[Dailydave] Biofilms

[Dave Aitel]

So let's say you are attacking a large network, and you have a number of
implants on that network. At some point, some of those implants get
coopted by the defenders (or by another attacker). You want to change
the behavior of your implants if enough of them are compromised or killed.

There are biological problems very similar to this: in particular,
biofilms <https://www.livescience.com/57295-biofilms.html>. A key
question of the microorganisms in a biofilm is "When do we start making
a biofilm?" I.E. completely diverse species of bacteria need to realize
they have a quorum and a good habitat and a reason to produce a biofilm
- and there are always reasons not to! A biofilm is essentially a
multi-cellular organism, which means some members don't get to
reproduce, and some members specialize in ways that are very expensive!
Even producing large quantities of slime to hold the biofilm together
can use up valuable sugars that maybe could be put to use reproducing?

This is where "proof of work" and decentralized algorithms (aka
BlockChains) start to become very interesting for implant writers (and
for defenders).

-dave



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