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接触的爆炸性增长，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。 计算机因网络感染而瘫痪;浏览器因applet和语言实现之间不可预见的交互而崩溃;应用程序因操作系统升级而中断。 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是显而易见的，但其含义却很深。 该提案认为，从生命系统的角度来看，可以更好地理解，控制和开发网络计算机系统，将各种良性和恶意软件共同形成的丰富和动态的网络计算机环境视为软件生态系统。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，构建可以在野外生存的软件，并更好地了解当前和新兴的软件生态系统。 像许多研究人员一样，我们认为，通过使用传统方法的增量研究，目前的软件开发危机不太可能得到显着改善。 必须尝试新的方法，必须开发新的计算思维方式。 生物学原理将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，同时也提出了新的研究途径。 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展，生物学研究的工具和方法将越来越多地与理解和监测结果相关。该提案将研究人员关于生命系统的想法和见解在线，强调具体实施，展示解决真实的问题的新方法。 具体来说，以下项目集中在和探索计算在野外提出：稳态改善操作系统的生存能力，超越网络入侵检测，走向一个生活的网络操作系统，软件多样性物种生存能力，工具和技术，从生物学。 内稳态项目将通过将基于系统调用的过程监控与反馈机制相耦合，来增强计算机操作系统，其机制在精神上类似于维持内稳态的生物系统的机制。 第二个项目将推广和扩展现有的原型基于TCP的入侵检测系统的免疫学原理的基础上。 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约束。 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性。 软件多样性项目将研究使软件更加多样化的方法，第五个项目将把生物学中的定量方法应用于当前软件生态系统的研究。

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.