What does the world need to teach people? I mean REALLY teach people?
Answer (an OBVIOUS ONE): A university course that teaches students how to create spam and spy-ware.
So the University of Calgary is moving to meet the clamor for this vital need:
CALGARY – The University of Calgary is about to introduce another controversial computer science course. Students will be taught how write programs that create e-mail spam as well as spy software.
It will be similar to an existing course where students learn how to create computer viruses. The aim is to develop new ways to fight these online nuisances.
“The idea is for the students to learn how these things propagate, how they are created, how they interact with the system and that sort of thing,” says John Aycock, who teaches the viruses course.
“Then we turn around and say, OK, here are these things you’ve created; now we write the anti-software and figure out how to fight against them.”
Aycock says he plans to add a similar course on spyware and spam in the fall, even though some in the computer industry don’t like his approach.
He says some companies have said they’re not going to hire his graduates because they don’t like the perception of having someone on board who has written viruses.
Aycock acknowledges there is a potential for viruses and other malicious software to spread outside the classroom.
He says that’s why there are precautions, such as security cameras and a ban on all outside electronic equipment in the classroom.
DARN! Why is he doing that? Doesn’t he know the world needs more people who can send me emails telling me I need an “enlargement”?
PS: I keep getting these emails telling me that and wonder: how they did they find out?
UPDATE: Our sources (unconfirmed) indicate there is also discussion underway for courses on income tax evasion, shoplifting and pickpocketing.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.