I have been deep into the software development of the Alert Grid Alliance machine Intelligence. I look forward to sharing new applications in virtual cluster HPC computing developed in my home lab Beowulf computing environment. While I am learning much during this test phase I will attempt to make weekly post. Tom Owens
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I would like to thank all of the people who have made comments on the AGA blog content. I am posting this to let you know that I have not dropped off the face of the planet. I have been engaged in very intense research and development on cyber-security and “Whole Brain Emulation”. I am reconfiguring my schedule so that I will have time to share with you the results of my R&D and how I think it will advance the state of the art in cyber attack defensive and offensive systems. Thanks again for your kind words of encouragement and be sure to check for new posts.
In my opinion 2011 will be the year of the mobile botnet. The primary drivers will be the same as for traditional computer based bots. However these mobile bots will be able to infect cell phones and will be much worse than their PC based counterparts. A mobile DDoS attack can not only be directed at Internet services, but can also have a debilitating effect on the mobile phone network itself, or even worse; transform the victim’s cell phone into a Mobile Zombie.
Almost one in four cell phones sold in the U.S. are now smartphones, do-it-all wireless devices that can handle voice calls, e-mail, office documents, and more. The same computer-like features that make smartphones appealing – an operating system that makes it easy to add new software programs, increased storage, and more powerful processors – also makes them an excellent weapon in the arsenal of the Master Hacker. This threat to cell phones takes on unique dimensions because we carry them with us all day long and they’re continuously connected to networks. And while PC viruses these days typically use e-mail or Web downloads as a way to infect other computers, mobile cell phone viruses have more ways to attack. Mobile cell phone viruses can not only use emails and application downloads, they can also use short-range Bluetooth wireless connections, text messages, and memory cards to transmit compressed infected files. The Short Message Service, popularly referred to as “texting”, allows one to send a message of up to 160 (7-bit) bytes of message content to mobile devices, including Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). The SMS system is similar to paging systems used prior to the popularization of cell technology. A key difference is that the SMS messages are queued at the server until the cell phone is within range and powered on. It is not necessary to be ready to receive the message from the cellular provider at the moment that it is sent. SMS based virus payloads can also be sent to the destination phone from web applications, instant messaging clients, and Voice over IP services. Because of the short nature of the text message the Master Hacker will probably employ compressed message encoding in order to use SMS for the delivery of their malware.
The Master Hacker will employ different approaches to propagating the malware via the SMS message. Presumably one approach employed by the Master Hacker will be to create a control message which causes the recipient cell phone to automatically launch the infected browser application. The Master Hacker may also employ a delivery technique in which the content of the message is designed to deceive the recipient in some way so that they will install the infected program. Thus, a simple text message: “Hi, I located a nice phone add-on at http://www.gotyousucka.com…”. The receiver of the message being duped into thinking that they know the sender, presumably, and as a result will also simply trust the content. They click the link, select “download”, and run the virus application. This then propagates the malware to their contact list. The cell phone malicious virus would then exploit the security loop holes in the cell phone operating system. There are a wide range of possibilities. A simple attack could reconfigure the cell phone operating system, in order to make the phone a Mobile Zombie. This would allow many phones to be used in a strategic and coordinated viral attack against any network to which the Mobile Zombie’s have access.
Contrasting with SMS is the Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS. MMS is a variation of SMS which is used specifically to get past the length restriction of SMS and thus will be able to deliver full context virus content. This malware content can include photos, videos, and web content in general. The encoding scheme is similar to Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and the contents are saved as a web page on a server. An SMS “control message” is then sent to the recipient; this message contains the URL of the infected content, and this triggers the receiver’s web browser to open and receive the virus content from the embedded URL. In this way, the viral contents of the message can be of arbitrary length. MMS is a prime candidate for malware delivery using cell phones.
You might be surprised with the ease that nefarious cell phone based viruses can be created using off-the-shelf tools. First and foremost, the necessary software tools for creating cell phone applications are easily available and often free for a trial period. Locating the off-the-shelf software is very simple via searching the internet with obvious terms. Although the software is not targeted per-se with hackers in mind, a very small amount of “reading between the lines” is necessary in order to understand how the available software can be utilized for exploits using Mobile BotNet’s. A reasonable background in computer programming, the ability to read the “help” system within the software tools Users Guide, and knowledge of how to fix the odd syntax error are sufficient skills for malware creation on cell phones. In my opinion the Mobile Zombies of the cell phone world are right around the corner.
