Are computer viruses alive?

appetite is voracious. Yeah, and occasionally get out of hand and they throw a lot of like naked photos up on your desktop. But you know that's just that's they're just acting out. They just want attention, you know exactly. They're just I'm they're being creative, and you just have to say, you go forward and in one day you'll be independent and you won't be so nuts and get

me fired exactly. Yeah. Of course, there always comes at time where you're trying to explain your pet virus to somebody and they're like, whoa that we can't have a pet computer virus. That's not even alive, that's not a thing, that's not a creature. And you say, what what do you mean? This? This is my companion, right yeah. Um, and it's usually like the I t people that are like, it's totally not alive. Let me take it away, let me let me squash it like a bug right here

in front of you. And you're like, whoa nor get the way it is right right. It's just I can't tell you how many jobs I've lost as a results of that. But someone's got someone out there has to understand how computer visors might be alive. I don't know. Yes,

it's actually a very interesting area of study. Thus the reason that we're going to talk about it for an entire podcast, um um, because you you look at this thing, uh, and it's uh, it's doing a lot of tasks and it's carrying out a lot of functions that when you when you look at some of the various criteria for life, it kind of adds up it kind of it kind

of can you can make a compelling case exactly? I mean, it's not an accident that it's called a virus, right, because if you look at a biological virus, it's basically a germ that can only replicate itself inside living cells of organisms. Right, So there's certainly uh similarities with a computer virus which spreads from one computer to another computer

using executable code. Right like, so in my mind, this is very much like an S A T question, Like viruses to living cells as malicious code is to executable files like boom, there it is, right yeah, And just to take everyone back, the word virus itself is from the Latin for poison, so yeah, just throw that in there. But so so, yeah, let's look at normal viruses organic

viruses first, um, biological viral infections. These are spread by a virus which is a small shell containing a containing genetic material, and it injects its contents into a larger organism cell. Then the cell is basically converted into a biological factory, right like, it's just pushing all its cells out right right and injected its DNA and it's trying to explode outward. Yeah, and it's just you know, it's carrying off the basic function of all life, you know, replicate, replicate.

But yeah, and then that's what you're saying is basically the key word is that it wants to replicate, it wants to reproduce. It must go forward. And so then of course you've got the computer code, which you know, um, it is self replicating, and before computers were outfitted with modems, viruses were pretty rare. So that's why we are now so very aware of it because it can spread through a network, um the internets or old school style floppy disk.

Oh yeah, it's it's kind of interesting when you compare it to UM, to the rise of organic viruses and human communities. UM. You know, at one point when when humans were saying living out on their own, uh, they were exposed to a certain number of viruses within these communities. Then they start raising animals, domesticating animals they were living in close proximity. Then to animals with other various illnesses and viruses that can potentially be picked up by humans

and adapt for the for human hosts. And then you have cities coming together, and then suddenly you have a large number of people living in UM in close proximity to one another with their animals, and it just ups the anti even more. So you can compare that to the just the the continuing evolution and inter connectivity of our our our internet and our our our communications network.

So it's just as as we grow and grow more and more con connected than the potential for viruses to just spread like wildfire becomes admits, which actually has like crazy interesting implications for us. Um if you consider that as a model, right, because right now we're like, oh yeah, computer viruses, they are paining so on and so forth. But um, but they actually down the road might have some ramifications on how we live and the sort of

technology we use. But but first, just to get back to that question about whether or not they're alive, because I really do think this is central to to what we're talking about. Stephen Hawking actually said that um come viruses fit standard definitions of living systems even though they have no metabolism of their own. So the computer virus exploits the metabolism of the host computer in effects, and

it becomes a parasite. Uh. And to quote him, this parasitic existence is a key characteristic of biological viruses, as is its ability to replicate only inside the cells of a living host. So there you have it, Stephen Hawking saying, Hey, look, I'm not saying this is alive so much, but I'm saying that you know, if you if you look at a biological virus, which is you know, questionable whether or not it's alive. Yeah, there's so much that's that they

have in common here. Yeah. Yeah, organic viruses are are kind of a gray area at times for some people. Um. For starters, viruses lack most of the internal structure and machinery which characterizes many definitions of life. And that's the thing that you can find various definitions of life and you can sort of pick and choose the one that best um fits your you know whatever you're trying to argue, Like you want to make an argument that a flame is a lie, then you can sort of find the

right list and skew it. And uh, it's kind of an interesting thought thought project. What is it to be alive? Yeah? Um, and it's great if you're a firebug too, because you can be like like my children, I must raise them um at the factory across the street. But that's a whole paramaniac discussion. Well that's that's another podcast. But yeah, they like many of the the inner machinery. UM that that that is often associated with life, the biosynthetic machinery

