Microsoft and SCO have each posted a $250,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the propogator of the MyDoom worm. Tristan Louis, a blogger at TNL.net, suggests Putting the Open Source Community to Work on MyDoom. He adds the additional level of irony by suggesting that if the reward is collected, it be added to the OSDL Linux Legal Defense Fund.
However a collected reward may be applied, the idea of using a distributed network organization to counter a malware threat is an interesting concept ... somewhere between market and hierarchy. (See Unintended Consequences: Powell's Studies of Network Forms of Business Organization for some notes on Powell's work and link to his article by that name)
An article at the Register last summer questioned the market incentives of antivirus companies for actually finding and shutting down virus writers. Hierarchical solutions tend to be slow and sometimes encumbered by conflicting interests, both internal and external.
Scholars find that a network is the organizational form most adaptable to change. Columbia Professor Duncan J. Watts , for example, cites the example of the Toyota-Aisin crisis, as noted in Unintended Consequences: Reading: Watts: Six Degrees. Is it the optimal response here?
Comments?
Posted by dougsimpson at February 8, 2004 05:29 AM | TrackBack