Digital genetics, or the epistemology of digital genetic viruses, is a new field of research that has become possible as a result of the remarkable power of evolution experiments that use computers. Reputable Computer Scientist have used this technique to develop self-replicating strands of computer code that inhabit specially prepared computers to demonstrate the systems utilities of mutation, evolution and adaptation to the environments within which they are injected. Master Hackers are developing viruses using similar strands of computer code using the protocols of genetic programming and quantum computer algorithms. This virus code does not need specially prepared computers; rather, it mutates, evolves and adapts to any computer or smart phone operating environment it infects. These digital viral genetics mimic the reformulation capabilities of the primary, secondary and tertiary construction techniques used by biological proteins and the four base pair Combinator Mechanics of DNA code generation. This allows Master Hackers developing these digital viral genetics to address fundamental questions being asked by contemporary geneticist regarding the genetic basis of the evolution of complexity, genome organization, robustness and to test the consequences of computer virus mutation, including their interaction and recombination, on the fate of populations and lineages of the many thousands of Zombie computers that can be found within one BotNet. Digital genetic viruses have obvious advantages for the study of evolutionary BotNet Zombie Genetics, owing to the mutation codes short generation time and the ease of preparing new BotNet environments for Zombie control. These functional genetic studies in digital genetic viruses are not limited to abstract investigations of how information coding is influenced by different selective pressures and mutational mechanisms. Digital viral genomes are expressed directly through code execution, systems utilities that involve the mechanisms of transcription, translation and instruction set splicing, for example, are within the scope of digital viral genetics that employ these techniques in conjunction with contemporary techniques of code polymorphism and quantum computer algorithm development. These digital genetic viruses employing quantum malware compilation strategies have unlimited means of instruction set expression manipulation, and their developmental phase changes according to the constraints of each unique operating environment. By combining the techniques of digital genetics and quantum polymorphism these viruses can undergo non linear epigenetic modifications (the study of changes in phenotype or appearance), thereby precipitating random instances of code recombination and instruction set replication giving these digital genetic viruses the systems utilities to undergo syngamy (the fusion of two viral genomes) and meiosis (the division of one viral instruction set into two or more sets). These new camouflage techniques involve modifying the body of the virus itself instead of modifying some form of decryption wrapper. When the virus writer known as zombie released Win95.Zmist.A in early 2001, much of the attention paid to this virus by the AV community was directed at its remarkable ability to intersperse its own code with that of its infection target. These new digital genetic viruses represent a continuation of zombie’s work on viral evolution towards enhanced metamorphism. This form of viral camouflage being developed by Master Hackers is so potent and radically different from common encryption that AV scanners will soon need powerful new tools to confront this threat. In early to mid 2000, two permutating viruses were released: Win95.Ghost and Win95.Smash. These permutating viruses have the ability to split their code into blocks, and then change the order in which these blocks appear in the code. This of course does not change the functionality of the virus; it merely changes the structure, making template matching difficult. This technique of permutation was also improved upon in Win95.Zperm, which is able to completely reorganize its code and insert jump instructions wherever necessary to maintain the correct flow of control through the virus’s code. As mentioned above, Win95.Zmist was yet another step in the development of metamorphic techniques, and contains the ability to reorganize its code, insert junk instructions, and also perform instruction substitutions. This work is being continued by Master Hackers in the development of more advanced forms of digital genetic viral codes. This more advanced form of metamorphism works by disassembling its own code into a multi tiered custom ghost-code structure. This meta-language for describing the actions of the code of the genetic virus using structural references can be thought of as a computer generated hologram which assembles itself to perform an action and then disassembles itself once the action is complete instead of referring to the actual virus code in a static form. Using this layer of abstraction, the virus dissociates function from implementation, theoretically allowing the virus to generate new copies of itself completely from scratch by associating function with form. This technique produces multi dimensional instances of the virus that appear very dissimilar, and yet function identically, which is of course the goal of enhanced metamorphic camouflage. The dissociation of the function of the virus from its actual code is commonly used by AV scanning software for heuristic analysis, but it becomes particularly difficult to employ this heuristics technique when dealing with digital viral metamorphism. In particular, an AV scanner’s heuristics will not be capable of analysing the effects of multiple individual viral instructions and coalescing these effects into higher actions because the enhanced digital viral metamorphics have already disassociated the instructions from the intended actions. The scanner cannot heuristically compile these actions and therefore must completely disregard their implementation. This effectively makes the literal instructions used by the virus irrelevant, and thus bypasses a significant portion of the power of heuristic scanners. The conventional method of heuristic analysis will soon be obsolete when applied to digital genetic metamorphic viruses. This method of enhanced metamorphism will become the Standard BotNet construction technique once the core functionality of digital viral genetics makes its debut in its first Zombie computer. Heuristic analysis of chronologically ordered higher actions will prove to be totally ineffective in decreasing the susceptibility of heuristic analysis to false alarms as these AV scanners continues to generate false positives. It is interesting to note that an answer relied upon by contemporary heuristic AV scanners is to disregard the smoke and mirrors of metamorphic code, and simply examine the meaning of its intended effect. What happens when the intended effect is morphed?
