Bloated Fish and Pork Rinds

March 09, 2004
I installed the corporate edition of Symantec AntiVirus for the first time yesterday. And aside from the poor quality of their documentation (my god this thing is confusing) I think I like it. But I found their licensing model quite amusing. To license the product you go to a special website (the address for which is in .005 point type at the bottom of a page) and enter your license key. They then check that key and generate a license file, which they then proceed to email to you! I found it odd that with the vast majority of viruses being sent by emails these days, an Anti-Virus company would be using attachments in their licensing scheme. This is especially true when you consider that a number of virus experts are pushing companies to outright ban file attachments at the mail server! This got me to thinking about what it would be like were Symantec to take over the medical profession…. Patient: Doctor, do you have a cure for cancer?
Doctor: Yep. Just smoke 2 of these and call me in the morning. I’ll save you from my extended version which included an AIDS prevention involving sex with 42 heroin addicts.