Some people tell me that the 0wned machines are among the most secure on the network because botnet operators work hard to keep others from compromising “their” machines. I could see the operators moving toward being legitimate security firms, protecting computers against compromise in exchange for some of the proof of work (POW) money.
I’m one of those people. Quoting from my speech of 1/20:
Virus attacks have, of course, become rarer over time, which is to say that where infectious agents once ruled, today it is parasites. Parasites have no reason to kill their hosts — on the contrary they want their hosts to survive well enough to feed the parasite. A parasite will generally not care to be all that visible, either. The difference between parasitism and symbiosis can be a close call in some settings, and of the folks who famously bragged of being able to take the Internet down in twenty minutes, one has said that a computer may be better managed once it is in a botnet than before since the bot-master will be serious about closing the machine up tight against further penetration and similarly serious about patch management. Therefore, since one can then say that both the machine’s nominal owner and the bot master are mutually helped, what we see is evolution from parasite to symbiont in action. According to Margulis and Sagan, “Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.” On this basis and others, bot-nets are a life form.
Rest of text upon request. Incidentally, I highly recommend Daniel Suarez’s Daemon; trust me as to its relevance. Try this for a non-fiction taste:
http://fora.tv/2008/08/08/Daniel_Suarez_Daemon_Bot-Mediated_Reality
—dan