Why Virus Writers are Useful

man_of_mr_e writes "Security site Zone-h.org has an interview with Professor Samuel D. Forrester, one of the worlds leading immunologists. In this interview he asserts that immunity is built by infection, and without it you would have a much weaker ecosystem. "

Comments

Re:He's kind-of wrong anyway

[Psyx]

"Immunity is exposed by infection. It isn't created out of thin air as needed."

Immunity to computer viruses/worms and the ilk is indeed created/coded as soon as the susceptibility is detected. Sometimes that happens before an infection, sometimes it happens afterwards.

So yes, infection can expose immunity, but it can also lead to the purposeful creation of immunity (immunization). For example: if smallpox didn't previously exist, would a vaccine have been developed against it? I doubt it. Then again, in that case, one could argue that the intelligence of the smallpox susceptible population had the effect of making them immune.

Finally, since I can't read the Slashdotted site, I can only go from the tagline. It mentions building immunity, not creating it. Removing the susceptible parts of the population does build immunity in the population as a percentage.