Re: PhD Topic suggestions

On Wednesday 10 December 2003 1:04 pm, William Fitzgerald (BH/EEI) wrote:

> Hi Antony,
>
> Thanks for your input. I agree. But lets suppose we do not use virus
> technology to go and save computers from viruses but use the technology to
> spread, say node updates or security patches. In other words i could build
> some sort of virus envelope that contains some updates for nodes. However I
> am still left with the problem of people wanting control over their nodes
> even if "good" is intended.

If you can *guarantee* that a system such as this could be deployed on a local 
network belonging to one organisation, and that it could not get out onto the 
public Internet, then I think you may have a chance of achieving something 
good.

In such a closed environment, you stand a better chance of knowing what type 
of machines the 'virus' needs to interact successfully with, and also if 
there are any problems, the author is available to investigate and rectify.

I don't think there is any chance however that such technology would be 
accepted on a wider scale than within a single organisation's network.

Regards,

Antony.

> 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.

-- 
Anything that improbable is effectively impossible.

 - Murray Gell-Mann, Novel Prizewinner in Physics



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