Posted: September 8th, 2016

Alice was a bright, vivacious, popular systems programmer working at a private company called ACE Inc., one of the major graphics software providers in Australia

Alice was a bright, vivacious, popular systems programmer working at a private company called ACE Inc., one of the major graphics software providers in Australia. Alice had proved to be a considerable asset to ACE and was very happy working there. Alice had been sent on many professional development courses involving systems programming, security, networks, etc. since joining ACE (after graduating from University 5 years ago). As a result, Alice had developed considerable expertise and knowledge concerning all of ACE’s systems – which included a deep understanding of ACE’s security systems, security software being used – including their ever-changing updates and configurations. Her current job at ACE largely consisted of computer security. She had developed a sound reputation both within and external to ACE for being proactive (always trying to anticipate a problem before it happened) as she tried to provide solutions or preventative measures before any damage could be done to the company’s resources – especially its software and data. She maintained a keen interest in and had an extensive knowledge of all the problems concerned with ACE’s security procedures, as well as all of ACE’s systems and networks. As Alice was excited by her work, she pursued her interests in systems security software at home on her own computer. Over a period of time, Alice developed an antivirus program in which she took great pride. As there were many competitors vying for market share in this lucrative environment, Alice realised that, to make her program stand out from other competitors, she would design it and make it operate in a network environment. Alice continued developing her program: she purchased extra hardware and software to create her own small network to continue developing her design. As the program neared completion, Alice dreamed of creating a start-up company that would take her prototype and upgrade it to be a commercial distribution: marketed for all users, no matter how complex a network environment was involved. The basic features of the program, for which Alice was very proud, included:  A sophisticated Graphics User Interface (GUI)  Help screens and graphics for every activity  Procedures for backing out of any potentially hazardous activity (a way forward and a way back at every progress point)  It could recognise and destroy both old and new viruses  It described any virus that it found in detail by its type, its source, and its structure  Additionally (one of the features that Alice was most proud of) there was a validation feature. The user could copy each virus to a diskette (or quarantined memory location), and modify the existing virus and then let the program loose on this new, redesigned version of the virus. The program never failed to destroy the newly created virus every time! Having completed as many trials as possible at home, Alice then approached her manager, Ted, the Head of IT Security at ACE, offering the program to ACE at a discount price, as her first customer. Alice was aware that ACE had its share of virus infections recently and that this program could greatly improve ACE’s security. Ted examined Alice’s proposal – particularly the features, however he immediately expressed many misgivings about the program. He told Alice that she had in fact developed an extremely dangerous program. “If ACE were to make it available on the network it would be like leaving a kid in the candy store. ACE certainly won’t buy this