> From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > It amazes me that a crime of this scale can go on for a year and we are > powerless to stop it either through law enforcement or technology. The > Storm > botnet already controls enough computing power to simulate a neural > network > the size of several human brains. Imagine if this computing power could > be > used to rewrite itself using the same software skills needed to > automatically > discover and exploit vulnerabilities in popular software. The trend is > clear. > We are already losing control of our computers. > > http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html > http://blogs.csoonline.com/windows_vista_90_day_vulnerability_report > http://www.cert.org/stats/fullstats.html > > Are the hackers smart enough to control an evolutionary process whose > fitness > function is the acquisition of computing resources? >
If the hackers were smart enough, and they are using the botnet for monetary gain, they could, or someone could create one that develops a mind of its own - shuts itself off from human control and grows and adapts independently. The botnet as it exists now I would venture to say is just a FSM multi-agent self-replicating P2P extension of a programmer's fingertips. Their problem is that ISPs and administrators will eventually be able to kill it off or break it up into dormant chuncks. It is exhibiting some interesting behavior though - "The Storm botnet was observed to be defending itself, and attacking computer systems that scanned for Storm virus-infected computer systems online.[26] The botnet will defend itself with DDoS counter-attacks, to maintain its own internal integrity" You might say that this type of computing has an important part of the future. A lot of big things start off illegal - look at YouTube and the copyright infringements, computer telephony and its beginnings, MS Windows overtake of OS2 IMO was basically because Windows was not copy protected and OS2 was. There are many examples... it is an interesting pattern. John ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=69271436-3f19df