Cyber Marines are particular programs in the cyber battle space which have specific functions in a coordinated cyber attack campaign. Just as in conventional warfare, Marines would be used to establish a foothold in the battle space from which the Army could set up a more permanent base of operation; these programs are transient cyber weapons that are used to overcome, reconfigure and control a particular location in cyber space from which long-term coordinated and strategic cyber attacks could be launched.
In the past, the primary and critical function that viruses lacked in coordinated attack applications was the ability of “Heuristic Transient Maneuverability (HTM)” with embedded mission imperatives from a source to a specific target destination, using evolutionary and adaptive polymorphic shields and non linear path adjustments. In the very near future the Killer Cyber Marines in a digital Robot attack battalion would go in first to destroy the targets security defenses; that being Firewalls, Anti Virus applications, and Intrusion Detection Systems.
One mouse click could then theoretically result in the digital robots pouring bombardments on every targeted adversaries security applications for every day on the existing system until their cyber defenses are destroyed.
The only thing the Master Hacker has to do is send the KCM application matrix to the target and induce the target to click-through to capture some enticing payoff; thus activating the KCM matrix. Once the KCM program’s are activated, KCM software will run in stealth mode in the background of the targeted systems and start killing all security related tasks on the victim’s computer(s).
Once the KCM completes its work, the path is cleared for matrix embedded trojan’s, keylogger’s and worms to establish long-term residence in the target computer’s and the Master Hacker has no fear of getting their malware deleted by victim computer antivirus applications because the KCM’s are still actively scanning for new security applications to Kill.
Conceptually, here is how the KCM’s matrix would work with a Cloud Platform as the attack objective:
1. Transmit locked KCM matrix to target Cloud to kill all security services.
Click Through Activation: Changes depending upon target platform; such as Social Networking or Software as a Service.
2. Once activated an unlock trigger is fired within the downloaded KCM matrix software.
3. The actual KCM software disappears like a Root Kit to do its work in the background.
4. Once security services are destroyed Dispatch malware from KCM matrix.
5. Other software within the KCM matrix crypt’s both malware and the KCM using Quantum Cryptography and then fuses together these crypted files using a data fusion algorithm. The matrix then uses a fake error message generator algorithm to make the victim think that their security services are functioning properly.
6. The matrix then transmits the fused KCM matrix file to other victim’s within the Cloud, using adaptive Click Through scheme’s to activate the KCM’s on their computer’s.
7. Once the victim runs the KCM on his computer, his antivirus, firewall and other security services will be killed.
Autonomous mobile cyber weapons such as KCM digital robots are a type of computer organism that is capable of cruising to specifically defined destinations and carrying out specific mission imperatives designed to increase the targets attack vulnerability profile.
Properties that are expected to appear in the near future next generation of viruses are self-learning, quantum communications and HTM. HTM, as described above; is a type of digital robot movement, allowing programs to travel toward a destination, a computer or an organization, from a source, while making autonomous evolutionary and adaptive course adjustments. This movement is the essential property of KCMs, and is a high-end systems utility of next generation offensive autonomous cyber weapons. Self-learning will allow these cyber weapons to respond to the changes within a particular attack profile, which makes them adaptive, sophisticated and powerful, affording them greater opportunities to accomplish their mission imperatives.
The Quantum Communication properties of these cyber weapons will allow them to evolve their own unique language to communicate autonomously, using self-learning algorithms to train other malware programs within the KCM matrix or to communicate between command and control center’s within the KCM matrix directly.
