.... or why the neo-Traveller designers at GDW should be smeared with
bacon drippings and thrown in a weasel pen.
On the GEnie MT BBS, (Catagory 11, Topic 26, Msg. 189) LESTER SMITH
writes:
> (4) Concerning comments that a virus that selectively kills certain tech
> level computers is a silly idea, you haven't heard how it works yet!
Isn't making a comment like this to a *large* group of computer industry
professionals a bit like telling a doctor, "Look, I know you've had four
years of Med School and I haven't, but just let me explain my diagnosis
and you'll finally see the light."? Come on, people!!
> Without giving too much away too early, ...
Right. Let's wait until it's *waaay* too late to change a ridiculous
idea set down in print.
> ...let me at least point out that the virus is an idea that was given to
> us by a professional computer designer projecting logical future computer
> designs.
*One* computer designer? You're basing this whole [deleted] concept on the
say-so of *ONE* person? Even when a multitude of folks in the same field
keep telling you how ludicrous it is? This one guy must spend a *lot*
of his time on the UFO hotline.
> Please, give us some credit.
Give us a reason.
> We take Traveller seriously too.
Uh-huh. Pull the other one.
WHEW!! OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system (for the moment),
let's look seriously at why a 'universal virus' is unlikely to work.
Historically, computer viruses (or other forms of invasive, non-productive
computer code) are small, tightly constructed programs, written for a
specific SPU (sytem processor unit) instruction set, introduced into a
computer system through loopholes in the computers security. Since the
attacking program is SPU specific, it can be arbitrarily small (in total
number of bytes), allowing it to take advantage of a broader variety of
digital transport mechanisms (E-mail, X.25 packets, LAN packets, etc.).
The larger the program, the harder it is to introduce into a system,
and the more likely it is to be detected.
Another characteristic of computer viruses (and I'll use the term 'virus'
from now on to be any generic deliberately destuctive program) is that
they only damage software (date and other programs, including the operating
system). Very little potential exists for a virus to actually damage
hardware (although a virus designed to take advantage of some specific
disk driver characteristic could cause head crashes by overworking the
read/write heads on the disk). Therefore, even if the virus completely
destroyed a computers operating system, all it's programs, and all it's
data, the physical computer hardware would still be undamaged, just
waiting for it's storaged devices to be re-formated and re-loaded with
uncorrupted software. BTW, what little potential currently exists for
malignant software to actually damage hardware will completely disappear
once all moving mechanical parts in a computer are eliminated. Optical
and holographic digital storage techniques are bringing this state
closer to reality every day. (Suggesting that software can 'attack'
hardware, is like suggesting that water can attack a hose. And before
anyone starts making noises about the electrical equivalent of 'extreme
water pressure', I'll mention just two items: surge protectors and fuses.)
If a virus is to be effective on more than one type of processor, it would
have to incorporate multiple 'versions' of itself in it's own instruction
space (the 'body' of the virus), with each version written in a different
SPU instruction set, resulting in some versions being bigger than others.
So, if a virus is capable of attacking N different types of processors,
and the smallest version of itself is size M, then the *minimum* size for
the entire virus program is (M x N) + sizeof(the switching code). What's
the switching code? Well, the virus needs some way to determine which
version of itself to use for the attack, doesn't it? This isn't a
trivial problem, so the 'switching code' portion of the program will
also be fairly large. Hmmm, this litle tiny virus is starting to assume
the dimensions of a dumptruck awfully fast.
For a virus to attack every computer architecture on good, old TL8 Earth,
it would need to be able to install itself on every different type of
processor architecture currently in use. Even if we are generous and
assume that one version could attack a whole family of similar processors
(say, all Motorola M680xx processors, or all Intel x86 processors) the
virus would still need *hundreds* of different versions of itself (my
employer, Hewlett-Packard, alone uses almost a dozen different architectures
in it's computers, including Motorola, Intel, HP PA-RISC, and a number
of other proprietary designs). Multiply that by all the different
CISC, RISC, and other proprietary processor vendors in the world (what
kind of virus would attack a Cray?), and you've got one *HONKING* big
attack program. And if you think just one planet is a big target, consider
the Imperium. Worlds from TL6 to TL16, with lots of different computer
designs to go with each TL. Also, who's to say the processor architectures
on a TL10 world in the Marches look *anything* like the designs on a
different TL10 world rimward of Terra? This virus starting to look less
like a virus and more like a planetary-wide database! :-) (BTW, I know
there are Imperial worlds with TL's below 6, but they won't have any
sort of computer techology to attack, will they?)
Now, just for the sake of argument, let's and say that some software genius
discovered a way to make a digital 'palimpsest' (look it up), so that the
virus can remain small and still be capable of attacking all known processor
architectures. Quite a stretch, but let's be generous. What does this
leave us? It leaves us millions of computers with totally corrupted (or
erased) software, and *totally* undamaged hardware! Let's also ignore
the fact that any big entity (MegaCorp, government, or military structure)
is going to have software back-ups going back *decades* at least. For
example, virtually software R&D facility within Hewlett-Packard maintains
what are call 'PANIC' disks, just in case a system crashes. If this
happens, you just lug the PANIC disk over the your dead computer, hook
it up, re-boot, and clean up the trashed system disk. Since the PANIC
disk itself is never written to during this process (just read from),
it doesn't ever get corrupted and can be used over and over again.
So, we've got all this undamaged, but empty computer hardward, with no
safe software to load onto it. Does civilization fall? Maybe? Does
it stay fallen? Probably for no longer than a year or so, max. You
see, the concept of computer science won't have died with the operating
systems. There'll still be a lot of source code around that can be
checked for bugs *before* it's compiled and run. No compilers, you say?
a decent team of compiler writers could toggle a brand-new compiler
into a computer via the front panel in a month or less. The first
compiler doesn't have to be very smart or efficient. Follow-on versions
will be. An operating system would be necessary before that, but a
simple, dumb OS could be reintroduced into a computer by the same
method and in not much more time. (Look the concept of a boot-strap
compiler, if you're interested. These exist for virtually every known
processor architecture in existance, and are small enough to hand check
for bugs, byte by byte, before they are ever even loading onto a system.
Most UN*X SPUs also allow you to run init mode from the ITE. Since this
is a primitive OS, built right onto the mother board, it is immune to
any sort of software corruption.)
The result is that even if one virus trashed the entire Imperium from
end to end, the worlds hit early on would be back up and running before
the virus even made it to the far end of known space, at jump-6!
.... And *THAT'S* why the whole idea is too bogus to even consider without
laughing.
[ As a total aside, the only virus I can conceive of that would do the
job GDW *wants* theirs to do, would be a real, *organic* virus that
has an appetite for doped Gallium-Arsenide (or the TL15 equivalent),
ala the 'Andromeda Strain'. Now *that* would not only be nasty, but
also almost, *almost* believable. ]
If GDW *really* wants to re-introduce the Long Night into the Traveller
universe, would somebody *PLEASE* upload Steve Bonnevilles' TML posting
No. 3181 to GEnie. *THAT'S* the way to do the job. Way to go, Steve!!
Later,
Mark F. Cook
USMail: User Interface Technical Support
Hewlett-Packard - Interface Technology Operation
[address removed]
INTERNET: [email removed]
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