Re: Are Viruses Good?
From: SpamLover (n1jpr_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/28/03
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Date: 28 Nov 2003 07:57:19 -0800
> Well, this is like saying that AIDS actually is a good thing, because now at
[...]
> in cyberspace, quite a lot of people do not use AV, and certainly not a
> firewall («a what?»), even though they have broadband and they're computer
> is on-line virtually 24/7.
> And those who had AV up and running in July went down anyway, because
> MSBlaster used another attack vector...
You are right in that my post was quite narrowly aimed. There is
actually little or no high-level conceptual difference between vulns
exploted by viruses and other threats.
But there have been many cases of lack of a specific challenge being
followed by disaster.
- Europeans and the Black Plague (35% mortality)
- Caribbeans and influenza (50%)
- Native Americans and smallpox (20-90% depending on areas).
OTOH, there's that very famous historical example of a low level
challenge bringing cross immunity: cowpox (now more exactly recognized
as a horse pox) attacked humans but left them healthy and protected
against the 1/3 deadly (for Europeans) smallpox virus.
There is also a clear understanding that the same must have happened
with some never identified mild flu that must have swept the world
around the 1890's, and left only the older people who had caught it
protected against the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919. In some remote parts
of the world (again, islands or remote Canadian native villages),
humans who weren't globally networked in the 1890's were indeed so 30
years later, and entire communities succumbed.
Compared to past scourges, the current AIDS epicemic is a horrible
"joke" seen in a global perspective. What's the current 42m
infections, over half of which in subsaharan Africa? What's the
perspective death of just several hundred millions, especially if
their leaders have access to antriretrovirals, obfuscate the problem
and/or prohibit action (e.g. the Pope & Thabo Mbeki) and the infected
masses are in godforsaken countries anyway?
In cynical IT terms, it's like saying that the threat only hits
"marginal" systems, which goes a long way explaining why not much was
done for them until recently. In other words, nobody bothered install
AV / FW / proper settings and policies / patches. Which is, btw,
exactly the state of things that prevailed in the whole world before
the late 1780s.
Which brings me back to the original point, to which I now add: are we
sure that we humans in the rich North of the world get enough exposure
to viruses and bacteria?
Quite a propos, don't forget that the Gates Foundation retargeted its
efforts in the developing world from teaching computer literacy to
promoting mass vaccination. Isn't that something?
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