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I'm excited to share my little secret with you, if you promise me not to tell anyone else and help me with my little, ambitious quest.

I think I managed to found a way for someone to enter the internet. Literally.

Okay, you may be laughing now, but just let me introduce the principle behind this as simple as possible:

Our brainwaves are actually just interactions of nerve cells, so by replicating the interactions between devices in the internet, we can upload one's consciousness to the internet.

First we upload the consciousness into these processors (shows a 30x30x30 cm computer). This will serve as our initial interface to the internet. Then through the processors (note: he keeps saying "processors", instead of "computer") you can upload your consciousness to the internet by having many devices replicating the packets back and forth.

Now you see? It's the best invention ever! No! You cannot try it! It's for me! There will be no one smarter than me, ever! It's best for humankind to upload myself and let my genius mind be the eternal guide to humanity!

Yeah, whatever. I know you will call me that... hmm? Interesting post. I didn't know it's so easy to eliminate me after I become immortal. This is very inconvenient...

I know this is not the most original story you've ever heard, but

how to prepare for digital immortalization through uploading your consciousness to the internet, to ensure that you can't be removed from the internet?

Some obstacles I've thought:

  • Firewall and other security system, including antivirus
  • Power, and internet connection, as stated in the link

The consciousness will live on the internet, and is capable to take over a device (similar to virus/hacked device - hence I fear antivirus and such). The process will mostly be slow at first, but as soon as more devices have "downloaded" the consciousness, the process will be faster.

This takes place on this Earth and now. I'd handwave the exact process of the "uploading" for now, and assume that the consciousness is able to learn and breach through every possible firewall or software-based protection, given enough time (remember the processing power gets higher the more devices taken over, similar to Plague Inc.).

Taking over a device is not necessarily leaving a file(s) behind, but by backdooring, you save time when you want to use the device.

Bonus: if someone can figure out how to eliminate this consciousness after he's taken over all devices in the world.

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  • $\begingroup$ "The consciousness will live on the internet" -- what does this mean? I mean, really, operationally, what does this mean? What is consciousness? How does a mind not go mad when losing all its previous senses and abilities and acquiring new and vastly different, unknown senses and abilities? $\endgroup$ – AlexP Apr 19 '17 at 16:51
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    $\begingroup$ Just want to point out that would be a COPY of you, with its own self-awareness. You will still be here, experiencing things through your own body and senses. Your self-awareness won't be in two places at the same time. My example: even if an exact copy of you is created in the physical world, where every atom and subatomic particle is in exactly the same position relative to every other atom and subatomic particle, you don't suddenly have to contend with seeing through your eyes AND that new copy's eyes. You'll still be aware of your own body's senses, only. (Oh, but handwaving. Never mind.) $\endgroup$ – BrettFromLA Apr 19 '17 at 18:16
  • $\begingroup$ Read The Adolescence of P-1. $\endgroup$ – JDługosz Apr 19 '17 at 19:06
  • $\begingroup$ Small question, what about the servers and space required for such a project... in reality I can't even begin to see it happening, even with the technology. $\endgroup$ – Marios Zaglas Apr 19 '17 at 23:54
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    $\begingroup$ There's not going to be one single consciousness, as it is impossible to keep all processors perfectly in sync. Processors will invariably reach different conclusions, which causes a snowball-effect with diverging 'opinions' of the different sections of your digital schizophrenic mind. Keep in mind that if you desire to take over the world, your consciousness will likely be at war with itself at some point. $\endgroup$ – Sazanami Apr 20 '17 at 5:56
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Upload the consciousness to every peer-to-peer file sharing service you can find, especially the anonymous ones.

Peer-to-peer file systems (any distributed file system, to be honest) should replicate the data they store onto multiple servers to ensure data is always available and, if one server is lost, destroyed, or corrupted, the data is recoverable. P2P systems, however, store this data on the users' machines, and not necessarily all of the data is found on one node in the network.

In other words, users will be intentionally adding their system to the growing consciousness without ever realizing it. Anonymous systems go even further, concealing the data being stored on any given node in the network: you don't know which files are on your system, only that they are consuming X amount of space.

