Students at Sonoma State University learn how to create computer viruses, worms, and other malicious code in a controversial class taught by George Ledin, a professor of computer science. An article last week in Newsweek says anti-virus software manufacturers are irked by the professor’s class and some have vowed not to hire his students when they graduate.
According to the article, Mr. Ledin has been likened to A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology to North Korea. But Mr. Ledin says he’s performing a service, helping his students develop antidotes to computer viruses by teaching them to think like hackers. His students work on closed networks from which viruses can’t escape.
Mr. Ledin argues that anti-virus software produced by McAfee, Symantec, and other companies is ineffective. In this two-minute video he says that telling a computer user to rely on these products is akin to a physician advising a patient to take a couple of aspirin and call in the morning.
Mr. Ledin’s class recalls a similar class taught at the University of Calgary by John Aycock, an associate professor of computer science. —Andrea L. Foster