The number of attacks by hackers is limited by time and the number of human cyber soldiers to be working with in a group for a mission. The number of attacks by KCMs is unlimited. KCMs can launch countless adaptive attacks until it succeed’s in devastating the targets security services; or repeating attacks until all KCM matrix components are detected and eliminated or malfunctioned. KCMs grow in number through self replication from a single copy released by a single mouse click, and spread into many different locations and launch attacks toward various attack profiles for targets depending upon the size of the targeted Cloud or Compute Grid.
The Relative Truth within an Automatic Cyber Attack Immune Response Mechanism for the World Wide Web
In my opinion the World Wide Web is already a facsimile for a Global Brain; having an intelligent network formed by people together with the information and communication technologies that connect them into an evolutionary and adaptive whole. As the Internet becomes infused with faster and more intelligent Computing Grids and more ubiquitous and more encompassing Application Clouds, it continues to evolve into a single information processing system, that functions like a “brain” overlay mask of the living Planet Earth. The Collective intelligence of the brain mask of the world-wide web is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and parallel processing of many Grids, Clouds and individuals which; as it just so happens, also appears in consensus decision-making in bacteria, animals, and humans. Mass behavior or collective behavior exist from the level of quarks in the domain of high energy physics to the level of bacterial, plant, animal, and human societies. The biological adaptations that have turned most of this earth’s living beings into components of a learning machine can be witnessed in the world-wide web. This fact suggests to me that the concepts of apoptosis, parallel distributed processing, group selection, and the super organism of collective intelligence is at work in todays inter connected web. The evolution of collective intelligence can be traced back to our bacterial ancestors 1 billion years ago. In my opinion the world-wide web has evolved along its current path as a simulation of a multi-species intelligence because of our genetic memory of how our bacterial ancestors have worked since the beginning of life. Ant societies exhibit more intelligence, in terms of technology, than any other animal except for humans and cooperate in keeping livestock, for example aphids for “milking”. Leaf cutters care for fungi and carry leaves to feed the fungi. In my opinion the concept of a ‘group mind’ as being derived from the concept of panpsychism (that mind or consciousness is omnipresent and exists in all matter) should be espoused to the world-wide web. From this frame of reference the collective intelligence of the world-wide web can be encouraged to evolve ‘groupthink’ and selective cognitive bias in order to allow the collective world-wide web to cooperate on one process; that being, responding collectively to cyber attacks while achieving enhanced computational performance. This collective defense intelligence phenomenon inherent within the capacity of Internet computational communities to evolve towards higher order complexity and harmony, through such evolutionary and adaptive mechanisms as differentiation and integration, competition and collaboration in response to a non local viral cyber attack; such as, in the case of multiple Clouds or Computational Grids involved in a coordinated viral infestation would go a long way towards closing the “sophistication gap” between the criminal hackers and the lawful users of the web. This type of automatic global cyber attack response collective intelligence also involves the world-wide web achieving a single focus of attention and standard of metrics which would provide an appropriate threshold of attack response action. The evolution of this kind of automatic global cyber attack mechanism suggest that the field of the collective intelligence of the world-wide web would come into being because of a human mutuality of assent regarding cyber attack information sharing agreements in which a willingness to share forensic computer information and an openness to the value of distributed intelligence for the common good of the world-wide web are paramount. Sharing cyber attack forensic information as intellectual property though the resources of the global brain of the world-wide web could provide the edge over criminal hackers and more benefits would accrue from allowing others to share ideas and gain significant improvement and scrutiny through cyber attack response collaboration. In order for this concept of the global internet brain automatic cyber attack immune response systems utility to be actualized; the following three utilities must be in place:
Peering
Horizontal organization as with the ‘opening up’ of the Linux program where users are free to modify and develop it provided that they make it available for others. Peering succeeds because it encourages self-organization – a style of production that works more effectively than hierarchical management for certain tasks.
Sharing
Companies have started to share some ideas while maintaining some degree of control over others, like potential and critical patent rights. Limiting all intellectual property shuts out opportunities, while sharing some expands markets and brings out products faster.
Acting Globally
The advancement in communication technology has prompted the rise of global companies at low overhead costs. The internet is widespread, therefore a globally integrated company has no geographical boundaries and may access new markets, ideas and technology.
Although there are many differences between living organisms and computer systems, the similarities are compelling and could point the way to improved global web automatic Internet cyber security. Improvements on world-wide web cyber security can be achieved by designing Internet immune systems that act on the web as a unified whole and have some of the important properties illustrated by human immune systems. These include multi-layered protection, highly distributed detection and memory systems, diversity of detection ability across individual subsystems, inexact matching strategies, and sensitivity to most new foreign cyber attack patterns.
