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When Viruses Infect Worms
An anonymous reader writes "Bitdefender reports that there exist viruses which, when they encounter other viruses, will merge and combine effects so that they create a new virus. 'A virus infects executable files; and a worm is an executable file. If the virus reaches a PC already compromised by a worm, the virus will infect the exe files on that PC — including the worm. When the worm spreads, it will carry the virus with it. Although this happens unintentionally, the combined features from both pieces of malware will inflict a lot more damage than the creators of either piece of malware intended. While most file infectors have inbuilt spreading mechanisms, just like Trojans and worms (spreading routines for RDP, USB, P2P, chat applications, or social networks), some cannot replicate or spread between computers. And it seems a great idea to “outsource” the transportation mechanism to a different piece of malware (i.e. by piggybacking a worm).'"
Did anyone else get a mental image of a bacterium waving a cowboy hat riding a giant sandworm? ...clearly I need more coffee.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Only a million trillion times faster than it happens in the real world. I for one welcome our sentient viral overlords.
I don't believe for a second that it's possible for a virus and a worm to combine to produce a more dange
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Remember back in the days when BackOrifice used to come with a CIH payload?
Why does this bring back vague memories of that John Brunner classic, "The Shockwave Rider"? It's been about 30 years since I read it, so I can't recall if the protagonist wrote a "worm" that infected another worm, or just destroyed it/replaced it or something.
Context switching in biology allows viruses to infest genomes of many sizes.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/51835
Mamaviruses have a Sputnik virus that reporgrams the Mamavirus which reporgrams an amoeba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamavirus
CRISPR is how bacteria learn to modify their immune system to respond to viruses.
CRISPR may be the first example of a memory system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR
This memory may have lead to a bio side effect called intelligence.
Combined with quorum sensing a truly intelligent multicellular system may evolve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing
Chomsky may have to change his definition of languages to include context switching.
Context Switching is what computers do poorly due to determinism.
Without context switching artificial intelligence may never be possible?
Well, how about when a known virus infects an unknown worm? That should help the AV program to recognize the worm as undesirable.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Did anyone else start reading the summary assuming it was a story on biology? Here's how I first read it:
"Bitdefender reports that there exist viruses which, when they encounter other viruses, will merge and combine effects so that they create a new virus. 'A virus infects executable flies;
Instead of staring at the word "flies" which was actually "files", instead my eyes backed up and were focused on executable. What did it mean for a fly to be executable?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
What does it mean!?
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
So this might actually produce emergent behavior? http://xkcd.com/350/
A flag would be more efficient than counting posts :)
Also, why would you convert a perfectly good number to a string? Bloody XML generation...