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> I think the computer term for the thing that most resembles how a meatspace virus behaves and propagates is "worm". A compuyter virus self propagates with hu
by kbenson 6y ago
> I think the computer term for the thing that most resembles how a meatspace virus behaves and propagates is "worm".
A compuyter virus self propagates with human intervention. A worm self propagates without human intervention.
I think the biological item that most closely resembles a work would be a parasite that is self-mobile. E.g. a botfly.
Various computer virus' in the past propagated through floppy drives and infected floppies, but you were safe as long you didn't initiate the action that caused the infection (use the floppy in your computer). Also, you can get a virus by visiting a website, which is also initiated by the uninfected.
Worms used infected host resources to actively seek out and infect other hosts without any initiating action by those other hosts.
In this way, meatspace viruses are NOT like computer worms. They don't cause their hosts to seek out people to infect. Infection is either coincidental or requires some allowance by the candidate (close contact, use of shared resources, etc).
- meowface 6y agoThat's true. Biological viruses are kind of in between computer viruses and computer worms. I still think a worm is a decent analogy, though. For example, the first thing a worm will often do is scan the local network and try to infect each "living host" it finds in its vicinity. In some sense it can be seen as having some kind of willpower or intention, but it's a little more like a blind, unthinking process of trying to constantly fire itself in all directions, not unlike how a virus is unthinkingly regularly emitting itself into the air around it to infect those in its vicinity.