The problem of collectively protecting the world-wide web from malicious intrusions can be viewed as the problem of distinguishing normal web from non normal web. In this case non normal web might be an unauthorized user, foreign code in the form of a computer virus or worm, unanticipated code in the form of a Trojan horse, or corrupted data. Distinguishing between self and non self in human immune systems is difficult for several reasons. First, the components of the body are constructed from the same basic building blocks as not-self, particularly proteins. Proteins are an important constituent of all cells, and the immune system processes them in various ways, including in fragments called peptides, which are short sequences of amino acids. Second, the size of the problem to be solved is large with respect to the available resources. For example, it has been estimated that the vertebrate immune system needs to be able to detect as many as 1016 different patterns, yet it only has about 105 different genes, out of which it must construct the entire immune system (as well as everything else in the body). The difficulty of this discrimination task is shown by the fact that the immune system occasionally makes mistakes. Auto immune diseases provide many examples of the immune system confusing self with non self. The world-wide web immune response problem is also difficult. There are many legitimate changes to normal web (new users, new programs, etc.), many paths of intrusion, and the periphery of a networked computer is not as clearly defined as the periphery of an individual animal. Firewalls attempt to construct such a periphery, often with limited success. The human immune system has several distinguishing features that I believe provide important clues about how to construct robust Internet security systems. These features include multi-layered protection, distributed detection, diversity across different systems, and inexact detection. What would it take to build an Internet immune system with some or all of the above features? The answer is an evolutionary and adaptive machine intelligence. Such a system would have much more sophisticated notions of identity and protection than those afforded by current operating systems, and it would provide a general-purpose protection system to augment current computer security application programs. It would have at least the following basic components: a stable definition of “normal web”, prevention or detection and subsequent elimination of dangerous foreign activities (viral infections), memory of previous viral infections, a method of recognizing new viral infections, and a multi level method of protecting the Internet immune system itself from attack. If we want to cast the problem of computer security into the framework of distinguishing normal web from non normal web, then the first task is to define what we mean by normal web and what we mean by non normal web. Do we want to define normal web in terms of memory access patterns on a single host, TCP/IP packets entering and leaving a single host, the collective behavior of a local network of computers, network traffic through a router, instruction sequences in an executing or stored program, user behavior patterns, or even keyboard typing patterns? The human immune system has evolved its recognition machinery to focus on peptides (protein fragments). Yet, it must consider many different paths of intrusion. For example, there are two quite different recognition systems in the human immune system, the cell-mediated response aimed at viruses and other intra-cellular infections and the humoral response which is primarily directed at bacteria and other extra-cellular material. For the world-wide web, it is likely that the normal web will also need to be presented in multiple ways to provide comprehensive protection. We should want our definition of normal web to be tolerant of many legitimate changes, including editing files, new software, new users, changes in user habits, and routine activities of system administrators. At the same time, we want it to notice unauthorized changes to files, viral software, unauthorized users, and insider attacks. In computer security parlance, we desire a global Internet Immune system with low false positive rates and few false negatives. It is generally not possible to get perfect discrimination between legitimate and illegitimate activities. Given our bias towards multi-layered protection and adaptive responses, we are more willing to tolerate false negatives than false positives, because false negatives for one layer might be true positives for another. Could this be the “Relative Truth” inherent within the world- wide web global immune response system?
