
    It's not extremely surprising. Most asian computer users are still not very well versed in the English language, and that is proven in some of the email text found on virus infected emails.
    Because of the poor grasp of English, emails with attached 'cute wallpaper', 'nude pics of Brittney', and 'Figures you please review' will be opened 8 our of 10 times.
    Without a big flashing strobe light on top of monitors that would alarm when an infected email appears, most asian users will continue to open infected email without a second thought.
  • On the one hand, this is great traditional news for Linux. As everyone knows by now, the superior development model of the GNU Source system precludes infection by virices. So as these computers' users get fed up with crashes and unexplained data theft, they are sure to migrate to the harder-to-use but eminently-secure Linux platform in droves.

    On the other hand, this could be the start of something big. There is reason to believe that "junk DNA", which comprises about 90% of the human genome, is leftover virus DNA. How much of human evolution was driven by viral infection either indirectly or directly? Might the same happen to computers? I think it might be smart to leave China's computii infected and see if an AI evolves. Put up a firewall, of course, in case of a Predator scenario.

    • in case of a Predator scenario

      Umm, I think you meant Species, right?

  • what about in US? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ralphie98 ( 588409 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:45PM (#4426706)
    It probably isn't much better here in the US. I know that where I work, before we got our network anti-virus, it was probably close to 95% of computers had been touched by a virus. The email based virii spread through the whole company in 2 weeks max.
  • I guess they really do share everything then...

  • Solution: Open Source Anti-virus Software (Score:5, Informative)

    by ddkilzer ( 79953 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:46PM (#4426726)
    See Clam AntiVirus [elektrapro.com] and OpenAntiVirus [openantivirus.org].

  • attacked? (Score:3, Funny)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:46PM (#4426731) Homepage
    "Only 16 percent of computer users we sampled this year reported they were free from any virus attack"

    My computer is attacked on a daily basis, but my computer is virus free...

  • Quote from the article... (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:48PM (#4426748) Homepage
    Computer viruses are small programs often sent via e-mail or hidden in other software. Once inside a computer, they can do malicious tasks like erase data or reproduce and send copies to other machines over the Internet.

    I find it disturbing that in the year 2002, Reuters still has to explain to people what a "computer virus" is.

    Jesus Christ. What's next, a description of the keyboard as "that typewriter thing on the desk" and the monitor as "the TV thing with all the pictures" ?

    • Re:Quote from the article... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ohboy-sleep ( 601567 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:35PM (#4427191) Homepage
      What's next, a description of the keyboard as "that typewriter thing on the desk" and the monitor as "the TV thing with all the pictures"

      I do online tech-support for an internet company and unfortunately I have to do that far too often.

      Me: Hit the Escape or E-S-C key. It's at the top left corner of your keyboard.
      Cust.: I don't see it.
      Me: Are you looking at the top left corner of your keyboard?
      Cust.: Yes.
      Me: Are you looking at the top left corner of your keyboard or your screen?
      Cust.: What's the difference?
      Me: The keyboard is the typewriter thing
      Cust.: [silence]
      Me: It's where you place your fingers with all the number and letter keys.
      Cust: Oh, okay!

      Sorry, I had to vent...
  • I personally have been 'touched' by many viruses (virii?) in the past, but they all got stopped by my antivirus.... i guess i would count as being in that 80%..... Touched is not the same as infected.....

  • The FLu season (Score:5, Interesting)

    by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:51PM (#4426791)
    Its widely agreed that most flu come from asia, china specifically. Indeed this is what deterimes which flu you get vaccinated for each winter: they look at china and see what they've caught in the precedding month. Some beleive the new flus arise out of livestock practices of mixing ducks, pigs and humans in close proximity creating a host (duck) where the flu mutates quickly without harming the host, a stepping stone where it adapts (pigs) which are similar to humans, and then a final host (human) that can easily deliver it to humans.

    so now we have a computer virus incubator too.

    which leads to an interesting thought. maybe some days viruses will be created by computers and breed like flu does. They will gather strenght in a compliant population (china) before emerging to the real world.

  • Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:51PM (#4426792)
    I don't know about you guys, but their Outlook problems do not have me worried.

    These people have robot dogs, and robot fish, and giant robots with guns for heads.

    Yeah, that's right Norton, get on the m*therfucker.

  • With this many infected Chinese computer systems infected it's no wonder all my warez are infected. I think them Chinese people should check for computer viruses before sending me my warez =]

    it's a good thing all my illegal VHS tapes I have can't be played on my system =]

  • Easily believeable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MxTxL ( 307166 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:54PM (#4426818)
    I used to live in Beijing... as an american there you would be astonished at the rate of piracy. We're used to maybe picking up a copy of photoshop from a buddy, or you know someone who will burn you a copy of windows.... there they sell about any commercial software product (not too long after release) on pressed CDs (with case and jacket) for about a buck in just about any open marketplace. Needless to say, there are not too many people with 'real' versions of the software running around.

    The problem with these CDs is that they have been cracked (so people can use them) by who-knows-who and frequently have other 'things' floating around on the CDs and i'm sure there huge numbers of virii that are being distributed in this way. It's really easy to picture an 80% infection rate. It's kinda like a high school computer lab where all the kids trade floppy disks and there is no anti-virus protection.... everyone has it before long.

    • Re:Easily believeable (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )
      I used to live in Beijing... as an american there you would be astonished at the rate of piracy.

      While in Hong Kong as a turist some aquaintences took us to a shop that specialized in pirate-ware. It had rows and rows of pirated CD's.

      Only half of them worked when I got home and tried them........um I mean whan a friend tried them. Some were truncated at the end, and others were too thin to spin properly in the drive. Masking tape helped some.

      I think in Chinese thinking, intellectual property "rights" is kind of a silly idea. It is not something tangable, and thus not protectable in philosophy. They tend not to trust banks either, because the money becomes "virtual" instead of something physical. Perhaps they have been burned by banks in the past. I don't know.

      Is Richard Stallman Chinese by chance?

      In Conton they sold phoney tiger corpses in the street. That is good because tigers are nearly extinct. Some things are good to pirate.
    • I agree completely. I now live in South Korea and software piracy runs rampant. You can go to any electronics market and get any type of software you want. If they don't have it they say they can get it for you. They have even gone as far as to crack PS2, GameCube, and Xbox games and sell them for a just a few dollars apiece. You can get any kinnd of media for next to nothing here, it is terrible.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Chinese math.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <frank AT fperkins DOT com> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:56PM (#4426839) Homepage Journal
    Only 16 percent of computer users we sampled this year reported they were free from any virus attack

    100-16 = 80%

    Must have a loose nut on the old abacus.

  • Viruses?! China uses Linux, right? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:56PM (#4426847) Homepage Journal
    80%?! I thought the majority of China is using Linux? What happened to all that press about Linux taking over Asia? [misweb.com] I guess pirated Windows is still considered "free software."
    • Since "Bugbear" is a Windows virus, then that probably answers your question.

      Linux in China is a big movement that is begining to start, but it will certainly take some time to become adopted. Nobody has been *forced* to use Linux.
    • The use of Linux only applies for some companies and part of the government. But the vast majority of "normal users" use Windows. They have to, no other operating system support Chinese input as well as Windows. And they rely on Microsoft Word docs. The situation is not much different than here.

  • Why? (Score:3, Funny)

    by |Cozmo| ( 20603 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @03:57PM (#4426850) Homepage
    Haven't they figured out how to pirate norton antivirus?

  • Most Chinese don't own the computer they use... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sssmashy ( 612587 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:01PM (#4426895)
    They go to internet cafes instead. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those cafes had a virus infection of 100%. Most of the cafes that are cheap enough to be affordable are unlicensed and poorly maintained.

    Earlier this year, once such cafe caught fire and 40 users died. The PRC responded by shutting down thousands of these establishments... at least for a while.

  • Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sirgoran ( 221190 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:04PM (#4426925) Homepage Journal
    That I'll get less spam from them?

    Just wondering.

    -Goran

  • crisis and opportunity (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ilan Volow ( 539597 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:04PM (#4426929) Homepage
    Articles I've read on business management repeatedly cite the fact that the Chinese word for "crisis" also means "opportunity". I wonder if the Chinese word for "computer virus" also means "really cool pirated software with unexpected features".

  • Spam related? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 )
    Knowing the amount of spam coming from there, maybe are a lot of spammers spreading virus in china. Maybe (I hope) someone think that is time to take extreme measures on spammers because of this
  • Only 16 percent of computer users we sampled this year reported they were free from any virus attack

    If you asked the same question in an European country or in the US, the result would be "84 percent of computer users reported 'Huh?!' when asked whether their computer had been infected by a virus during the year". The environment is naturally much more hostile there in China, with over 90% piracy rate. It is actually a small miracle that "infected computers percentage" is lower than piracy rate.

  • Survey methodology? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rev.LoveJoy ( 136856 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:12PM (#4426999) Homepage Journal
    There is no detail about how this 'survey' was carried out.

    Try this, ask 10 computer users (users, not geeks) these two questions:

    1). Have you ever had a strange computer problem?

    2). Think it could have been a virus?

    I would lay money that you can find an 80% 'touched by a virus' rating on any group of people you like.

    Anyone familar with the social sciences and / or statistics realizes that corrolation does not equal causation. However, if you're a gov't agencey (as one reader posted previously) in need of funding, corollation = causation is a very useful tool. Even more so when you engineer the corollation part.

    This article is a waste of time.

    Cheers,
    -- RLJ

  • And the number one reported virus was:

    BRUE SCLEEN OF DEATH!

  • And every single one of them... (Score:5, Funny)

    by zorgon ( 66258 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @04:15PM (#4427024) Homepage Journal
    ... is sending me spam.
  • What do you bet that 80% of the 80% are also pirated copies of windows?
  • This is an easy problem to fix. All these people need to do is search for "Virus Protection" on Google [google.com] and ... oh wait ...

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john.jmaug@com> on Thursday October 10, 2002 @05:24PM (#4427684)
    A recent study by some guy down the street reveals that over 75% of all statistics are made up. "It comes as a real shocker to me, especially since 90% of all my decision making all day is based on statistics" says one local woman. The police chief says they're getting closer to figuring out who's releasing these made up statistics. He says "Well 85% of made up statistics are things people hear on a site known as Slashdot, and are then taken as fact, and passed on slightly distorted." "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." says local resident Benjamin Disraeli.

    Well before everyone gets all ready to donate anti-virus software to china, please read the article. They don't mean 80% of all computers in china right at this moment have a virus. They're talking about 80% of the computers they sampled, they MAY have been infected (at one time). I'm sure in america the numbers pretty high too, there's just no statistics (yet). So here we go, according to ME, 90% of all computers I've ever fixed in America at one time had a virus.

  • Vietnam (Score:3, Informative)

    by smiggly ( 235904 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @06:17PM (#4428108)
    I was in Vietnam over the summer. Vietnam is #1 in the word for software piracy, with 94% [pcworld.com]. They cram everything they can fit onto a cd and with that comes some extra stuff you didn't even pay for...I was not surprised when I scanned five cds to find 4 of the 5 containing at least a few virii.

  • Infected or exposed to? 80% isn't a high number (Score:3, Insightful)

    by devleopard ( 317515 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @08:00PM (#4428675) Homepage
    The article is unclear on whether or not 80% of the computers actually have viruses. Even the Slashdot post uses the word "touched", not "infected". Viruses come into contact with my computer all the time. I'd bet that at least 80% of the computers in America or Western Europe have been "touched" by a virus.

  • And as they say about "China Daily"... (Score:4, Funny)

    by marhar ( 66825 ) on Thursday October 10, 2002 @08:32PM (#4428823) Homepage
    "a reliable source of today's date..."

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