More on the "Good Worm"

Some more materials on the concepts of the good worm. These are two slide decks on the topic.

In The coming age of defensive worms [PPT], David Meltzer (Intrusec Security) lays out a decent case for the use of counter-worms as a defense mechanism.

And in The Case for Beneficial Computer Viruses and Worms: A Student's Perspective [PDF], the author goes over some of the historical cases evaluating the concept of a beneficial worm.

In either case, I'm still not convinced. While I like agent systems and distributed computing, we have better ways of doing this now. And you still have reliable, trusted mechanisms to distribute updates or changes either in response to a worm outbreak or prior to one. No "beneficial worm" is needed in either case.