IMHO Virus Hoaxes exploit another resource (arguably renewable) which is the
(objectified) cultural capital of humans and computers accessible through the
Internet. There is a topology to this resource apparent in the to:, from:,
and cc: headers, spread across the interlinked hoax emails, that might be
addressed through an actor network framework -- to which I am a newbie, so
this is pure speculation.
Garret Hardin's framework for the Tragedy of the Commons is essentially a
combined ecological/economic systems approach, with motive never fully
explicated yet partitioned entirely to the economic side. There can be other
motives, however. Consider the slaughter of buffalo in the US advocated by
the government to defeat native americans in the 1800s, in addition to the
economic motive of the railroads and hunters/traders.
Returning to virus hoaxes, many are aimed at microsoft products, and
consequently effect the people who use them. I've yet to see a clear
explication of motive here.
bb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Mar 01 2003 - 01:00:06 PST