I want you all to think hypothetically for a moment. No - I mean really, really hypothetically.

Shane Coursen, Kaspersky Lab’s senior anti-virus researcher brought up an interesting “imagine-if” on Wednesday at the InfoSecurity show in New York when he conceptualized the potential benefits of the Storm Worm botnet.

By expert estimates, the nasty virus, which began spreading in January, controls hundreds of thousands of PCs worldwide. That kind of super computing power is a spammers’ dream come true. But imagine if such a grid was used for something positive, such as the Human Genome Project?

“If it was used for [such] purposes, it could do a lot of good,” Coursen told the audience of about 50 people.

Not likely to happen, of course. And I’m guessing there might be some legal hurdles to overcome - to say the least - if millions of compromised PCs were being used in a regulated endeavor.

But it’s fun to think about. At least in theory.

OK, I’m done thinking hypothetically. I just got an e-greeting phish in my inbox.