Does your PC have a hidden master?

Yes, I know the world is concerned with our current meltdown – but Gizmodo’s all agog about about that a looming meltdown in the PC universe– the Conficker worm.

It's lurking in millions of PCs around the world. It's incredibly sophisticated and resilient, with built-in p2p and digital code-signing technology. It revels in killing security software. On April 1, the Conficker worm will activate.

The scariest thing about the Conficker worm is that literally millions of infected Windows PCs could be linked together to do its bidding. The second scariest thing is that no one really knows what its creator is going to do with this virtual army on April 1, when it's scheduled to contact a server for instructions.

While it’s unlikely to bring down western civilization – I’m certainly curious what the authors of this particular mess are planning for April.

Patch your ‘ware, folks.