SYSBXR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU (Bridget Rutty) (08/24/90)
> I can think of at least one precedent from the medical profession >- - the Saulk (sp?) vaccine (the primary polio vaccine in the US). This >vaccine is a live, contagious, virus. Any Physician who administers it >is releasing a virus into the population. This is considered an >advantage. ... This is NOT a precedent, or even a good analogy. Physicians do not administer any medication, vaccine or otherwise, without understanding the risks and benefits. Patients do not get vaccines without consenting. Granted, some patients may not understand all the risks of a vaccine but that probably is because they do not ask. > The computer analog of such a transmissible live attenuated virus >would be a version of a highly destructive virus from which the >destructive code has been removed. The vaccine would spread to exactly >the population susceptible to the original virus, because it would >spread by the same mechanism and would be stopped by the same >protective software. It would then compete with the virulent virus by >means of of its shared self recognition site. In the situation described, there is no informed consent and to my mind such a program is no different than the virus with which it competes.
decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com (08/26/90)
SYSBXR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU (Bridget Rutty) writes: >> I can think of at least one precedent from the medical profession >>- - the Saulk (sp?) vaccine (the primary polio vaccine in the US). Thiss >>vaccine is a live, contagious, virus. Any Physician who administers it >>is releasing a virus into the population. This is considered an >>advantage. ... > >This is NOT a precedent, or even a good analogy. Physicians do not >administer any medication, vaccine or otherwise, without understanding >the risks and benefits. Patients do not get vaccines without consenting. >Granted, some patients may not understand all the risks of a vaccine >but that probably is because they do not ask. This is not exactly true. Although the person getting the vaccine (or their parents) hopefully understand the risks and benifits, the Salk vaccine actually spreads to non-vaccinated people, transmitting the benifits of the vaccine to them without their knowledge or consent. That is why the Salk vaccine is used, rather than a killed virus vaccine. Brendt Hess decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (08/26/90)
SYSBXR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU (Bridget Rutty) writes: > This is NOT a precedent, or even a good analogy. Physicians do not > administer any medication, vaccine or otherwise, without understanding > the risks and benefits. Patients do not get vaccines without consenting. > Granted, some patients may not understand all the risks of a vaccine > but that probably is because they do not ask. Actually, that's not entirely true. One of the reasons for using the attentuated virus vaccine instead of the killed virus vaccine, other than the improved protection, is that people who have not been vaccinated but come in contact with recently vaccinated individuals (generally other kids at schools or day-cares) will be infected by the attenuated virus and get the same immunity. - -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
CAH0@gte.com (Chuck Hoffman) (08/27/90)
SYSBXR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU (Bridget Rutty) writes: > > In the situation described, there is no informed consent and to my > mind such a program is no different than the virus with which it > competes. I agree with Bridget. In this thread, many responses wandered off onto the technical issues, but this was not the point. In our culture, it is not accepted to "help" someone without their informed consent. And this means more than just putting some text and an "OK" button up on a screen prior to execution. I think that understanding this principle is a real task for younger programmers, especially those just entering their full adulthood. They have spent their lives receiving "help" from people without giving consent, like parents, teachers, and the like. They have no way of knowing how special a case they were because they were not yet fully enabled to give judgement and consent. It's a new business, all of this, about how important it is to get another adult's informed permission first, before helping. Although this understanding will come with time, much of the code these days is being written by those who have not yet developed this understanding, and who do not have technical supervision from those who have. As a group, our technology may be ahead of our personal maturing processes. Chuck Hoffman, GTE Laboratories, Inc. ! I'm not sure why we're here, cah0@bunny.gte.com ! but I am sure that while Telephone (U.S.A.) 617-466-2131 ! we're here, we're supposed GTE VoiceNet: 679-2131 ! to help each other. GTE Telemail: C.HOFFMAN !
