Viruses in You and Why They Should be Annoying Attorneys – Part One: A blog about viruses and attorneys in a world where lawyers themselves are infected with viruses.
Viruses are everywhere. And I’m not just talking about code. Viruses are living entities that, for the most part, cohabitate with us nicely. There are between 10-100 trillion bacteria in our bodies that produce vitamins and help digest food, among other things. There are also millions of viruses and other genetic material that enter our bodies on a daily basis. They end up in our stomachs, lungs and even enter our bloodstream through mosquito bites. In fact, there is compelling evidence that some viruses may actually assist certain cells in fighting off diseases like cancer and autoimmune disorders.
So why pick on the virus? Because they’re everywhere! But also because we don’t really like them when they cause illness or disease, which they do quite often. Viruses have been shown to cause everything from AIDS to the common cold to cancers. Even though we spend billions of dollars every year trying to fight them off with anti-viral drugs, there is no vaccine for any of these viral infections because viruses constantly mutate and change their genetic makeup so that the human immune system cannot
Viruses in You and Why They Should be Annoying Attorneys – Part One
In the last post we discussed the basic difference between a virus, worm and a trojan horse. Another important distinction is that many viruses are written to damage your computer or files (such as deleting documents or even formatting your hard drive), whereas worms are more often targeted at getting information from your computer. For example, worms are often used to steal passwords and other personal information such as credit card numbers and social security numbers.
The most common kinds of viruses are worms and trojan horses. Trojans are typically downloaded by users who think they are downloading something else. The file may pose as a picture, an ecard, or a free trial software program when it actually contains malicious code. Read more about Trojan Horses on the Symantec website.
Any kind of malware can be annoying to deal with, but if you know what to look for, you can protect yourself against it.
A blog about viruses and attorneys in a world where lawyers themselves are infected with viruses.
The first lawyer virus was written in C++, not surprisingly, since the language was designed to be a virus-friendly environment. This virus, which I will call the Lawyer.C++ virus just for fun, was a subtle little creation that spread through all the major law firms by calling itself an associate. It would typically attach itself to an email that said “I am a highly skilled legal professional and I think you should hire me” and then would go into hiding until one of the partners told it to send out hundreds of copies of itself disguised as billable hours. Once it had infected every major firm in America, it began infecting corporations and government agencies, eventually spreading worldwide. The Lawyer.C++ virus became so common that few realized what it was anymore; they just assumed it was there, like the herpes virus or shingles or other common ailments of modern life.
Of course, viruses that target lawyers are not unique to C++. There is also a very popular one written in Visual Basic called the Attorney.VBA virus that has been infecting Windows computers for years now. This virus sends automated emails that say “I am a highly
This is a blog about viruses in humans and the law. In this first entry, I will discuss how viruses are common in humans, and how they can be used to study law. Viruses are everywhere. They infect people, plants and animals. They infect bacteria too, which is interesting because they use the bacteria’s own DNA-making machinery to replicate themselves.
The reason I’m interested in studying viruses has to do with their biology: they are the simplest genetic system known to exist. And the most complicated one. They have just enough genetic material to make copies of themselves, but no more than that. As a result, they evolve very quickly, far faster than their hosts do. This means that viruses can be used as a tool for studying other things – like law.
Viral genomes are also very small – about 20kb for most of them – so it’s easy to sequence them in their entirety and figure out what proteins they encode. All viruses have at least one protein that helps them replicate; many have more than one protein involved in replication and/or cell infection. This makes it possible to study virus-host interactions at an incredibly detailed level: you can look at how different proteins interact with each other and figure out how those interactions affect viral replication or
Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Stavro, an attorney at the law firm of Mishkin and Mishkin. As you know, attorneys have many years of education and experience to prepare us for the rigorous demands of the legal profession. Our skills are finely honed, our bodies are in perfect shape and we do everything possible to maintain our good health.
Yet despite all this, there is a constant danger lurking in our midst which threatens the very foundations of our well-being: viruses.
Some might think that viruses are nothing but microscopic packets of DNA that can only infect other cells by abandoning their host and entering a new cell through its surface membrane. But they’re wrong! Viruses are more than just floating bits of genetic code that make us sick every once in a while. They can also take over our minds and bodies—and sometimes even our behavior—and leave us to do their bidding as they continue their quest to infect other hosts.
And so lawyers must be on guard at all times against these microscopic enemies, who can hide around any corner or inside any person and who are constantly searching for new ways to attack us and disrupt our lives. Some people might claim that attorneys do not get sick because they have strong immune systems; however, I have seen
We often think of viruses as things that infect computers and make them run slowly, or corrupt data. What if we think of them as attorneys? More specifically, what if we think of attorneys as viruses?
This is the first in a series of posts where I will try to explain how viruses can be thought of as attorneys and why this might be the case. Hopefully, this series will help readers to better understand how the legal system has come to resemble a computer virus, and why understanding this fact is more important than ever in our modern world.
Before I begin, I must caution that this series is intended for an advanced audience. If you do not have at least some understanding of computer virus theory, then you are likely to find these posts quite difficult. If you are interested in learning more about computer viruses, I suggest starting with the free online book Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz et al.
Are viruses
living organisms? No, they are not living. In fact, they are considered to be non-living; however, they are considered by many to be the missing link between life and non-life. Viruses are considered non-living because they do not have their own metabolism and they can only replicate inside of other living organisms. Viruses reproduce by taking over the cells of a living organism and then forcing that cell to replicate the virus instead of its own cells.
There are many arguments as to whether or not viruses should be considered living organisms or not. Some of these arguments include:
Viruses replenish themselves – This is true but only in the sense that any foreign object that enters into a human body can replenish itself inside of it. For example, if a virus enters a human body it will remain alive until the human body’s immune system destroys it. On the other hand, if an attorney is injected into a human body he will continue to live even though he is not using any energy for this existence (see point