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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Wagner who wrote (1333)	4/23/1999 11:31:00 AM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Hello Joe, > ... the question is, would it ever be possible for such a program > to take a leap to asking itself, "Will they uninstall me when > Windows 2030 Super Reporter II comes out?" It just might start > moving some of its "DNA"/Software code to some hidden places on the > net for safe keeping. Especially if it does a report on the demise > of older software programs that cannot keep up, and it experiences > fear for survival. "Stay tuned" for the next episode of Digital > Animals. To me, this can be answered by simply looking around us at the biological evolution that is occurring. There are biological entities that are far more "simple" than the human brain, and yet contain the potential to do extreme damage to the human race. We have seen examples in "flesh-eating" viruses, and other little nasty things that pop up from time to time. I'm not sure that the way this scenario would pan out would be for the software virus to ask it self ... but instead to have been written or evolved for dual purposes ... do it's main task, and also try to hide copies of itself for later use. Oh yes, and also to reproduce! ;-) Just as in the biological world we send teams of specialists to quarenteen(?) the area and to learn about the structure of any captured samples ... we will have this same "defense mechanism" in the cyber world. Teams of people who will specialize in defending most of the rest of the world against nasty little viruses and rogue computer programs. CERT, for example, is such a mechanism ... cert.org I tend to do most of my thinking and research within this realm ... looking to solve new technology problems by analyzing the existing, evolved biological solutions ... ;-) Scott C. Lemon