Monoculture breeds parasites A contribution to the diversity of life on the Net.
The latest viruses, VBS.LoveLetter. A and its copy cats, allegedly the most damaging in the history of the Net, throw a stark light on the state of the Internet. The viruses gained their enormous impact not so much from the geniality of the programmers, or from the poor quality of Microsoft products, though the latter may have helped too. A much more important reason for the rapid spread of the viruses can be found in the increasing monoculture of software that is used on the Net. The virus revealed the extent to which these programs are used.