On 5/1/13 3:39 PM, glen e p ropella wrote:
I would think we might
extend the "infection" metaphor deeper and develop layers and
sub-systems of different sorts of "immunity" against botnet, worm, and
virus infections. But some of them, perhaps running BOINC or like this
mapping botnet, could be considered healthy infections, perhaps even
crowding out bad infections (e.g. Aida) like the good bacteria in our guts.
What is good or bad? If someone installs an internet webcam without a
password, why would they expect internet users not to reach that
webcam? If someone installs a set-top box to a cable TV coax, do they
seriously not expect that their viewing habits won't be recordable?
Immunity to the "bad" first has to determine that something can even be
defined to be bad. When a person shops at a mall, do they expect to be
anonymous? If so, I hope they wear dark glasses and a trench coat! Or
if they go to a favorite restaurant and the waiter asks "The usual?"
should they be alarmed? What's the general "immunity" here?
Choosing to be conversational or aloof is personality trait, not a
universal. If the waiter doesn't ask a second time, that's a choice of
the waiter, presumably a function of the model they've inferred of their
patron's behavior.
In so far as computing environments, or operating systems, are
concerned, I think the goal should be to state a clear security model
and implement it correctly. I think these "evolutionary" layers are
just a way of saying, "Golly, we just don't understand what we want or
how to implement it."
If the goal is to have a open negotiation process between all kinds of
agents over scheduling, that's a novel use case for connected devices.
But I'd say most people aren't interested in facilitating computational
internet terrariums (though that would be neat). That there exist
botnets is just to say there exist exploitable bugs, and that users have
a poor understanding of what they expect -- that there exist careless
and irresponsible people.
Marcus
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