Can I catch a computer virus?

“What do you mean youre frightened of catching something from your computer? Theyre not like public lavatories, you know.”

“Yes, but a bloke in the pub told me that even putting that crisp medicated toilet paper all around the seat wont stop really vicious bugs getting you, and another bloke said that these computer viruses are even worse than that. Isnt there some sort of rubber barrier you can put over your keyboard to stop then getting out?”

It sounds a bit far fetched, but curiously there is a case of outbreak of syphilis contracted on line. Well almost, anyway. Three years ago health officials in San Francisco were trying to deal with a sudden upsurge in cases of syphilis and eventually tracked the source to an internet chat room.

Investigators from the San Francisco Department of Health, who interviewed seven men infected with syphilis, were intrigued to find that all of them had found their most recent partners through a chat room on AOL (America On Line).

The chat room SFM4M—San Francisco Men for Men—was a contact place for gay men, one of whom had syphilis. Doing something about the problem became a major challenge for the authorities when AOL refused to reveal the identities of its chat room regulars, users who invariably, and unsurprisingly, used online nicknames.

In the face of AOLs unwillingness to cooperate, the authorities took their problem to the online gay and lesbian community, PlanetOut, which was instrumental in helping track down potentially infected chat room regulars.