The problem with these damned machines we use, is that they don’t have basic common sense when it comes to self preservation.  Viruses can easily be written to tell a PC to simply harm itself in one way or another.  Any protection you write into the code, can be violated in some way.  The virus basically tells the operating system, “hey, I’m actually a valid process, and you are cool with this modification I’m making to this important system file.”  The operating system is truly incapable of saying, “hey wait a minute, i can’t let you do that!”  Sure virus protection works well when employed aggressively and updated religiously, but there are always exceptions where the program is fooled into some wrongdoing upon itself.  To put it in terms of something more physical, if you had a robot, it would be the equivalent of that robot pulling out a screwdriver with it’s right hand and stabbing itself in the eye socket.  Is the robot not capable of basic common sense?  “No matter what I do, I know that I should never stab myself in the eye with a screwdriver!”  That is a humorous visual, but it begs the question, “can this stupid computer not be programmed to just flat out not harm itself, no matter what command is input or line of code seems to demand.

I have spoken with a couple programmers and they all say the same thing.  Whatever you write in there for the program to do or not do, there could easily be a hack written to simply modify that rule or rules and have the program doing bad things to itself in no time.  The “rules” of the code are constantly subject to change. So I say BS.

One thing I have learned is that if a hacker or group of hackers wants to have there way with you, there is really nothing you can do, outside of government level protection, that can save you from harm.  Put it another way, if someone has to come into your home and pull your laptop out and throwing it into the river, you can never be 100% safe.  So what is the best advice.  Be the wolverine.  Be the honey badger.  These two animals are certainly not the biggest, not the strongest.  A bear could surely eat one if he wanted to badly enough, but the bear knows that the meal will be the most painful meal of it’s life.  Just not worth it.  So the answer with protecting yourself online, is put enough protection on your machines that it may be “possible” for your machine to be hacked or attacked, but it will just not be worth the trouble.

So how is this done?  The non-programmer proposes two things.  First, all processes carried out by the operating system, (the brain of what the computer is actually doing), will be broken into 2 tiers.  Tier one is the sacred system.  The “vital organs” of the operating system.  Files that if modified, will have significant harm on operations, for example. Tier two is the various programs or settings that the user and the programs used have access to, just like they do now in the operating systems of today.

Secondly, the operating system will enable a virtual regulator that will run an encrypted code sequence against any action to modify the “vital organs” of the operating system and it’s sacred operations and files.  This technology exists already in encrypted emails as your identity is verified as the sender and intended recipient, and also to prove that the message is intact down the line.  This method would just be used within the operating system with certain absolute functions that can’t simply be circumvented.  Updates from the operating system, could on a quarterly or annual basis, include new encrypted keys to ensure that there violation would again, not be necessarily impossible, but just extremely difficult, and just not worth the trouble.

Again, I am not a programmer.  I hire the programmer.  I envy and respect the programmer, but I am not one.  I just know it’s high time we get start keeping these machines from stabbing each other in the eye with the proverbial screwdrivers that are out there.