Tuesday 26 / November / 2024
I love Game of Thrones, I love video games, I love movies. In short, I like things that are enjoyable, but not always easily accessible in the Sultanate of Oman. And the things that are accessible, more often than not, burn a rather large and unseemly hole in my budget. A laptop you’ve had around for a long time is like a car you don’t want to let go of. You work on it to get the best out of it, you continually upgrade its hardware, and you give it the best care possible. It’s only natural to feel attached to it over time. Me, I’d gotten so attached to my laptop, I’d decided to name it Dennis.
But why bother with buying the things I’d been coveting for so long, that it made me hurt inside when I could download them for free, albeit illegally? I’d had long-winded conversations between my mind (emotion) and conscience (reason), akin to the passionate diatribes Smeagol and Gollum shared with each other in the closing scenes of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
In the end, though, who doesn’t love free stuff?
It’s actually ridiculously easy to download whatever you’re looking for through a torrent if you know where to look for it and what software to use. I think it was one of the latest versions of FIFA that pulled at my avaricious heartstrings. In my mind’s eye, I’d already begun assembling my dream team, methodically compiling a list of players who’d be walking on to my virtual pitch, and as my download inched towards completion – it didn’t too long, either – and as I started-up my brand-new illegal enjoyment, was giddy with excitement. What I saw, though, brought my barely-uncontrollable glee back to Earth with the sharpest of bumps. I’d expected to see the game’s start-up screen. What I got instead was Windows’ infamous and much-dreaded Blue Screen of Death, the result of a rootkit virus that my torrent had unleashed into my system, eating my software from within and making Dennis little more than a very expensive brick.
While I did lose plenty of legitimately procured games and movies, what hurts me even to this day is that I lost more than six months’ worth of academic assignments: I wasn’t able to recover what I’d painstakingly gathered together for so long, and in the end, although I did pass, it was only made possible because my professors were kind enough to provide me an extension to my deadline.
The reality is that torrents are much like icebergs, if you’ll pardon the cliché: what’s underneath the surface is far more dangerous than what you see. When you pay for games and movies, you’re not just paying for the product, but you’re paying for safety and security as well.
The reality is that a large number of torrents have viruses, spyware and a whole lot worse concealed into them, and are targeted towards those who are desperate enough to get whatever they’re looking for, for free, no matter the cost. Ultimately, though, you might end up paying a very heavy price, the cost of which you could be counting for a long, long time. I’m sure my professors would’ve been less sympathetic if I’d told them the reason behind my laptop crash, but I learned a very valuable lesson, served in the form of a very bitter pill. One that could’ve in fact been a lot harder to swallow. —[email protected]
