Stephen Hawking Quotes

Our examination of computer viruses leads us to the conclusion that they are very close to what we might define as "artificial life." Rather than representing a scientific achievement, this probably represents a flaw in our definition.

After all, just one virus on a computer is one too many.

People's computers are not getting more secure. They're getting more infected with viruses. They're getting more under the control of malware.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

The Strandbeest is a self-replicating meme, a brain virus. It infects the student's brain. In fact, the Strandbeest abuse students for their reproduction. For two years, this reproduction fell into a flow acceleration. Now, 3D printers produce walking mini Strandbeests.

As every new breed of virus is conceived, created and released into the wild, another small change is made to the anti-virus software to combat the new threat.

Computer viruses are alive.

I can't say I'm particularly happy about all the spam and the viruses and the equivalent that we see on the Net, but I think technology can deal with many of the problems that we're now seeing, whether it's filtering or whatever, and laws may help a lot.

The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.

There is one major problem with anti-virus software: It needs updating. Users cannot be relied upon to have even the anti-virus software in the first place, let alone be able or willing to pay for the updates.

We have created life.

… a slave program

Once molecules have learnt to compete and to create other molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling elephants, will in due course be found roaming around the countryside ... Some of the things resembling elephants will be men.

If we create independent life, but keep it under our control, what is that? It can be said to be a form of slavery.

When Russia's intelligence agencies obtained some of the National Security Agency's secrets about its own cyberweapons, it appeared to do so by manipulating a virus protection program sold by Kaspersky, a Russian firm.

Everything becomes connected, and cyber security becomes the top issue for CEOs. An average company has 40-60 security vendors, and they have a violation every three months with viruses.

Once a viral program gets started, there is nothing to stop it.

One of the more fantastic possibilities is that man will be able to make biological carbon copies of himself.

We did more to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions with a computer virus than we ever could have with bombs (and we did still more with diplomacy - the abandonment of which is also bad for our military, because militaries can only stop a problem, not fix a problem).

Remember, a Trojan is more than a horse.

Identity theft, financial laundering, as well as ransom and ransomware - I mean, think of it - all involving extortion of a hacked institution are becoming increasingly common.

Suppose there are some things that we don't understand about the universe, but if you understand human intelligence and you understand the gaps in our abilities to think about things, maybe we can engineer in a computer more advanced intelligences that can help augment our ability to think.

'Temes' [technology-enhanced memes] don't care about us - they simply want to create more of themselves. Don't think we created the internet for our own benefit - think about temes spreading for themselves because they must.

We live in a world where we're all on computers and tablets and phones, all the time, so something as odd as computer hacking or a virus is really scary because it gets to the heart of our security.

What we're talking about is creating new forms of life on the basis of new values.