First published: 31st March 2008
Allan Dyer
I didn't notice Dr. John Aycock's 2006 paper, “Good” Worms and Human Rights when it was first published. Anyone living under a repressive regime may hope that human rights organisations also fail to notice it, or have enough sense not to implement the idea.
Aycock's basic idea is that a worm can be designed to spread within the country with a repressive regime and test the internet censorship in place "avoiding the danger posed to humans who take part in testing". Aycock asserts that "The self-replication mechanism of worms is ideal in this case, because a person whose computer is infected takes part in the testing but has perfect deniability": they performed no deliberate action and have no knowledge of the worm.
Dr. Aycock has failed to consider that concepts of deniability and innocent until proven guilty are often lacking under repressive regimes. Instead of being eliminated, the risk is merely transferred to innocent parties. A human rights organisation thinking of creating such a worm should consider the ethical implications of passing responsibility of their actions onto unknowing subjects of the repressive regime.
Dr. Aycock has previously advocated teaching of virus writing.