Don't you touch my Lappy! -- 'True' confessions of a PC anti-vaxxer
I have a confession to make: I’m a PC anti-vaxxer. I just don’t trust all those patches and security "fixes" software companies want to foist upon my innocent little laptop. I mean, how do I know one of those updates won’t harm it? Most software platforms are now so complex, it’s nearly impossible to tell the impact a new library or DLL might have.
What if a patch makes my PC slower? I’ve heard about at least one "fix" -- to some made-up sounding bugaboo called "Spectre" -- that caused PCs to lose compute cycles. My little laptop struggles to handle daily life as it is. The thought of further handicapping it by compromising its processing speed seems downright cruel.
Then there are the patches that leave a PC unable to connect with certain peripherals, like USB devices. These are often botched driver updates or kernel fixes that were never properly regression tested and somehow slipped through the software "clinical trials" (i.e. the Q&A process). The thought that some lazy millennial coder might render my precious "Lappy" unable to communicate with the outside world simply chills me to the bone!
And what about those reports of sudden (and usually, unexplained) system-wide failures? I can hardly go a week without reading about someone, somewhere installing a seemingly benign patch only to have their PC refuse to boot -- or worse still, its contents being wiped clean! I know there are ways to safeguard against such things, but until the industry works out the myriad security and privacy issues, there’s no way I’m trusting my "Lappy’s" essence to the cloud.
No. Not this owner. Never will I put my PC at risk by introducing foreign code that might blind it, diminish its faculties or (heaven forbid) "kill" it entirely. And don’t start-in with your "herd immunity" crap! As long as I keep my "Lappy" safe and secure at home, and closely monitor its online activities, I’m no more likely to spread some malware or virus than any other user (assuming those things even exist and aren’t just another conspiracy concocted by "Big Code" as a way to get me to upgrade).
But what if my PC does contract something and then passes it along? Computers get bugs all the time. It’s the nature of a world where we fallible humans do the coding. Is it really my fault if your PC wasn’t kept up to date? I mean, I’m sorry if you lost some data, but maybe you should have been more careful with how you maintained your own "Lappy!"
And if the unthinkable does happen -- if because of some unpatched vulnerability (I like think of it as my "Lappy" having character –--you know, "PCs being PCs") a vicious pathogen worms its way across the Internet and somehow takes over all the missile silos and defense computers -- I won’t feel a shred of guilt when your city goes up in flames.
Because, at the end of the day, I kept my "Lappy" pure. And that’s all that matters to me!
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