But botnets might be destined for more than just Spam. As it stands, botnets are some of the largest accumulations of computing power in the world today rivaled only by supercomputers and massive server farms such as those of Google.

Two points that set botnets apart is the organic way in which they grow – by “infecting” computers around them – and how they evolve. The second distinction has to do with the illicit nature of botnets. A botnet needs to be adaptable and resilient. While a server farm or supercomputer are built for a specific purpose with fairly strictly defined inputs, outputs and topology and, for the most part, walled off from the rest of the Internet, a bot net is exposed and usually under constant attack. Law enforcement, security researchers, anti-virus software and even individual owners of the infected machines are all acting against the botnet.

This competition for survival is driving the evolution of botnets ever faster. Today’s botnets are starting to user peer-to-peer decentralized communications for their command and control. They are detecting and punishing any probing of their network.

Emergent Behavior in Botnets

While today’s and tomorrow’s botnets are a far cry from anything resembling machine intelligence that evolutionary step might not be far off down the line. Botnets represent a unique platform on which an emergent intelligence might one day arise. This might take the form of a simple artificial organism attempting to grow and survive on the Internet.

Think of the possibilities of applying the following methods to a botnet of several hundred thousand machines:

Genetic programming – This could be used to spread the characteristics of the most productive nodes (i.e. those that sent out the most spam) throughout the system

Game of Life – This could be used to vary infection patterns to avoid detection

The resultant emergent behavior of a botnet using these methods would be interesting indeed. Another twist to the story comes when two or more such botnets start competing for hosts. This competition would again increase the speed of botnet development to new and, potentially, unexpected ends.

Of course, there will always be a person in the middle of it. Someone will have to write the basic rules of the botnet for propagation, evolution etc. The DNA of the botnet – the implementing the actual exploits – will always be a hands-on task for a human. However, once released, these systems will, more and more, start to take on a life of their own.

Conclusion

While it is unfortunate that botnets are used for illicit purposes today, they hold enourmous potential for researching emergent behaviours. Botnets might be the seeds of future emergent machine intelligence.

Update

Now there is news that a Russian botnet is “fighting” another botnet. Essentially stealing the rival’s data and uninstalling it. The Botcocalypse has begun!