hartley@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (08/29/90)
>> me >Bridget Rutty <SYSBXR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU> >> The Salk vaccine (the primary polio vaccine in the US). This >> vaccine is a live, contagious, virus. Any Physician who administers it >> is releasing a virus into the population. > Physicians do not administer any medication, vaccine or otherwise, > without understanding the risks and benefits. You mean the known risks and benifits. More will inevitably surface when the treatment is used widely. In any case, this just amounts to knowing that the Salk Vaccine can cause paralytic disease and death - but not too often. See my discusion of bugs in live vaccines. > Patients do not get vaccines without consenting. Wrong! The Salk vaccine is CONTAGIOUS. It automatically administers itself without anyones consent or even knowledge. There is no consent and no one is informed. >> a version of a highly destructive virus from which the >> destructive code has been removed. > In the situation described, there is no informed consent and to my > mind such a program is no different than the virus with which it > competes. There is a big difference. The vaccine is less distructive. No one would use this type of approach against a relatively harmless virus like WDEF, for example. It may be no diferent to your mind but it would surely be different from point of view of the guy whose disk didn't get wiped. Note that the use of a live vaccine does not require anyone to lower his guard. >Mike Castle <S087891@UMRVMA.BITNET> > I don't see much help in the way of having anti-viral viruses as > competition for "nasty" viruses either. I don't know all that much > about viruses (I just read this discussion to try to be an "informed > user"), and I don't see where or why a virus would worry about > competition for infection. Most (computer) viruses will not infect the same file more than once. If they did they would swamp the system and distroy their chances of spreading. Because of this different strains of the same virus will compete (as long as one virus recognizes the other as self). It is also posible to use an "immune" mechanism. Replace the "disk muncher" payload with an add for anti-viral software (It would be sure to get instant attention! Sort of like an AIDS vacine that changes people's behavior - by turning them purple.) ... Just a momment ... I'm not sure I like the direction this chain of thought is leading! Not an offical position of anyone. Ralph Hartley hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil
AZX@NIHCU.BITNET (09/04/90)
> <FXJWK@ALASKA.BITNET> >Perhaps I'm contributing to this "beating the dead horse"; can we hear >from some of the fence-sitters out there? Has anyone's mind been >changed during these discussions? O.K. Anti-Virus Virus: 1) Morality I have no moral stand on this. If the earnest goal is to improve the computing community then and anti-virus virus may be a good idea. I have read a lot of attempts to compare human vaccine methods with anti-virus viruses. The analogy between biological and human viruses is another point of hot debate on VIRUS-L. Let's hit that issue first. An analogy need not be perfect, it should, however, be useful. The biological/computer virus analogy is useful. For example, in searching for a moral stance on anti-virus viruses several people here have talked about the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Sadly, there has been much misinformation. The good news is that the issue is being corrected by some better informed writers. It happens that the polio vaccines are not a good example for spreading protection without informed consent. I appeal to the medical community to give us a better example. Maybe a bioethics person can help. In the case of disease I suspect the good of the community comes first. There are other very useful aspects to the hydrocarbon/silicon virus analogy. The analogy works because now we can use words like: infection, spread, and replication, rather than having to invent new terminology. The analogy must, and does, fail at times. Yet a certain amount of flexibility in our interpretations can be quite useful. For example, while it is true that the computer has no inherent immune system, the operating system itself has certain properties of 'resistance' to infection. The introduction of programs like SCAN can be viewed as evolutionary steps in the creation of an immune system. The signature search of the antivirus programs is remarkably similar to certain functions of the mammalian immune system. Thus the organism is not the computer itself, but the computer, operating system, additional software, computer operator, and programmers who distribute the software. The computer is just the site of the infection. To finish the morality issue. It must first be possible to create an antivirus virus that is a significant benefit to the (computer) society without unacceptable damage to either computers or civil rights. 2) Reality I especially like the discussions on the difficulties and risks of producing a 'good' virus. Many of the opinions expressed come from people who have already made up their minds on the whole issue, but the comments themselves warrent merrit. We need to first agree that risks can never be zero, then try to decide what the minimum acceptable risk is. If the risk is far below the risk of getting an 'evil' virus, and the risk of damage is far below that of 'evil' viruses, then there may be some justification for thinking a safe and effective 'good' virus is possible. How about this: What if all the standard antivirus software was set up to identify this 'good' virus, with a standard method of detection and removal? Then only those (foolish) people who do not use detection programs will become infected. Unexpected interactions between 'evil' and 'good' viruses is an important consideration. Also, the danger that a 'good' viruses acting on unusual systems in a bad way could cause damage, is food for thought. There have been many other valuable comments on VIRUS-L. 3) Utility/Necessity If a virus outbreak is out of control because there are too many casual users who are infected, then an antivirus virus specific for that virus may become a necessity rather than just a utility. The future of antivirus viruses may be highly specific programs to aimed at attacking especially bad viruses. The least we could do is experiment with these programs until we feel that we have the expertise to write a good one. Someday we may need it. Andrew R. Mitz The opinions expressed here AZX@NIHCU do not necessarily reflect my own, let alone anyone else's.