this public roasting is long overdue

check out
Billgates

and
Fewster.1781

notice anything amiss? no? well you should...

both of these are examples of anti-virus companies FAILING to comply with a long standing naming standard that (among other things) states that viruses must not be named after real people unless you know for sure the virus was written by them.... rod fewster is an anti-virus professional and did not write the virus named after him - i dare say bill gates didn't write any virus named billgates either...

both of these examples are quite old, but they don't outdate the naming convention of which i speak... further, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's wrong with letting viruses be named after real people...

not only are these companies showing a distinct lack of concern for the reputations of these people, they're also showing a distinct lack of concern for the public at large... naming standards are made for good reasons, not the least of which being reducing confusion and making it easier for people with virus problems to find information on the virus they have...

and it's not like virus names don't get changed - they do, quite regularly, it's the only way to coordinate a common name used across multiple products... but those 2 examples have been sitting around for nearly a decade now... where's the effort to make your life easier? where's the concern for the customer? certainly doesn't look like it's anywhere near these 2 companies right now...

(thanks to art kopp for digging up these examples...)