In my opinion attempts to mimic human intelligence through methods of classical computing have failed because implementing segmented basic elements of rationality has proven obstinate to the design criterion of the collective matrix of consciousness and intelligence. I am suggesting what may appear as a radical definition of Consciousness by describing cognitive awareness, as the dynamic representation of a phenomenon comprised of multi dimensional base states; and not itself fundamental as generally defined in the current reductionist view of the standard model, which has created an intractable hard problem of consciousness as defined by the functional characteristics of neural morphology. The definition of consciousness I have espoused is not radical at all; rather, it is ancient. There are systems of Oriental Mind Yoga that define human consciousness as a collective of multi dimensional inter connected elements which coordinate their functions with one another to give rise to what we Humans perceive as consciousness. I have extended that ancient definition of consciousness to a broader ontological quantum theory which removes immateriality from the Cartesian split bringing mind into the computer realm for pragmatic machine intelligence simulation. Contemporary evidence suggests that the brain is a naturally occurring quantum computer, but the brain not being paramount to awareness does not itself project consciousness without the interaction of a non local conscious process; because Mind cannot be reduced to brain states alone. My proposed cosmology of consciousness is indicative of a teleological principle as an inherent part of consciousness. By applying the parameters of quantum brain dynamics to the collective of specialized electronic and photonic processes which must lay at the structural foundation of consciousness, through the entrainment of the collective elements of non local cognitive awareness the conscious processes of the human individual can be simulated in the machine. In my opinion the extracellular entrainment of the collective elements of natural intelligence’ probably represents the only viable direction for AI to simulate ‘machine intelligence’ because true consciousness must manifest the collective elements endemic to life itself. In computer science and operations research, the bees algorithm which is a population-based search algorithm first developed in 2005 mimics the robust nature of collective element entrainment behaviour as witnessed in swarms of honey bees. In its basic version, this enhanced collective entrainment algorithm performs a kind of neighbourhood search combined with random search and is used for both combinatorial optimization and functional optimisation. The Bees Algorithm as an optimisation algorithm inspired by the natural foraging behaviour of honey bees to find the optimal solution is an excellent example of the kind of non local activities the collective elements of consciousness must perform in order to produce “Mind” as a unified entity. The collective elements of Mind algorithm requires a number of parameters to be set, namely: number of scout elements, number of entrainment sites selected out of n possible entrainment opportunities, number of best elements entrainment sites out of m selected element entrainment sites, number of elements recruited for best entrainment sites, number of consciousness elements recruited for the other entrainment selected sites, initial size of cognitive matrices which includes all consciousness elements entrainment sites and their neighbourhoods with stopping boundary criterion.
The definition photonics emphasizes that photons are neither particles nor waves — they are different in that they have both particle and wave nature. It covers all technical applications of light over the whole spectrum from ultraviolet over the visible to the near, mid- and far-infrared. One of the off shoots of photonic advancements is Optical Burst Switching (OBS). OBS is the most promising optical switching technology for the next generation Internet, but it suffers from the security vulnerabilities of the continually evolving computer virus threat. The natural threat progression resulting from the telecommunication advancements in OBS and other optoelectronic communications networks, is the creation of a computer virus nomenclature which parallels these communications technologies, that being the Photonic Computer Virus. The computational complexity of Photonic Computer Viruses will be exacerbated by their reliance on the sophistication of quantum cryptography which is based on the inherent randomness in quantum phenomena. The application of quantum techniques to Photonic Computer Viruses is ideally suited to their creation because photons, which carry information in optical modality, are quantum objects. Photonic Computer Viruses will use a three stage quantum cryptography protocol which is based on random rotations of the polarization vector. This will allow multiple photons to be used in the Photonic Computer Virus Payload quantum key exchange, and make it feasible to extend quantum cryptography to many kinds of viral polymorphism. The following are likely Attack Vectors that will be exploited by Photonic Computer Viruses:
Orphan Bursts: The burst header is responsible for making the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) channel reservation for its corresponding burst. If the scheduling request is rejected at one of the OBS core routers, there will be no valid optical path set up for the arriving burst. Since the burst has been launched, it is going to arrive at the input of the core router in any case. At this point, the burst is no longer connected with its header and becomes an orphan burst. As a result, orphan data bursts can be tapped off by a Photonic Computer Virus, compromising the communications network security.
Redirection of Data Bursts: The one-to-one correspondence between the burst header and its associated burst is implied by the offset time carried in the burst header. Such one-to-one correspondence can be violated by injecting a Photonic Computer Virus malicious header corresponding to the same burst. As a result, the route and the destination for the burst can be altered by the Photonic Computer Virus malicious header, even though a legitimate path has been set up by the authentic header.
Replay: Replay attack can be launched by the Photonic Computer Virus capturing a legitimate but expired burst and transmitting at a later time, or by injecting a expired burst header to cause the optical burst to circulate in the OBS network, delaying its delivery to the final destination.