that is necessary for reproduction. Uh. In in order for a virus to replicate, it must again infect that host cell. Right, if you look at the counterpoint by Richard Dawkins, who says, Okay, yes, I agree with Stephen talking to the point that it's it's uh if it's system definition of system of life. However, both um bacterial virus and computer virus, they what they both lack is some sort of monicum of independence or

independence thoughts. So I think for for him, you know, it's the niggle in question of what is it to be alive? And is the process that you're independent and autonomous? And again this is a gray area because I mean, you've got computer viruses and biological viruses mutating on their

own um and taking over their hosts. And yes, it's the same sort of code that's replicated over and over again, but there are certain things that are happening to make this organism or this code actually act independently in some circumstances. Of course, this is a if and then proposition, right,

particularly for for algorithm in a computer virus. And and again that code we're talking about typically two four thousand bytes based on the source I was looking at UM that I don't know if that's that may have swollen in recent years, but but they're not big, You're not There's not like a gig computer virus out there. UM. That would be more of it, like the host as opposed to the parasite. UM. I I really enjoyed reading um about about some of this from an article by

Eugene Spafford, a k A staff or I hope the staff. Yeah, huge, huge staff at Purdue University. Uh. And he uh he he has an interesting essay UH that's available online if you search for it where he lays out like a number of different criteria for life, including self reproduction, metabolism which we just discussed, functional interactions with environment, interdependence of parts, stability under changes in the environment, evolution and growth or expansion.

So and just just to go through a few of these real quick that except for metabolism, which we already discussed. UM. First, you have functional interactions with the viruses environment. Viruses perform examinations of their host environments as part as their activities. You have interdependence of virus parts. Uh. And living organisms cannot be divided generally without destroying them, or they can

only be divided to a point. You know, It's like you can you may be able to cut the limb off of a starfish and have to starfish but you can't put it in the food process there and expect miraculous things to happen, you know, unless you have a great recipe. But the same is true of computer viruses. You take that that code and you break it up. You just have some segments of code. Um virus stability

under changes. Computer viruses run on different machines, you know, So you put it out there and uh and it and it will be you know, designed to tackle like this version of Windows. In this version of Windows um uh and uh. Many of these are able to also compromise and in some cases defeat anti virus and copy protection mechanisms. So they're out there surviving in different environments, dealing with different defense systems or predators. However you want

to frame them. And I think that really interesting thing about that is that they can assess their environment and they can say this is a dangerous environment for me, How am I supposed to react to this? Or this is um, this environment is great for me, Yeah, this environment is great. Let's let's uh, let me do my thing here. Yeah, let me buy a couch and an automan and stick it in here and live here for a while. This presentation is brought to you by Intel

sponsors of tomorrow. And of course the most obvious one is uh that the ability to to reproduce, you know, to self reproduction. The code that defines the virus is a template and used by the virus to replicate itself. And it's very similar to DNA molecules um in organic life. So um, you can again, you can make a compelling argument. But but the staff, if I'm allot to calling that, yeah huge, makes another interesting analogy that I love, and

that's the one of the Xerox machine. All right. He points out that that even though a computer virus boasts a partially automated ability to reproduce, the virus itself is not the agent of reproduction. Okay, the computer is this

and and the example of these Zerox machine is this. Um, if viruses are alive, then the blueprints or a Xerox machine are alive, because if an outside party takes those blueprints, they can build a Xerox machine, and then they can slide the blueprints through the Xerox machine and make a copy but the blue but but then can you look at the blueprints and say, this blueprint can make a copy of itself because it contains the information to make a machine that can be used to make a copy

of itself, right, because outside of it, it's it's a mission, so to speak, it can't think independently, right, which is what it normally all boils down to. Right. But I still, I mean, I get totally get that. But then I think about something like stuck snet and how incredibly complex that viruses. And again, yes, it's got a certain mission and it's not going to deviate outside of the parameters

of um the code that have been written. But to me, it's it's a maybe just ushers in a new era of what we think of as viruses, and maybe we should discuss stexnet just a little bit um. But this, of course is the um worm computer virus that spies on and reprograms industrial systems. So basically it can futs with the programmable logic controller and then hide those changes. So and then this of course happened in Iran and

on the nuclear facility there. They had a bunch of things going wrong, and eventually they think it was discovered that this specific virus was going in and actually changing the I believe it was the speed of some of the rotors so it was messing up the machinery and basically it was slowing down their ability to enrich uranium. Okay,

so what does that mean to us? I mean that that, first of all, that's I guess what you would call uh computer virus warfare in a sense, right, I mean, obviously someone created this really sophisticated virus, goes in and yah and messes with things, throws a wrench into the machinery, but in the in in a more subtle way, right right.

And let me also back up to and say that the reason they think that this um was meant specifically for this facility is because if you look at the instances of infection of this virus, six of them occurred in Iran, and it is tarted towards these these systems. UM. But I think the problem is is that stex net could be used as a blueprint to sabotage machines that are critical to US power plants, electrical grids, and other infrastructures.

