Some programmers have been wreaking havoc with code since they figured out they could. Viruses are the most common manifestation of coders gone bad. Pre-Internet viruses were restricted in scope. The results, though irritating, could be localized and eradicated. The Internet changed the nature of viruses as profoundly as it is changing everything else.
Viruses are free to flash around the globe, infecting victims at an astronomical rate.
Spoofing Web sites is an easy task. Web pages can be copied, altered, and posted to a new location with traffic directed to the imposter. Bloomberg s PairGain incident is a classic example of how spoofs cost money. In April 1999 a PairGain employee copied Bloomberg s page about PairGain to a Lycos Web-hosting facility. The page convincingly maintained the Bloomberg look, feel, and logos while written content was altered to say that PairGain was being acquired.