[In response to Bill Frantz’s observation about botnet security]
[Geer references a speech he gave on January 20, 2009, discussing how virus attacks had diminished while parasitic relationships had increased.]
Parasites have no reason to kill their hosts — on the contrary they want their hosts to survive well enough to feed the parasite.
[He notes that botnet operators maintain strict security and patch management on controlled machines, and characterizes botnets as functioning like biological organisms evolving from parasitism toward symbiosis.]
As Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan wrote: “Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.”
[Geer recommends Daniel Suarez’s novel Daemon as relevant reading, referencing a 2008 lecture by Suarez about bot-mediated reality.]
—dan