Handheld Calculator Virus
Sooner or later it had to happen. Now, even the old faithful handheld calculator can be infected with a virus. eWeek.com has an article about the TIOS.Tiagra virus which attacks Texas Instruments TI89 calculators.
Fortunately, it doesn’t look like a very destructive virus. And it can only be passed between two calculators when they are connected by a USB cable. In other words, this isn’t a mail worm that will storm across the Internet overnight deleting the contents of hard drives.
In my mind, the problem it raises is basic and related to trustworthiness. If a calculator is infected, there’s no reason to trust the answers it displays.
It really makes one wish for the good old days when life was simpler and one could always trust their calculator.
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