Re: PhD Topic suggestions

On Wednesday 10 December 2003 11:32 am, William Fitzgerald (BH/EEI) wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I have just joined the group. I am interested in persuing virology as part
> of my PhD associated with Ericssons Ireland. I was wondering if anyone has
> any ideas that merit 3 years research. I was thinking of using viruses for
> a good purpose like dissemination of healthy  information. any ideas?

I believe most examples of this approach (Naachi comes to mind as a recent 
one) have been generally poorly regarded by the Internet community, on the 
basis that the author of a 'good virus' cannot predict every operating system 
/ application software / user configuration setup which the virus is going to 
encounter, and with any viral code, even small mistakes can lead to disaster 
once the thing starts replicating in the wild (I'm reminded that the first 
Internet worm, courtesy of Robert T Morris, was not intended to spread the 
way it did - that was due to a programming error).

Basically people do not want you releasing code which is intended to do things 
to their computer without them having control over it.

It's the difference between a virus and a patch.   Okay, some patches don't 
quite work as advertised, but at least you know where it's come from and who 
supplied it, so you have someone to go back to if it causes problems.

Just my 2c, anyway....

Antony.

-- 
I want to build a machine that will be proud of me.

 - Danny Hillis, creator of The Connection Machine



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