End to viruses

[bargainman]

Interesting research at MIT:

 

http://www.process.org/discept/2011/11/17/draco-death-to-the-virus/

 

[tooskinneejs]

I was hoping that they found a cure for all computer viruses.  Oh well!

[Liberty]

I was hoping that they found a cure for all computer viruses.  Oh well!

 

Don't you think that a cure to biological viruses would be much better?

[tooskinneejs]

In all seriousness, yes.  But computer viruses can be a real headache too!

[rkbabang]

I've always wondered if humans carry around beneficial viruses with us as some other animals and especially insects do.  After all we have beneficial bacteria in our guts that we couldn't live without.  It stands to reason that somewhere along the evolutionary path some virus would have developed a mutually beneficial relationship with us. Unfortunately there has been almost no research in this area to find these (if they exist).  I certainly wouldn't be first in line to sign up for the human trials of this drug unless I already had something that was going to kill me for sure.  Interesting stuff though, hopefully it ends up working and not having any serious side effects.  It'd be nice to just pop a pill whenever you felt like you were coming down with something and never have a cold, flu or stomach virus again!

 

As far as computer viruses they can be controlled by a little common sense. Don't open the attachment your mom sends you with the message "Open this. It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" and use some antivirus software and a firewall.  We won't get rid of computer viruses, because we can't get rid of what causes them (humans).  They are a fact of life we just have to live with.  It's like saying we need to get rid of theft.  As long as there are humans in any large number communicating with programmable devices there will be theft, fraud, and malicious viral code.

 

Remember that all complex systems contain parasites.