They've come up with a virus that can jump back and forth from Windows to Linux. It randomly changes its size to make it harder to identify.

Great.

I've been wondering for a couple years what the killer app is for these new high-speed processors. Surfing the net and word processing don't require a two-gigahertz Pentium. The only thing that I've been able to see that a home user might want these new supercomputers for is gaming.

But if virii are getting more sophisticated, and more intensive analysis is required to identify and block them, then it may be that, as they become more complex and sophisticated, much of the CPU time may start to become dedicated to doing nothing but security and defense, so you'll have to have a lot of processing power just to have enough left over for the actual tasks you're trying to accomplish.

In fact, if I were the paranoid type, I might wonder if Intel is covertly funding virus development...

Ah, but Rand, look on the bright side. Eventually the viruses are going to be so sophisticated they simply WON'T RUN on less powerful computers.

I knew I was saving that old 386 for some reason.

That's already the case, since most viruses require some modern version of Windows. DOS machines (which is all you can do on a 386) are an unfit environment for them. Though if they come up with effective Linux virii, there are a few folks running that on 386s (though generally just for bragging rights--I'm actually using an old 486 for my firewall).

Those non-gaming apps for new ultra powerful but affordable hardware is driving just about everybody who deals in the consumer sector nuts. There are no end of hypothetical killer apps but we don't yet know how to make them work. Remember how long ago Apple had the Knowledge Navigator presntation? Most of it remains fantasy for the mainstream.

The mamoth increases in storage capacity are easier to sell. People never run out of stuff to add and never throwing anything away has some appeal. Imagine if your browser cache went back years. Your own personal Wayback Machine. Imagine a video recorder where you never erased anything to make room for new stuff.

But just think, this is a big validation for Linux. Without a large installed base a platform offers little attraction for a virus writer. And they're becoming ever so clever. Klez, for instance, has its own SMTP engine so its independent of the email client and a nifty routine for scanning a PC far and wide for email addresses the owner would recognize. By forging those addresses as the sender people who never been infected receive a torrent of complaints from annoyed recipients. Social engineering by proxy!

Rather than Intel I'm inclined to wonder what the employees of Symantec and NAI are up to when no new outbreak is blooming.

Two thoughts:

1. To what extent do Steven den Beste's comments about the relative merits of specialized and non-specialized creatures in evolution come into play? Would a 486 (let's not get TOO primitive) have advantages that, once the niches are filled, come into play?

2. At what point does the weight of defense begin to overwhelm the system? Carriers in World War II had two-thirds of their air-wing dedicated to strike. By the end of the Cold War, carriers (which had grown much larger) had half to two-thirds of their aircraft assigned to air defense (although that's shifted, w/ the demise of the Soviet Union back to about one-third being for air defense). Towards the end, there were real questions about whether the amount of ordnance deliverable was worth the cost.

Might so much dedication of effort to countering viruses result in a shift in approaches (multiple processors for different tasks, e.g.)?

Just wondering....

All good questions, and ones that hardware and software designers are pondering. In fact, the latter is already happening. I have a machine that does nothing but packet filtering. I have another that does nothing but logging the first one (a loghost).

That way, even if the firewall is breached, the other computer has to be hacked as well to spoof the logs.

Mean while the folks at your local power company appreciate the revenue from all your computer's power needs. :-)

They do indeed. Many people are unaware of the degree to which all the server farms up in Silicon Valley contributed to the California power crisis.

Fortunately, minimal 486 boxen don't use all that much power. But it adds up.

In Re: WWII carriers. The percentage of fighters climbed steadily from the start. The prewar air group had 18 fighters to 54 bombers. By Midway the fighter squadrons had risen to 24-27 aircraft. The three carriers present at the start of the Guadalcanal campaign averaged 33 fighters each. By the end of the war, with the kamikaze threat facing them, Essex class carriers were assigned a force of 73 fighters and only 30 bombers.

Ummmm....I think you're commenting to the wrong post.

Whoops, sorry, I see someone had brought up carriers prior to yours. I thought you were responding to the Battle of Midway post.

The folks running those server farms were very conscious of it. Some of the people who use Y2K hysteria to convince their bosses to install the backup power capacity they should have always had got a bit of vindication out of it.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has noticed that good deal of interest in power efficiency has appeared in the server sector that was previously reserved for laptops and desktops. Servers often got by as a protected species with a voracious appetite for juice and air conditioning, a major expense many neglect to factor in.

The big push for blades isn't just for conseration of space but also to great reduce those immediate and secondary power expenses.