An expert writes

I always think my colleague Si should have his own blog, but in the absence of said item:

Is the internet finally dead?

Not only is all that stuff happening with search engines where everything is just a pretext to an offer to sell you ringtones and posters, but I've seen some stuff to suggest that email is taking up to a day to reach its destination because of the volume of viruses and the measures in place to control them.

The internet truly is a piece of shit floating along in a very dark place.

Yesterday I connected my laptop outside the firewall (so it was live on the internet in effect) - I had a pukka IP address rather than a private hidden one but was not registered in DNS (so I didn't have an Internet name as such) but within five seconds NAV detected that a virus had attempted to install itself on my computer. That means that going live on the internet without a firewall is like the electronic equivalent of going "over the top" of the trenches. And when you get out there you are faced with a rain of shrapnell in what is a landscape of mud, excrement, and rotting corpses.

And I suppose it can get even worse still. Will the Internet continue to shit on its own doorstep? It doesn't show signs to the contrary.