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Reminds me of a clever exploit. The code for the OS is backdoor free, but the running OS has a backdoor. Once the running OS compiles a new OS from code it in
by yters 7y ago
Reminds me of a clever exploit. The code for the OS is backdoor free, but the running OS has a backdoor. Once the running OS compiles a new OS from code it installs the backdoor. This way, no matter how much the code is inspected, backdoor is never discovered. However, each fresh version of the OS still has the backdoor. The exploit is always part of the running system information even though it is never in the static codebase. No reason why our biological information system cannot have an analogous aspect if our vastly inferior human designed systems can. (Also makes me wonder about the claim that the bazaar improves security. Maybe it only provides the appearance of greater security.)
- nayuki 7y agoThis is framed more classically in terms of the compiler and toolchain: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref... "Reflections on Trusting Trust"
- nicwilson 7y agoThe only way that analogy works is with some kind of self replicating prion disease, which would get selected out pretty quickly. The main fallacy that people tend to make drawing comparisons with biology and computers is the degree to which biology is in a stable equilibrium (occasionally punctuated). There are lots of endogenous retro viruses (ERVs) in various states of genetic activity. However the only time this comes up is when considering ERVs from e.g. pigs for organ transplants. I remember reading some time ago about an effort to remove all the ERVs from a line of pigs to make that safe. I don't remember what happened of that. You do see some unicellular organisms that will prioritise maintenance of proteins over DNA if the proteins have low copy number and are critical for survival.