There's a science fiction novel waiting to be written that incorporates the ideas from The White Plague and Ribofunk and the 21st century IT world.

Imagine the genetically-engineered counterpart to the CryptoLocker ransomware. Private and public antivirus research. MacAffee for your white blood cells. Imagine ad-supported biotech.

The internet has created a sort of commoditization of fraud. Scam spam, ad-ware, spyware, etc, often run by companies operating right out in public. Professionals openly discuss security from both sides of the line.

Imagine this sort of bizarre professional attitude in the a low-cost engineered-virus biotech field. What would the Windows of this world be - a suite of programmable bacteria with a solid API?