Religion found riskier than porn, at least for computer viruses
Burmese monks work on computers scanning Buddhist websites at a local internet cafe February 22, 2007 in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). The internet is strictly controlled by the government banning all free email services such as yahoo, hotmail and aol. With economic sanctions crippling the Burmese economy its people are eager for change and a better life. According to government experts who are working on a seven step road map to democracy, within the next few months the Draft Constitution will be finalized which will hopefully bring a Referendum for Constitution by the end of the year. After that a Democratic election will be held in 2008. According to the current scenario the change may happen soon but many say that Burmese will be afraid to vote with their heart but will cast their vote to prevent trouble.
Conventional wisdom dictates that pornography websites often contain malware but that distinct honor has now fallen to a new sector of the web – religious websites.
Religious websites were found to be three times more dangerous than any other type of site on the internet, according to an internet security threat report released by anti-virus developer Symantec.
“Moreover, religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business,” read the report.
The study also stated that there is an average of 115 threats on religious websites while pornography sites had only 25.
Pornography websites were found to be the 10th most dangerous type of website, beaten out by health and education websites among others.
Unbeknownst to the casual user, the pornography industry spearheaded internet technology and business in the early 90’s after first understanding the enormous amounts of revenue that they stood to gain by opening for business on the web.