Which Country has the Most Viri??

So as I outlined in my introductory post one of my academic areas is the digital divide. I won’t be introducing it here but I suggest you consult Wikipedia if you have questions. Anyway, one of the web resources I consult occasionally that has to do with this area is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). I was running around their broadband usage and access statistics pages and happened upon a chart that stood out. They actually have ratings by country based on how many bot-infected (virused) computers they have. It’s not really a common dimension people think about when it comes to digital divide but as a technician I know just how horribly slow and painful a bot-infected, spyware ridden, student owned Celeron laptop can be. If you think you might be able to use the internet, think again. Remember that episode of Futurama where they have the big fight with ads? Yeah, exactly. Okay admittedly many of these systems might have dormant or non-invasive digital critters shacking up on the hard drive but it’s still rather unfortunate. I can say I’m not so surprised Poland takes the cake for most infested but where did this Spain come from? And Portugal? Do they have more than 10 people?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about who has the most access, home computers, fast connections, etc… generally the rich Northern European countries and Japan/Korea own house. The US, while it has the largest sheer number of internet users, still stands somewhere near the middle.