文档介绍：Computer Viruses as Artificial Life
Eugene H. Spafford
Department puter Sciences
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907–1398
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Abstract
There has been considerable interest puter viruses since they first appeared in 1981,
and especially in the past few years as they have reached epidemic numbers in many per-
puter environments. Viruses have been written about as a security problem, as a
social problem, and as a possible means of performing useful tasks in a puting
environment.
However, only recently have some scientists begun to ask puter viruses are not a form
of artificial life — a self-anism. Simply puter viruses do not exist
anic molecules may not be sufficient reason to dismiss the classification of this form of
“vandalware” as a form of life.
This paper begins with a description of puter viruses operate and their history,
and of the various puter viruses are structured. It then examines how viruses meet
properties associated with life as defined by some researchers in the area of artificial life and self-
organizing systems. The paper concludes with ments directed towards the definition
of artificially “alive” systems and experimentation.
1 Introduction
There has been considerable interest puter viruses during the last several years. One aspect
of this interest has been to ask puter viruses are a form of artificial life, and what that might
imply. To address this, we must first understand something of the history and structure puter
Portions of this article are derived from [31], [30] and [28].
Copyright
c 1989 ITAA, formerly ADAPSO, and 1991, 1993 by Eugene H. Spafford. Used with permission.
To appear in the Journal of Artificial Life, MIT Press, 1994.
1
viruses. Thus, we will begin with a condensed, high-level description puter viruses — their
history, structure, and how they relate to some properties that might define artificial life.
A more detailed introduction to the topic puter viruse