Once your files are on a system, all you have to do is mine the list of IP addresses in the user's cache and copy yourself to those. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, you'll hit something with a lot of traffic, like Amazon.com, and then you have access to the IP address of every user who doesn't surf the Internet anonymously.

How To Defeat

  1. Print the contents of Wikipedia.
  2. Build a new Internet based on a different protocol and never connect it to the infected one.
  3. Never distribute a patch to existing systems to use the new protocol. Never build a new system with access to the infected Internet.
  4. Never distribute a patch that allows an existing system to communicate with a new system. Never build a new system that can communicate with an existing system.
  5. Shutdown all data centers and network hubs serving the infected Internet and burn them.
  6. Start over.
  7. Create a new Wikipedia using the printout.
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  • $\begingroup$ I'm a bit surprised someone already mentioned new Internet this soon! However, do you really think this could be worked out? I mean, the infrastructure, the whole economy system, satellite, etc. must be rebuild from the scratch! And all data of NASA, identities, and such. Humanity would be thrown into chaos if current devices be destroyed without giving a chance to backup! $\endgroup$ – Vylix Apr 19 '17 at 13:33
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    $\begingroup$ XKCD says you need about 6 printers to print out entire wikipedia and keep it updated $\endgroup$ – Pavel Janicek Apr 19 '17 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ @AdiNugroho This is the only solution that guarantees a self-replicating supervirus is rendered inert. Step 1 (print Wikipedia) can be applied to any database of information, and then, in step 7, be rebuilt. It simply must not be stored in any digital form during the transition. $\endgroup$ – Frostfyre Apr 19 '17 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ Why would a printout prevent the digital super virus? All the super virus has to do is tweak wikipedia to store its code, 1 space or 2 at the end of each sentence. Then persuade some idiot to run a snippet of code on an old blog that trawls wikipedia for the data and boots it back up again. You printed the code, but you never checked it did you. (internet is big, use this trick in several different places) $\endgroup$ – Donald Hobson Apr 19 '17 at 22:38
  • $\begingroup$ @DonaldHobson Not sure what you mean. A digital virus, no matter how perfectly coded, can never exist in a hard copy of something (i.e., a printout).. $\endgroup$ – Frostfyre Apr 20 '17 at 12:18
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Ok, first let's ignore the memory size required to copy ones mind. So if full transfer 1:1 would require, for example, 30 TB it should be able to"zip" its core to 15 KB and then "unzip" and crawl to get the knowledge back.
Second problem is to forfeit the assumption that there is a central part responsible for certain tasks (like Broca's area ). Those 15 KB can be stored in every 100 MB (of the 1:1 data) and its only default setting would be "check if the previous link respond". If not then unzip and start rebuilding lost data. So you can cut off 29,9 TB of consciousness and it will still try to relocate, multiply the core and again size lost data (or just try to grow again not caring what is lost).

How to fight it? Same we do with the virus. You separate the core part on a device that is solitary and then try to implement the autodestruct part (that's why you should not set "automodify" to yourself as you can accidentally invent suicide code).
So not try to build antivirus but more like cancer. So you would absorb the code that on one hand grow with you, leaving the data slightly changed enough to be "burned earth" for you but usable after your demise to others.

Other way would be to overload you. Give you so much information that would require from you to shut some outputs and ports cornering you in some DEEP Blue instance that can be just switched off.

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    $\begingroup$ I honestly don't understand most of this answer :( $\endgroup$ – Mołot Apr 19 '17 at 9:50
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Another obstacle/threat would be other digital consciousnesses. Your genius may think he's the first but there could have been others before him, maybe a pilot before he deemed the process "safe" for his use. You didn't mention what happens to the "original" but the digital copy would become its own entity and should evolve as it spreads. Isolating a copy of that consciousness and allowing it to develop independently could create a new distinct consciousness. Manipulating the new copy could be possible to introduce a directive to eliminate other consciousnesses and would effectively create an AI antivirus. The psychology of the genius could be played on to do this. He thinks he's the best so pitting one version against another isn't inconceivable.

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  • $\begingroup$ I fail to understand how this answer my question $\endgroup$ – Vylix Mar 12 '19 at 1:28

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