Conficker finally did turn on, but it apparently only became a spam bot. A spam bot for a certainly bogus antivirus program. My understanding of the concern about it is that it was very widespread (though I saw no instances of it), it was insidiously difficult to remove, and no one knew what it was going to actually do when it did turn on.

So it could have been a huge deal, but it just happened not to be.
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Bitt Faulk