Ride’em cowboy. Microsoft has announced a bounty on virus writers. Demonstrate to their satisfaction that you know somebody who wrote one of the naughty virii that plagued Microsoft’s incredibly insecure and bloated software this summer and you could get a nice fat check in the mail.

Now, the spectre this raises is one of a kind of zany hilarity that only the truly mental could laugh at, which we will, long and loud. It’s almost convinced me to get back on IRC, the biggest waste of time ever invented since Ogg scratched out the first tic-tac-toe game, just to watch the fun. One can just imagine the chat logs, already filled to a fever pitch of pure, unadulterated, unsocialized, high tech kindergarten politics rising to such a fever pitch that illiterate suburban wanna-be-hackers’ little piggy brains might actually explode. Or Something.

Now, despite the fact that virus writers actually tend to be stable, professional IT types with a naughty streak, who are intelligent computer scientists, the average denizen of the “hacker underground” actually imagines that minds capable of writing software are sharing their ‘leetness with brainless idiots, and they will be absolutely sick with greed and fear at the idea of Microsoft claiming bounty heads. What follows is fictional imagination of what might be happening on IRC as you read this.

(It helps for the reader to realize that to a relatively clued-in meta-observer and socio-lingual virtual-epiphenomenalist philosopher, which I am, that IRC is several levels below the layered social complexity characterized by a tribe of poop-flinging baboons. It might best be characterized as close to a tribe of rabid, developmentally challenged, schizoid, poop-flinging Jack Russell Terriers.)

You have joined channel #uberleetpiratesofthecaribean

CyberKidddyall: u suX0r. ur h4v3 no skillzzz beaytchKizillerZ: shutup I can f u b4 u write another wurm. U r all so fing stupidNeo346521: Cyber wrot wurmz? hE is g0d. he is like m0phEuS.Candy16NYC: OMG I bet he did. Ibet he wrot Sobig and all the otherzCandy16NYC: OMGAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent: Hi guys. Does anyone know who wrote the MicrosoftTM viruses and other bad stuff? Hope everyone in here is doing great : )CyberKidddyall kicks AuthorizedMicrosoftAgentAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent: hey, won’t you guys chat with me? I’d really love that. Microsoft is offering a big reward you know.BlueAngryDragin: u w1ll nevr br3ak 0ur c0dE of S1lenc3!!! Die corprite scum!!!BlueAngryDragin kicks AuthorizedMicrosoftAgentAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanNeo346521: oh siht. It really is an agent. RUN!!!!!!!!!KizillerZ: oh stfu you sackbandit. U r all fing so stupid I hate u all.CyberKidddyall: I nevr wrot those things. I just said I did. I gotta go now.BlueAngryDragin: u sux. I thought u wr sooperskilled. I’m tellingKizillerZ: I wrot that sh*t I h4ve the pr00f and 1’m the 0nlee truly skzilled.AuthorizedMicrosoftAgent: hm.AuthorizedMicrosoftAgent0001 has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent0002 has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanAuthorizedMicrosoftAgent0003 has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribean AuthorizedMicrosoftAgent0004 has entered #uberleetpiratesofthecaribeanCandy16NYC: OMG