This description is characteristic of how many respondents think about the difference: viruses are usually more programmatic and automatic, where hacking is more like manual labor, requiring the hacker to be sitting in front of a computer entering commands. This distinction between hackers and viruses is not something that most of the respondents had thought about; it existed in their mental model but not at a conscious level. Upon prompting, Dana decides that I guess if they hack into your system and get a virus on there, it ~Os gonna be the same thing." She had never realized that they were distinct in her mind, but it makes sense to her that they might be related. She then goes on to ask the interviewer if she gets hacked, can she forward it on to other people?