The Contagion of Fear
A former computer science student reflects on a regretful prank where he falsely warned humanities students of a computer virus. The resulting panic caused significant data loss and distress among the students during finals week.
Why it matters
It illustrates the real-world consequences of digital misinformation and the psychological impact of fear-based social engineering.
I have a difficult confession to make — a shameful incident that I have never spoken of, even to those closest to me.
Late one night in my first year at university and having found computer science to be my life’s calling, I was in the back of the large computer science lab, talking with some fellow underclassmen. We were snidely decrying the lack of technological understanding in the broader population, with the kind of arrogance and hubris that youth and precociousness can uniquely summon. Somewhere in this discussion, a terrible idea was hatched: what if we went next door to the general computer lab, and told the humanities students there that a computer virus was spreading through their machines? Would they believe it?
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