How Sircam can help turn your most private documents into a worldwide joke.

Sending a virus to friends, co-workers and family can be an exercise in humiliation. But Sircam, the latest sickness spreading on the Net, creates a whole new way to embarrass yourself online. Instead of simply sending copies of itself, which is what most viruses do, Sircam grabs a random document from your computer's hard drive, hides itself in the code, then passes on the infected document to everyone in your digital address book. That means any document on your hard drive is fair game for distribution to practically everyone you know. In other words, Sircam becomes a potential distributor of personal shame -- opening up the infected not just to a virus but also to ridicule, laughter and scorn. Many are cringing with shame as we speak.