Understanding and Surviving Computation in the Wild

个人计算机和因特网的结合导致了单独管理的计算资源之间的联系的爆炸式增长，创造了新的机会和风险。小程序、代理程序、病毒、电子邮件附件和可下载软件正在逃离其原始系统的限制，并通过通信网络传播。电脑会因网络感染而瘫痪；由于applet和语言实现之间不可预见的交互，浏览器崩溃；操作系统升级会破坏应用程序。这种野外计算与过去精心隔离、控制和管理的计算机系统相去甚远。计算机系统和生命系统之间的联系表面上很明显，但其含义却很深刻。本文认为，从生命系统的角度看待网络化计算机系统，可以更好地理解、控制和发展网络化计算机系统，将各种良性和恶意软件构成的丰富而动态的网络计算机环境统称为一个软件生态系统。认真对待计算机系统和生命系统之间的类比，鼓励人们重新思考当前计算实践的许多方面，从操作系统设计到通信机制再到计算机安全。该项目旨在从生物学角度开发设计策略，构建能够在野外生存的软件，并更好地理解当前和新兴的软件生态系统。像许多研究者一样，我们相信当前的软件开发危机不太可能通过使用传统方法的增量研究得到显著改善。必须尝试新的方法，必须发展新的计算思维方式。生物学原理可以统一目前许多分散的研究工作，解决强大的操作、生存能力和安全性问题，同时也为研究提供了新的途径。此外，随着软件系统的规模和范围不断扩大，全球计算机网络不断扩大，生物研究的工具和方法对于理解和监测结果将越来越重要。该提案采用了研究人员对在线生命系统的想法和见解，强调了具体的实现，展示了解决实际问题的新方法。具体而言，本文提出了以下以野外计算为中心并探索野外计算的项目：改善操作系统生存能力的稳态、超越网络入侵检测、走向活的网络操作系统、物种生存能力的软件多样性，以及生物学的工具和技术。动态平衡项目将通过将基于系统调用的过程监控与反馈机制相结合，增强计算机操作系统，使其具有与生物系统类似的机制，从而维持动态平衡。第二个项目将推广和扩展基于免疫学原理的基于tcp的现有原型入侵检测系统。第三个项目与前两个项目的不同之处在于，它放松了在操作系统架构和技术范围内的限制。相反，它将追求基于生命系统原理的稳健操作和计算机安全的有希望的方向，即使它们可能涉及与现有软件和设计的严重不兼容。软件多样性项目将研究使软件更加多样化的方法，第五个项目将应用生物学的定量方法来研究当前的软件生态系统。

The marriage of the personal computer and the Internet has led to explosive growth in the contacts between separately administered computing resources, creating new opportunities and risks. Applets, agents, viruses, email attachments, and downloadable software are escaping the confines of their original systems and spreading through communications networks. Computers are disabled by network-borne infections; browsers crash due to unforeseen interactions between an applet and a language implementation; application programs are broken by operating system upgrades. This computation in the wild is a far cry from the carefully isolated, controlled, and managed computer systems of the past. The connections between computer systems and living systems are superficially obvious and yet deep in their implications. This proposal argues that networked computer systems can be better understood, controlled, and developed when viewed from the perspective of living systems, treating the rich and dynamic network computer environment formed by diverse benign and malicious software collectively as a software ecosystem. Taking seriously the analogy between computer systems and living systems encourages rethinking many aspects of current computing practice ranging from operating system design to communications mechanisms to computer security. This project is aimed at developing design strategies from biology, constructing software that can survive in the wild, and developing a better understanding of the current and emerging software ecosystems. Like many researchers, we believe that the current crisis of software development is unlikely to improve significantly through incremental research using traditional methods. New approaches must be tried, and new ways of thinking about computing must be developed. Biological principles stand to unify many scattered current research efforts addressing robust operation, survivability and security, while also suggesting new avenues for research. In addition, as the size and scope of software systems continues to grow, and global computer networks continue to expand, tools and methodologies from biological research will be increasingly relevant for understanding and monitoring the results.The proposal takes the investigators' ideas and insights about living systems online, emphasizing concrete implementations that demonstrate new approaches to solving real problems. Specifically, the following projects centered on and exploring computation in the wild are proposed: Homeostasis for improved operating system survivability, Beyond network intrusion detection, Toward a living networked operating system, Software diversity for species survivability, and Tools and techniques from biology. The homeostasis project will augment a computer operating system with mechanisms similar in spirit to those of biological systems, which maintain homeostasis, by coupling system-call based process monitoring to feedback mechanisms. The second project will generalized and extend an existing prototype TCP-based intrustion-detection systems based on immunological principles. The third project differs from the first two by relaxing the constraint of staying within the bounds of operating system architectures and technology. Rather, it will pursue promising directions for robust operation and computer security based on living systems principles, even where they involve possibly significant levels of incompatibility with existing software and designs. The software diversity project will investigate methods by which software can be made more diverse, and the fifth project will apply quantitative methods from biology to the study of the current software ecosystem.