The number of new viruses is not ‘increasing exponentially,’ as is often claimed. The rate of appearance of new viruses in the collections of anti-virus workers has been increasing gradually for several years, at roughly a linear rate. Thus the number of known viruses is growing quadratically at worst. In fact, almost nothing at all about viruses is ‘increasing exponentially.’ The problem is significant, and it is growing somewhat worse, but prophets of doom in this field have poor track records. — David M. Chess (virus researcher, IBM, writing with Steve R. White and Jeffrey O. Kephart)