Month: September 2022

CODE AS INFORMATION PATTERNS. "It is clear that computer and terrestrial viruses can be considered to exist as patterns in computer code and in molecules respectively." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

TWO VIRAL WORLDS. "Computer code may be copied, shifted and deleted, not being tied to a specific location in memory. Terrestrial viruses direct the assembly of proteins and DNA into viral "patterns". Both types hijack the metabolism of their host and direct it towards the purpose of viral replication. Both have an internal self-representation, in an electronic binary pattern and DNA respectively." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

VIRAL OVERLAPS. "Computer viruses metabolise memory and CPU time to produce changes in that memory space, whilst terrestrial viruses utilise energy and substrates from their host in synthetic activities. Both respond to changes in their environment. Both kinds display living characteristics as a property of a whole - segmentation almost always leads to total dysfunction." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

"TERRESTRIAL VIRUSES have shown remarkable resistance to environmental perturbation. Computer viruses in contrast are somewhat fragile, although examples can be cited of viral adaptation and more recently examples have been seen with error-correcting code." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

DEFINITION. "In 1987, Fred Cohen, the pioneer researcher in computer viruses, defined a computer virus to be: “A program that can infect other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself”. https://lnkd.in/epaSkG4 View in LinkedIn

EVOLVING. "Computer scientist Fred Cohen also proved that viruses are potentially useful as all-purpose computing devices. As Cohen later put it, "anything a Turing machine can compute, a virus can evolve." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

NOT ALL BAD. "Cohen has tested the proposition that viruses can create useful code in a number of applications." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

INNOCENCE LOST. "The first virus outbreak broke out in 1981 with the ELK CLONER virus, followed by BRAIN in 1986, the first virus to implement stealth techniques, and from then by numerous other viruses." https://lnkd.in/epaSkG4 View in LinkedIn

UNEXPECTED. "Some mutations that cause damage in the short term ultimately become a positive force in the genetic pedigree of a complex organism." https://lnkd.in/d4b3fY4 View in LinkedIn

ARTIFICIAL LIFE. "Only recently have some scientists begun to ask if computer viruses are not a form of artificial life — a self-replicating organism." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn