Unleashed in August, that SOB - the SoBig virus - continues to ricochet through cyberspace. Assuming that you are: a) organised, b) sane and c) wedded to the Windows operating system, you will have updated any antivirus software to catch, quarantine and destroy any SoBig strains.
But what would you give for an invention that prevents scum such as SoBig from even beginning to infiltrate your hard drive? Consider Palladium.
Announced in June last year, Palladium is pitched as 'the codename for an evolutionary set of features for the Microsoft Windows operating system. When combined with a new breed of hardware and applications, these features will give individuals and groups of users greater data security, personal privacy, and system integrity'.
In short, Palladium is a digital pesticide meant to ensure computers stay free of worms, viruses and similarly noxious vermin.
Microsoft decided in January to give it the new, 11-syllable name of Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), for some mysterious reason.
What is the point of swapping a cool name, which originally meant a sacred object believed to have the power to preserve the state possessing it, for an acronym that is impossible to remember?
Ostensibly, the change was a bid to placate a minnow firm also called Palladium. However, the truth may be that Microsoft wanted to lower its initiative's profile and stem the sarcasm. ABM (Anything But Microsoft)-minded critics vilify NGSCB as if its purpose were to abet rather than block intrusion.