It does bring up an interesting issue though - what if someone did set up a botnet, then used it for a generally beneficial purpose... sort of a modern-day take on robin hood...
This would be quite different to SETI or other similar distributed-processing apps, as it spreads itself without user intervention / specific installation.
If this was used for some useful purpose (eg auto-mirroring content based on current traffic) I could see some very interesting possibilities.
However - the temptation to subvert it for nefarious purposes once it is up and running is likely to be too great for it to last long...
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 13.4 ms ] threadSummary: "Conficker authors, please destroy Facebook, MySpace and World of Warcraft so I can hangout with my friends face to face".
This would be quite different to SETI or other similar distributed-processing apps, as it spreads itself without user intervention / specific installation. If this was used for some useful purpose (eg auto-mirroring content based on current traffic) I could see some very interesting possibilities.
However - the temptation to subvert it for nefarious purposes once it is up and running is likely to be too great for it to last long...