As officials continue to worry about individual programmers creating computer viruses, there now may be cause for concern that universities are teaching their students how to create them.

The University of Calgary in Canada offers a course that teaches students how to write virus codes, according to a Jan. 26 article in The New York Times. By offering this course, the university hopes that it will help prevent viruses and teach computer security.

But while the course could be beneficial, some worry that it could also be very harmful, as some students might use the course to program their own viruses.

Syracuse University does not teach courses that are specifically about writing or protecting against viruses, but there are lectures that analyze what different viruses can do.

‘We try to explain proactive protection methods,’ said Deborah Nosky, manager of information technology communications and professional development. ‘We look at the protection of the SU e-mail system and where we are protected, then we look and see what failed.’

Nosky, who has taught classes about computer-related fraud since she began working at SU five years ago, said that she understands how a student could then take the class’s information and use it for the wrong purposes.

She did not believe, though, that the classes she taught would result in any students writing viruses, Nosky added.

‘We are teaching the tools and methods of protection,’ Nosky said. ‘We in no way teach the code.’

Although no security was in place to ensure that students were not writing their own viruses during the class, Nosky said that she did not think there was any reason to be worried.

‘I have no experience with an SU student writing a virus,’ Nosky said.

But students do not need a virus-writing class in order to learn about how to write a virus.

‘It’s getting easier,’ said Eric Humphrey, a sophomore electrical engineering major. ‘On one hand [the companies] are patching up holes in the programs, but they are also rushing to put out programs earlier, so it is easier to find holes.’

Humphrey said that he knew kids who would write viruses in high school.

‘The knowledge is out there,’ Humphrey added.

Dan Kurtz, a freshman musical theatre major and a website designer, said that writing viruses is not hard.

‘I learned about it by trying different things and also taking classes in high school like visual basic and computer programming,’ Kurtz said. ‘You can then learn the language that it takes to write damaging codes.’

Published on February 1, 2004 at 12:00 pm