I love you. Perhaps three of the most wonderful words you can hear. Even if they are via email. Lots of us woke up to those words Thursday morning, including me. These words weren't coming from strangers, they were from our friends and colleagues... and like so many emails we get these days this one came with an attachment. Open me. Like Alice in Wonderland. Click Me. For some reason I didn't. But millions of others did. 30

The phenomenal success -- if you want to call it that -- of the Love Bug worm is due to something no other virus has really exploited until now... our computer hardware has always been vulnerable, but this time, the virus took advantage of weaknesses in ourselves. Its called social engineering in hacker's parlance... taking control of a computer system by getting the owner to open it up and expose it to harm. So simple, its amazing no one has thought of it before. :55

There will be a lot of stories in the coming days about how a bunch of love-starved geeks helped spread the virus because they don't get enough love. But its not just the computer nerds who helped this one get around the globe in less than a day. Ask your friends and I'll bet at least one of them opened it. It caused havoc among people who you'd think would know better -- Microsoft, the Pentagon, NASA. Clearly, all the normal warnings didn't help. Don't open attachments from people you don't know. Well this came from someone we know. Or don't open them at all... the rules don't apply when it comes to love it seems. 1:30

Who is supposed to protect us from this kind of attack? The latest virus software probably wouldn't have caught the Love Bug. Virus software by and large stops known viruses, not future ones. And admit it, even if it could have, your virus software hasn't been updated since the day you brought the machine home from the store. It might have been stopped at the computer that delivers your mail, but that would require that your internet service provider or company computer department scan all of your incoming and outgoing mail. That's a prospect most folks don't like very much. So, despite the threat of complete PC meldown, we're not too likely to see more aggressive email scanning except at the corporate level. One computer expert told CNN that companies should block *all* email attachments... the old sledgehammer approach. Effective sure, but very silly. 215

One company could certainly help reduce the risk. Microsoft has made it amazingly simple to completely destroy your PC. The computer language contained in the Love Bug is powerful enough to wipe out essential files, yet simple enough for a beginner to wield. The question is whether this hacker is smart enough to cover his -- or her -- tracks. It doesn't look like it... the FBI is following the digital trail as we speak. This loser will be caught, just like they caught the Melissa virus author last year.240

[alternate graph in case they catch him: But like the guy who wrote the Melissa virus last year, The Love Bug author was not terribly bright, leaving a clear trail the FBI followed right back across the internet. Live by the sword die by the sword]

The Love Bug has already mutated dozens of times in less than a week.... so expect to see a whole lot more of this kind of virus in the coming year. The best advice is some your mother might give: be careful of professions of love via the internet... if your paramours can't say it in person, it's not worth hearing is it? 3:00

Rich Dean is an associate creative director at Organic in San Francisco.