Toning down the Virus

[Golan2072]

My virus-limiting methods will probably include:

1) The Virus must come in direct software contact (i.e. direct wire-link or high-bandwidth transmission) to infect a system; no "machine telepathy" and no infection through sensors. There are also no "castrated virus" transponders; virii are information (software) entities rather than physical (hardware) ones.

2) The Virus, while capable with a certain level of adaptation to various "habitats" (i.e. different computational powers of host-computers), has limits; it cannot directly control a computer of Model/3 or less, a TL10- planetary network or a non-sentient robot; it cannon leave "eggs" on Model/2 or less computers or TL9- planetary networks (use the Hard Times TL for this - any network reduced to TL9 or less has effectively collapsed below the capacity required to host the Virus. It can, however, hack and/or reprogram other systems, but that requires it to control a computer AND have access (radio, laser or hardwire) to the target system or device.

3) The entire X-Boat network was completely wiped out by 1130; other starships carrying powerful enough computers for Virus "eggs" were also quite rare, especially in the Core (close to Research Station Omicron) where the final battles between Lucan and Dulinoir left massive devastation in its wake.

 

[mike wightman]

Considering the number of modern day viruses that don't need a physical link I think your first one needs revision.

If your mobile phone or web browser can be persuaded to open a link to an attachment you can become infested.

So do you also mean direct wireless link?

I do agree that virii are software entities though - in exactly the same way as we are DNA entities.

As for number 2, if a computer can run a jump program, it can become virus infested - that's my rule of thumb.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Considering the number of modern day viruses that don't need a physical link I think your first one needs revision.

If your mobile phone or web browser can be persuaded to open a link to an attachment you can become infested.

So do you also mean direct wireless link?

Sorry for this being unclear - I meant any high-bandwidth link, from hardwire to wireless to laser-comm. Also remember that the AI virus is not just a software virus; its an AI organism, and thus should IMHO be quite bigger than a software virus - its transmits its consciousness, not just its software "DNA" nescery to replicate and operate. That it, its "data files", not just the "Virus-OS" (which should be big by itself - its an AI after all). Anything that allows software download should allow Virus download, too.

I do agree that virii are software entities though - in exactly the same way as we are DNA entities.

I meant that the Virus was a software entity in the same way that we are a "physical" entity - a computer's memory and proccessors are its natural habitats. But it is transmitted as a software, not as a "biochip" in a ship's transponder that gets reconfigured.

As for number 2, if a computer can run a jump program, it can become virus infested - that's my rule of thumb.

The reason for limiting it to higher-TL computers was to limit its spread and thus make it as rare as it should be (and thus an interesting phenomena rather than a uniform blanket all over known space); also, remember that an AI would probably need a minimal amount of processing power to operate, even at a bare-minimum level, and a minimal amount of storage-space to reside in. It also makes big military ships rare in 1200 (or the "toned down" 1150 milieu I am thinking about) - most of them had computers which were VERY optimal habitats for Virus, and thus got infected early - and usually by the early "suicide" strain (remember that the biggest surviving fleets in 1130 were Dulinor's Coronation Fleet and Lucan's defense fleets).

 

[Golan2072]

Also, remember that the universe that I'm trying to imply is one in which the Virus is mostly localized to the Core - controlling the decaying remnants of Lucan's Imperium among other things - with occurances of the Virus in the periphery (Diaspora, Solomani Rim, Spinward Marches, Old Expanses and so on) being VERY rare even at the height of its spread. So a recovery in the periphery would start in 1150 rather than in 1200.