Now that season four of 24 is over here's an idea for next January's show: A Ziff Davis Security message yesterday reported the latest and greatest Web threat, called "Trojan.Pgpcode." The worm is downloaded from a malicious Web site and holds your files hostage. It uses in encryption to prevent you from accessing them and leaves a note demanding money in order to receive the key to unlock them. (Currently, the problem only shows up when browsers use Microsoft's Internet Explorer.)

The threat is considered low risk because such an exploit leaves a trail back to the theif. But think what a plot devise for the cloak and dagger TV hit. A rogue state wouldn't give two hoots whether or not its trail could be followed if it was able to capture and hold for ransom the most important information that CTU held on all of its undercover agents.

The producers of 24 are very proud of the fact that they "killed someone off" at the end of the season, but they simply killed off the head bad guy. I was waiting for something a little more startling. They have also said that character development is important to the show, although it always takes second place to plot. By the end of the season—the first I've watched—that became very apparent. Of course there's little that can be done to develop so many characters over a period of just twenty-four hours. Personally, I think the show would do better with less office romance. The two most interesting characters in the show are Chloe and Edgar, the computer geeks.

By the way, who was behind the terrorist attacks? Certainly not some idealogue hiding out in a cave back in Afghanistan. The plot was so intricate, required so much expertise, and had so many American co-conspirators that it had to be someone with greater capabilities than a consortium of the greatest minds from the finest Ivy League schools. For sure no government would have the capacity to pull off something so intricate.