Published in the Laissez Faire City Times, August 6, 2001
At the time of writing, we still cannot assess the damage that the Code Red worm, which has been proliferating since mid July, will do this time (from August 1 on). This worm is interesting because its ultimate target seems to be the White House website, which it could possibly close down with denial-of-service attacks. Code Red is designed to coordinate such attacks through the third-party servers that it infects.
We don't need to get into the distinctions between viruses, worms, and Trojans, and we can use the broad meaning of "virus" to include all of these variants.[1] Perhaps the most important point is that a worm is not attached to a file like a virus in the narrow sense, it "worms its way into computers."[2]
In the most general sense, then, computer viruses can be defined as lines of code, i.e., bits of information, that disrupt the information processing capacities of computers with which they come into contact. Viruses carry their disruption mission by destroying stored data or by interfering in other ways with other sets of code called software. Viruses (with the exception of Trojans) travel and multiply from computer to computer over an information network, whether this network is constituted by people exchanging a disk (which was common some years ago), or whether it is a pure electronic network (the Internet being the network of networks).
When we look at viruses that way -- as bits of information meant to disrupt information processing over a communication network -- it becomes clear that they are not new, even if the kinds of networks over which they operate vary. Non-scientific ideas, argues Richard Dawkins, are viruses of the mind.[3] In the network of society, a false idea is a virus since it subverts the way information is processed. False ideas are subversive, but not all subversive ideas are false.
I would like to suggest that the states have been the largest producers of social viruses in human history. Actually, the state often hires or co-opts intellectuals in order that they clog the social information processing network with viruses that extol the importance of, or even deify, the state. The king, says Bertrand de Jouvenel, "encourages the universities, which provide him with his most effective champions."[4] Whatever their potential benefits, states have been masters of propaganda, that is, producers of viruses that prevent non-statist interpretations of reality.
Although state websites often provide useful information, their main function is to be propaganda engines, mass virus distributors. "Services for you," claims the home page of the Canadian government website.[5] Read Customs' propaganda: "The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) provides a full range of services at Canada's international borders."[6] Thank you very much! But what if I don't want your services? Or read the message on the home page of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms: "The mission of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is vital to reducing violent crime, protecting the public, collecting revenue, and providing nationwide enforcement authority in matters affecting the firearms, explosives, alcohol, and tobacco industries."[7] And so on, and so forth.
Why then make a big fuss about Internet viruses? Perhaps because of their malicious intent, while viruses produced by state propaganda have a benevolent intent? But benevolence is often more dangerous than egoism. Recall Adam Smith: "By pursuing his own interest [the individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."[8] Recall also that the Nice State can be much more dangerous than an egotistic tyrant.[9] Yet, most people think that the hacker's pure mischievous, as opposed to egotistic, spirit is immoral. This looks like an acceptable judgment until we realize that the private virus maker is often having fun with the challenge. Tricks that kids play just do more damage on computer networks than in backyards. The question remains of whether state viruses don't cause still more damage, if only less visible.
The Internet has democratized virus production. Here is a "level playing field" that we should hail! Efficient mass transmission of viruses was, until recently, a near exclusive monopoly of the state. Only the state could, with its propaganda tools, disrupt, in a significant way, social information processing. Now, any good hacker can do it, for good or for evil.
Let's dismiss the simplistic view of the good government cop against the evil virus creator, and realize that computer viruses could be used for good, just as subversive ideas can. For instance, targeted viruses (like Code Red) could be used as a peaceful guerilla tool against intrusive, violent state agencies.
It is true that Code Red squats private computers and, as such, probably violates individual rights and economic efficiency. I say "probably" because a case could be made that being squatted by innocuous viruses when you wander in cyberspace is like being hit by photons deflected by your neighbor when you get out of your house. Moreover, there are private ways to protect one's computer or network against viruses. I am not lobbying for the creators of Code Red, but arguing against demonizing all kinds of viruses.
More generally, hacking may soon become the best weapon to protect our liberty against mounting tyranny. This, much more than a concern for the well being of e-merchants, may be the real, deep motivation of the states' war against hacking.
Now, we have to admit that there are different degrees of tyranny. I believe that our own states in the West, including Canada and the U.S., have become tyrannical states. If this is true, we are justified to resist them, but I believe that it is still possible and desirable to do so peacefully. For how long? This will depend on how these states evolve. It is also true that some states are more tyrannical than the ones under which we live in the so-called free world, and we would be ill advised to help the former while attacking the latter. A hackers' attack, or a targeted virus, would be better aimed at, say, the Chinese tyrant than at its American or Canadian counterpart.
This being said, it may very well be that specific government agencies whose only effective purpose is to destroy our liberties would be good targets for hackers. Just to give a pedagogical example, the Canadian Firearms Centre[10] is a despicable Police-State bureaucracy whose aim is to prevent honest citizens from having legal guns, or to impose humiliating conditions on them.[11] Attacking it would bring no inconvenient, except to the individuals who are trying to submit to its requirements, but this would be compensated by the possibility of destroying whatever credibility this bureaucracy has and freeing everybody from it.
Because such possibilities of using hacking for peaceful resistance do exist, we should be tolerant with hackers, and try to bring them to do good instead of evil.
[1] See "How Malicious Programs Work," at http://www.indefense.com/manuals/white/malicious.htm (visited July 31, 2001).[2] See Porter Anderson, "'Code Red': Is the worm a slug?" (visited August 1, 2001).
[3] Richard Dawkins, Viruses of the Mind (1991), at http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html.
[4] Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth [1945] (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1993), p. 203.
[5] At http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html (visited July 31, 2001).
[6] At http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/customs/general/menu-e.html (visited July 31, 2001).
[7] At http://www.atf.treas.gov/ (visited July 31, 2001).
[8] Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], at http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWNContents.html (visited July 31, 2001).
[9] Pierre Lemieux, "The Nice State," Laissez Faire City Times, July 2, 2001, at http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.27/nicestate.html.
[10] At http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/; DNS: 38.144.163.210.
[11] See my "Telling the State About Your Love Affairs," Laissez Faire City Times, June 11, 2001, at http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.24/love_affairs.html.