ConclusionAn immune system for computers is desirable and feasible. As suggested in Fig. 3, most of the necessary components are already in use in one form or another. Some already exist in IBM AntiVirus itself. Others are presently in use in the virus laboratory, for the purpose of updating the databases employed by IBM AntiVirus to recognize viruses and repair infected files. One of the technical issues that remains to be explored further is the kill signal. Further simulation will help to establish the exact circumstances under which a node should send signals to its neighbors, and for what length of time these signals should be sent. Further analysis and simulation must be conducted to assess the effectiveness of various fail-safe mechanisms that have been proposed to deal with the propagation of erroneous kill signals, which could result from false positives, software bugs, or intentional subversion by malicious users. The biological immune system has invented various inhibitory mechanisms which may turn out to be of use to us. We anticipate that, as the design for our computer immune system evolves, it will be influenced, not just by what Mother Nature has invented, but also by theories invented by immunologists to explain the observed function of the immune system [14, 15, 16]. In fact, we may offer new employment opportunities for theoretical immunologists, because our criteria for success are different: a proposed mechanism need not be a correct description of biology; it only has to work!
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