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Nick Carr of RoughType writes on botnets, which:
are assembled through the distribution of a computer virus over the internet. If the virus finds its way on to your PC - through a downloaded file, say, or a spam email - it secretly installs a few lines of software code on to your hard drive. The hidden program allows your machine to be manipulated by a distant computer. . . . .
A single botnet can include tens of thousands of computers, and the malicious networks are proliferating rapidly. Vint Cerf, one of the inventors of the internet and now a top Google executive, told the World Economic Forum in February that botnets have become a "pandemic". He estimated that more than 100m PCs have already been infected.
His conclusion:
The network's openness is its greatest strength. But it has also become its greatest vulnerability.
The operators of botnets don't just exploit the trust built into the structure of the internet. They exploit the trust of all of us who connect our PCs to it. So far, botnets have been a nuisance. As they become more sophisticated and more widespread, they will be able to do much greater damage. Their ultimate victim may be the internet's openness. But this conclusion seems to me a general comment on Internet culture -- many of the business models are based on the question "who can I free ride on?" and assume that one not only can but has an entitlement to take others' creations, hardware, bandwidth, or platforms and use them to make money for the appropriator.
It can't last, and it shouldn't. What I don't understand is why someone as sophisticated as Carr is surprised to find out that the 10% of the population who are egocentric psychopaths will always require that society create locks and police.
posted by James DeLong @ 11:29 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...
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