The Virtual Center for Technology Innovation in Information Technology (VCTI-IT) invited me as one the speakers for the Annual Teachers' IT Summit. This year, the event was held at the NIGS AVR Room, U.P. Diliman where I discussed some of the recent trends and issues in Philippine ICT.
One of the summit participants asked me a dim-witted question, "Is there a computer that is immune to viruses?" Of course I answered there is none as I haven't heard of a computer that is not vulnerable to viruses. He told me in front of about 150 people that my information is "outdated." Then, he continued with the remark that CD-ROM-ran OS i.e. Linux cannot be infected by viruses with its ROM-based OS. The guy was referring to the CD-ROM as "the" computer, not as a component. I excused myself as I have no more time to debate with him.
CD-ROM-ran or floppy-disk-ran OS has been around since the time of wordstar and lotus 123. And the computers with such CD-ROM-ran or disk-ran OS are vulnerable to viruses with variants that infect the hardware like the CIH virus, which attacks the BIOS of the motherboard and renders the RAM unusable. Virtual drives that are temporarily installed by CD-ROM-ran or floppy-disk-ran OS can be infected especially when you use the computer to surf the Internet.
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