On Monday 12 March 2007 10:17, you wrote: > On 3/12/07, Nicholas Leippe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Yes. In response to: > > > I suppose you could say that all biological systems perform constant > > > computations regarding how to stay alive, but that doesn't allow you > > > to execute arbitrary code using that system. > > > > A biological virus, imo, does exactly that--it runs arbitrary code in the > > host's system. > > Ahhhh, okay, I thought you didn't know what a virus was. That's a > cool way of looking at it. Makes me wonder if you could construct a > custom-made virus that would do whatever you wanted to the host.
There has been research into this exact concept. Gene therapy is where they use a benign virus to deliver a specially crafted payload (instructions) to alter a person's DNA. Pretty clever way of curing a genetic disorder. On the flip side, there are some obvious other uses for this sort of technology that are probably getting funding under the radar--gene therapy is in practice no different than genetic augmentation. There have been movies about it already. > By the way, did you know that a large part of the human genome is made > up of virus DNA? Apparently it's common for us to get infected with > viruses that are benign and eventually just become part of our genetic > makeup. There are actually some important functions (I don't recall > which) that depend on some of the viral genes we've got. That's cool. I didn't know that--but now learning that, it doesn't really surprise me. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