The quest to create a conscious machine is one of the great philosophical endeavors of mankind. However, this quest has been thwarted by the fact that, to date, there have been numerous movies depicting the imagined chaos precipitated from a machine intelligence out of synch with its Human creators. Add to this phobia producing cinematic gibberish the fact that no one to date has formulated a clear and verifiable mathematical model of digital life and machine consciousness. A stepping stone to the creation of machine artificial life in engineering terms, is represented by the qualitative similarities between the human brain and the internet’s complex network of nodes, as they both hold, process, recall and transmit information. The internet behaves like a toddlers mind, most of the time it does what you ask; however, some of the time it throws a tantrum and seemingly does whatever it wants. Which may or may not be associated with what you originally requested of it. From this point of view it might already have a degree of consciousness; but no signs of life, as of yet.
What you may ask, constitutes signs of life? My list of properties associated with life:
* Life is a pattern in space-time rather than a specific material object.
* Self-reproduction, in itself or in a related organism.
* Information storage of a self-representation.
* A metabolism that converts matter to energy.
* Functional interactions with the environment.
* Interdependence of parts.
* Stability under perturbations of the environment.
* The ability to evolve and adapt
* Growth or expansion
My study of Polymorphic computer viruses suggests they are close to what we might define as artificial life. However, upon closer examination, a number of significant deficiencies can be found. These lead me to conclude that computer viruses are not “alive,” as of yet; however, it is possible to refine them with Quantum Computational Algorithms and Evolutionary and Adaptive Process Schedulers so as to make them “alive” without drastically altering our definition of “life.” To suggest that computer viruses can be brought to life also implies that their functional environment — the computers, programs, and operating systems will be integrated into the matrix of artificial life. In my opinion, the fear of machine intelligence as conscious artificial life is unwarranted. One very important aspect of “Biological Life” which would have to be mathematically modeled in machine artificial life is the cognitive imperative to survive and thrive. The wisdom imparted through the evolution of Human Life is that we Human Beings need each other to survive. Be it to propagate the Species or just to have a life filled with unique and non linear interactions as the fuel which sparks our growth and ignites our passions. In my opinion an individual having the intellectual capacity to model life and consciousness will infuse the machine artificial life with the same “cognitive Imperative” responsible for the survival and evolution of the Human Race; “WE ARE ALL CONNECTED!”
An octopus is a sophisticated kind of computer worm that exists as a set of programs on more than one computer on a network. For example, head and tail copies are installed on individual computers that communicate with each other to perform a function. An octopus is not currently a common type of computer worm but as Cloud Computing becomes more common they will likely become more prevalent in the near future. As this fact becomes evident in the ongoing cyber war the recent advances in anti-malware technologies which have steered the security industry away from maintaining vast signature databases and into newer defence technologies such as behaviour blocking, application white listing and others will be nullified. The reasoning behind this statement is that malware writers are creating new attack paradigms as the evolution of artificial intelligence and quantum computing based cyber weapons matures. Indeed, malicious code development is still largely limited to code pattern changes utilizing polymorphic and metamorphic engines, as well as executable packer and wrapper technologies; however, as the state of the art in cyber weapon development evolves each new malware instance will be generated not by the human virus writer, rather the virus as a form of artificial life will generate its own progeny which will not have to retain the exact same core functionality as its ancestor and will also alter the way it looks via a non linear and random pattern. Viruses such as the Cloud Octopus Worm will be able to change its function or behaviour autonomously. In the absence of human intervention, the head of the Octopus will be the evolutionary and adaptive progenitor of computer viruses which resemble biological viruses in their ability to adapt to new defence technologies as soon as they come into effect. This kind of malware implementation closely models Darwinian evolution. Biological viruses are under constant attack by immune systems and artificial drugs. Yet they systematically manage to evolve new functionalities that circumvent such countermeasures, leading to recurrent epidemics. According to the biological analogy, evolutionary and adaptive malware such as the Octopus in the Cloud will be able to alter its functionality by autonomously incorporating behaviours freely available to it by the numerous discoverable APIs within the Cloud. The new behaviour profiles would constantly be screened by security software in the same way natural selection acts on biological organisms. The Octopus instances (tentacles) that are better equipped to learn adaptive avoidance behaviors to evade Coud anti-virus counter measures will be able to proliferate more efficiently. The evolution of the Octopus within the Cloud will pose a real threat to the current methods of detection due to the vast numbers of API functions it can hijack and integrate within itself, and that cannot possibly be screened for. Furthermore, it is likely that clean-program functionality will be favoured amongst such behaviours since it shields malware that is mimicking clean programs from behaviour blocking. As a consequence, we predict that behaviour-based virus detection will quickly become ineffective once the Octopus within the Cloud reaches maturity.
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