Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Computer, Heal Thyself - With ClearView
ClearView software is designed to work on multiple computers that are running the same software, as is often the case on large server farms. ClearView monitors the behavior of programs and establishes a set of rules or parameters of normal operation.
ClearView works without assistance from humans and without access to a program's underlying source code (an often proprietary set of instructions that defines how a piece of software will behave). Instead, the system monitors the behavior of a binary: the form the program takes in order to execute instructions on a computer's hardware.
Once it determines that a software intrusion has taken place, it identifies which operational rule the target program is violating. ClearView then applies a software patch focused on the particular problem and then tests to see if a solution has been effected.
Most impressively, it then applies that patch to all of the other instances of the software running on different machines, "inoculating" them against intrusion.
For seven of the attacking team's approaches, ClearView created patches that corrected the underlying errors. In all cases, it discarded corrections that had negative side effects. On average, ClearView came up with a successful patch within about five minutes of its first exposure to an attack.
"What this research is leading us to believe is that software isn't in itself inherently fragile and brittle because of errors," says Rinard. "It's fragile and brittle because people are afraid to let the software continue if they think there's something wrong with it." Some software engineering approaches, such as "failure-oblivious computing" or "acceptable computing," share this philosophy.
I was pretty sure that I had read about this idea a long time ago, and sure enough, the City Fathers from James Blish's excellent 1957 series Cities in Flight oversaw each others work and prevented error and damage. The City Fathers were a set of artificially intelligent computer systems that oversaw operations for an entire city that had used the spindizzy to seek work among the stars.
Suppose they had a breakdown?
If there were only a few of them, that would be a real danger; but there are more than a hundred, and they monitor and repair each other, so in fact it will never happen. Sanity and logic is their stock in trade.
From MIT.
When a potentially harmful vulnerability is discovered in a piece of software, it takes nearly a month on average for human engineers to come up with a fix and to push the fix out to affected systems, according to a report issued by security company Symantec in 2006. The researchers, who collaborated with a startup called Determina on the work, hope that the new software, called ClearView, will speed this process up, making software significantly more resilient against failure or attack.
To test the system, the researchers installed ClearView on a group of computers running Firefox and hired an independent team to attack the Web browser. The hostile team used 10 different attack methods, each of which involved injecting some malicious code into Firefox. ClearView successfully blocked all of the would-be attacks by detecting misbehavior and terminating the application before the attack could have its intended effect. The very first time ClearView encounters an exploit it closes the program and begins analyzing the binary, searching for a patch that could have stopped the error.
It's easy to think that because the City Fathers are dead, they're also stupid… Otherwise they would never be given the power they wield - and in some departments their power is absolute.
(Read more about the City Fathers from Cities in Flight.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/1/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Artificial Intelligence ")
'Feel the AGI' OpenAI Leader Now OpenWorship
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?' Miles Breuer, 1932
BibleGPT - King James Version Padre Booth, ala Philip K. Dick
Tell me your torments.
Missing Jet Finally Found
Ah, what could have been - still in the future.
Teslas Have Minds, Says Elon Musk
'The machine scans the patterns of the mind; ...Impress these same waves on a robot computer.' - Frederik Pohl, 1955.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Russians Think US Is Weaponizing Asteroids
'BY PUSHING AGAINST THE
LITTLE MARTIAN MOON WITH OUR
ROCKET SHIP, WE HAD LESSENED
THE CENTRIFUGAL SPEED THAT
HELD IT BALANCED IN THE SKY.'
The Warp And Fabric Of Spacetime
'Jenkins had evidently fallen into a warp in space.'
'Birds Aren't Real' An NPR Gen-Z Conspiracy
Keep your eyes on the skies!
Wearable Energy Harvester
'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
Drones Participate In Buddhist Rites
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
Anna Indiana AI Singer-Songwriter
'She is a personality-construct, a congeries of software agents'
Video Manicuring ala Schismatrix
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time'
'Feel the AGI' OpenAI Leader Now OpenWorship
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
NASA Tests Prototype Europa Lander
Why have legs if they don't walk around?
Tailsitter Drone Aircraft For SAR
'...it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair.'
Forward CarePod The AI Doctor's Office
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
Mika The Robot-Boss
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
Yamaha Motoroid 2 No Handlebars Self-Balancing Motorcycle
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
San Francisco Autobus
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street...'
Should Your Car Decide If You Can Drive?
'Okay. Maybe the car was right...'
Lucid Dreams On Demand From Prophetic and Card79
'the peeper did not operate by virtue of its machinery alone, but by the reaction of the brain and the body of its user...'
