Bitcoin v0.1 released

dan at geer.org dan at geer.org
Sat Jan 24 23:07:17 EST 2009


Bill Frantz writes:
-+-----------------
 | Some people tell me that the 0wned machines are among the most
 | secure on the network because botnet operators work hard to
 | keep others from compromising "their" machines. I could see the
 | operators moving toward being legitimate security firms,
 | protecting computers against compromise in exchange for some of
 | the proof of work (POW) money.


I'm one of those people.  Quoting from my speech of 1/20:

> Virus attacks have, of course, become rarer over time, which is
> to say that where infectious agents once ruled, today it is
> parasites.  Parasites have no reason to kill their hosts -- on
> the contrary they want their hosts to survive well enough to
> feed the parasite.  A parasite will generally not care to be all
> that visible, either.  The difference between parasitism and
> symbiosis can be a close call in some settings, and of the folks
> who famously bragged of being able to take the Internet down in
> twenty minutes, one has said that a computer may be better
> managed once it is in a botnet than before since the bot-master
> will be serious about closing the machine up tight against
> further penetration and similarly serious about patch
> management.  Therefore, since one can then say that both the
> machine's nominal owner and the bot master are mutually helped,
> what we see is evolution from parasite to symbiont in action.
> According to Margulis and Sagan, "Life did not take over the
> globe by combat, but by networking."  On this basis and others,
> bot-nets are a life form.

Rest of text upon request.  Incidentally, I *highly* recommend
Daniel Suarez's _Daemon_; trust me as to its relevance.  Try
this for a non-fiction taste:

http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_Reality


--dan

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