A Virus That Causes Short Circuits

Ok - I am almost embaressed to ask this question, but the answer is very important -- actually a really well researched and accurate answer would make my life much easier at this point. Is it possible for someone to create a virus, attach, attach it to an email which, when the user opens it, causes the computer to short circuit sending and electrical shock to the user which is intended to kill the person, but actually just causes him/her to go into a coma?

Thanks for you help.

 

The short answer is no. This is typical of a hoax and appears to be a variant of the exploding computer virus hoax: http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/cgi-bin.../www/hoaxbusters/HBMalCode.shtml&line=593#mfs
http://www.dushkin.com/online/webresearch/virus.mhtml

A good resource for hoaxes is Snopes at http://www.snopes.com but the particular one that describes your "virus" is not listed but there many variants of similar hoaxes.

Next consider is it really practical that the computer can be induced to give an electric shock.

First, consider the source of electricity in a computer, this comes via the power supply unit (PSU). This is a simple transformer to take AC mains electricity and converts it into 12 Volt DC (same voltage as a car battery) supply for all the computer units. The PSU is not under the direct control of computer software - there is no "driver" for the PSU. The PSU is generally measured in Watts of power: http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/power_supplies-01.html Now it should be noted the it is Amps (measure of electrical current) that affects you rather than voltage.

Second, understand that nature of electric shocks: http://www.ecmweb.com/mag/electric_basics_electric_shock/