FROM THE editors October 13, 2003 Issue

When computers go CLUNK in the daytime

The recent plague of destructive cyberworms reminds us of the oft-quoted line from the Walt Kelly comic strip, Pogo: We have met the enemy and he is us."

Not that we're all creatures with idle hands laboring in the devil's computer workshop. Computer viruses and worms are usually the work of a tiny, skilled, and confused cohort. No, the real enemy lies in human nature—or more accurately, in the words of Sentinel founder, Mary Baker Eddy, "the swinish element in human nature" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 272).