This is a little different from the subjects I normally cover on this site, but the vulnerability of the human mind is a fascinating subject also from security point of view. Social engineering attacks are, after all, the most difficult to guard against.
One of my favorite webcartoons brought up the concept of a memetic virus recently. Today my kids asked me about Bitcoin and why it is valuable, and I made the connection between the two. The only real reason (since Bitcoin wastes huge amounts of energy and is not even very good for actual commerce) I could come up with for the value of Bitcoin was that people think it will increase in value. When a critical mass of people thought that, others started believing it based on the belief of that early critical mass. And so the number of believers grew, giving even more exposure to the idea and – due to supply and demand – causing the value of Bitcoin to grow. The increase in the value of Bitcoin gave credence to the belief and supercharged its growth, even though the increase in belief is the cause of the increase in value.
This kind of belief-value feedback loop is of course not new; it is commonly known as an (Asset) Bubble. You are probably familiar with the example of the Dutch Tulip Mania. But with Bitcoin the phenomenon had the opportunity to play out on a global scale, benefitting from the relatively recent prosperity of the large Chinese population.
The belief spreads like a virus, infecting people who come into contact with it, leveraging the evidence of historical value growth – which, however, is simply a result of the belief itself. So, essentially the belief is backed only by the strength of the belief itself, even though people may think there is objective evidence.
This kind of virus of the mind is more dangerous than an ordinary one, in the sense that the more people get infected, the stronger the virus becomes. Not only is exposure increased, but exposed people also get infected more easily. If enough people are infected, and the viral belief is not too damaging, it may become generally accepted – just like some viruses are ubiquitous in humans, such as the Epstein-Barr herpes virus. Religion is often cited as an example of a memetic virus that has achieved ubiquitousness.
So, Bitcoin is essentially a viral attack on a vulnerability in the human mind. And the attack has been phenomenally successful; the creator is already rich beyond dreams. It would be interesting to see how well pathogen contagion growth models match that of Bitcoin.