Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!swrinde!emory!mind.org!runic!thantos
From: thantos@runic.mind.org (Alexander Williams)
Subject: Re: ALife Park
Organization: Runic Writings UUCP Link: Convoco Hasturam
Message-ID: <D8Dnxt.1p1@runic.mind.org>
References: <3o61j0$cbp@ns.cityscape.co.uk> <3odd9q$7h6@hustle.rahul.net> <D87JK8.A29@runic.mind.org> <3ojekc$1q2@gap.cco.caltech.edu>
Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 19:39:24 GMT
Lines: 85

In an arcane scroll, Alexander Williams quotes the holy scripturist
Charles Ofria, replying to the mystic words as written, saying:

>Not to interupt, but I figured I'd add in a few details about the
>program in question....

   I appreciate the elaboration.

>This isn't precisely true; the creatures will be able to actually
>execute a command to initate a jump for themselves.  They would first
>'ping' the location they want to go to (through an interface provided by
>a net.tierra to insure they can only ping other net.tierras) and when
>they find one they 'like' jump there.

   The limitation between only net.tierras makes invasion of other
systems outside the possibility of the local "physics," no?  Since
the execution and analysis of the security systems is outside the
purview of the Tierran organisms, that is.
   Mind you, I'm not privy to the kind of information said 'ping'
would return and how that data might be interpreted by a network
organism.

>Tom is hoping that the extra complexity and room provided by the internet
>will allow much more complicated creatures to develop.

   I'm sure it will, actually.  If only because there'll be a much
larger "universe" of CPU cycles to be utilized.
   On the other hand, the 'ping' mechanism will have to be highly
abstract if it will incorporate a hook to allow communication via
uucp email, as I recall being mentioned in the course of one of the
earlier papers on net.Tierra.  Actually, that particular facet
caught my eye especially, allowing as it would any system with
Internet email to be in the Tierran net.universe, and so open things
up to really broad expansion.
   I suppose the 'ping' could operate as a semi-black box, allowing
the Tierran "islands" to keep records of the other "islands" nearby
(ie. which they communicate with), with the ones marked as TCP/IP
connections doing a real 'ping' operation and with the UUCP
connected isles returning information held in some sort of ASCII
record.  Of course, all this probably doesn't belong here...

>Although I agree its highly unlikely, its not as impossible for them to
>cause trouble as you make it out to be.  The most likely way for this to
>occur is actually with human intervention; for example humans could design
>specific creature to preform comutations for them, and then send them out
>on the internet.  Or else they could have the creatures go behind a fire-
>wall and gather some information about their local environment (ie. how
>much CPU time they get to calculate the load on the machine) and then
>return with the infomation.

   "Cause trouble" is very different from the "take over the Net"
possibilities we've seen bantered about.  I agree that the "turning
rainforest into bannana plantations" scenario is more than likely,
it'll likely /happen/, probably not through the hand-coding of some
algorithm, but someone rewriting their Reaper to produce code that
satisfies the Reaper original along with certain computational
requirements as Reaper'.  This technique has the advantage of even
putting organisms not originally designed to do the job to work
("slave labour," if you will) given a few passes of Reaper'.  On the
other hand, the organisms will likely be less hardy out in the real
wilds, the further from the plantations they get.  Getting non-local
information is very non-trivial through a simulated universe that
changes your code, possibly, every second you're outside your
protected enclave.
   However, its still very different from the "unrestricted
computation" that the alarmists are concerned with.  All these
problems are problems /within/ the net.Tierran universe, occuring
within the instruction sets, the "laws of physics" as defined.  I
don't believe that the LoP can be tweaked to remove the ability to
move information from place to place, or if it could, that it'd be
helpful (as would be necessary to remove the ability of an organism
to bring back how many CPU cycles it got), but I'm certain that the
question of overall Net security in the more mainstream sense isn't
even touched or dented by the advent of net.Tierra.

>All of the problems we discussed at the workshop are detailed in the report
>recently posted by Titus.

   Which I most cheerfully devouered, and with belated great thanks
to Titus.
-- 
thantos@runic.mind.org (Alexander Williams)     | PGP 2.6 key avail
  Should we shed our mental pants and compare   | DF 22 16 CE CA 7F
  the size of our consciousnesses?              | 98 47 13 EE 8E EC
      Jan Sand to Marvin Minsky                 | 9C 2D 9B 9B