So that's why it's kind of a scary virus. It's not just a hey here's some here's a nikky picture you know, popping up. Yeah, it's it compares it's very comparable to the the the use of biological and chemical happens. You create something that is you know, deployable against your enemy. You've you well with biological and chemical you do create

something that can be used against yourself. And uh and uh and and certainly many of these viruses there's not a whole lot of adaptation and an alteration that would have to take place for it to be you know, a weapon that could be used against U S systems and an infrastructure. So yeah, and actually we haven't heard a whole lot of biological warfare lately. I think that was largely a big, you know, post not eleven concern,

although I think it's a huge concern still. Um. But yet to use your analogy, I mean, you've got the think about the small pox infected blankets. Um. Now, okay, that was something that was crushing um and it was awful and it spread like rapid fire. But now we've mapped the genome, we have the ability in theory to actually create a biological virus that could wipe out certain ethnicities we wanted to. So again, here's here's the parallels

between them. That's that's um at the very core, sort of a simple structure, but the way that it can be deployed is really complex and sophisticated. Oh and just to just to throw it back to word origins and terminology origins, the term computer virus that first showed up in a science fiction novel two when Harley was won by David Gerald j that's g E R R O L D. And uh. The actual the first actual computer virus to hit the scene didn't come around until so yeah,

and again it didn't. It hasn't really become so much of a problem until and on the last decade or so when people were regularly using modems. So before that you'd have to spread it by floppy disk, right, Yeah, Like I can't imagine. I mean, I haven't looked up the headlines and done the research, but I can't imagine computer viruses made you know, top headlines much back in the old days. But nowadays it's really, you know, not

that uncommon. Particularly the HAAD virus comes around, it's gonna it's going to show up, yeah, you know, in Google and in various ways right outware malware that's what they call in the street. Um, But I mean, it really is interesting to again to look at those sort of similarities between biological warfare and computer virus warfare and what that points to in the future. Yeah, and then also the you know, our laptops are our gadgets. They become

an increasingly huge part of our lives. They really become extensions of ourselves, you know. So it's you get the virus in a way, it's it's not you know, it's not threatening your body, but it's threatening this device that allows you to communicate with a vast number of people. Like in the old days, if you caught a virus and it kept you from talking to your mom, it meant that it was, you know, somehow in in inhibiting

your ability to speak. But you can conceivably get a get a virus now, and it's like, oh, I can't you skype anymore. I can't talk to my mom until I get a cure for this. Well, and this is the crazy thing too. I mean, you could take this one step further and look at the guy who uh and sorted the r f I D chip into his hand, Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading. He and he did this on purpose. It was a proof of concept thing. He was contaminating this r f I D

chip and then you know, putting it under his skin. Um. And of course he was using an actually for a purpose other than that. It was access to his building, and it also identified himself to his cell phone or to his modbile and then he went on like a

day a blind date with a really scheezy PC. Right. Well, yes, okay, yes he doesn't talk about that a lot though, But what he does talk about, um, is that because he gave himself this virus essentially in this r f I D chip, that he could then pass that virus onto all the technology that associated with him. So some people

were calling him a scaremonger. You know, this is a could happen, might happen situation, But he was basically saying, well, look at Pacemaker's UM, look at other implants bringing him plants, all the other technology, cochlear implants that we have available to us. Cochlear. What's the cochlear it's an inner ear. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Yeah. I was thinking of the tailbone for some reason, the

coss cossacks. I'm like, why, why would have someone have an electronic implant on the cossacks would be kind of awesome, like an electronic vestigial tail doesn't my vestigial tail implant. Yeah, it kind of turns it into an antenna. Maybe. Yeah. I guess if you had subcutaneous horns and you just wanted to, you know, make it like sort of fresh for you can do the tail. Cool, we're putting it

out there. Yeah, I mean why not? Um, But anyway, that is that's the huge concern is that we could then with all our all our sort of cyborg like technology coming on board, be able to transfer computer viruses to one another, which is really trippy. Yeah, and certainly, yeah, this is the you see this idea to show up in some science fiction, especially when you when you see the lines blurred. Uh well a lot of science fiction.

I guess when when when the lines are become blurred between organic life and technology technological life, and you know, certainly you know, well I'm not even go into all the variations, but you know, it's like you get into a situation where where we're like entering a computer environment or or or the human mind it's digitized, or just just look at like any tin headlines, um um, you know, science headlines on the net and and think to yourself, oh,

what how would how how my computer viruses mess this innovation up? When you know, if it's something talking about oh they're using devices to see into people's dreams or you know or whatever, there's I know, the possibilities are endless, right, I mean I was even thinking about the podcast that we did about the ways that we could modify ourselves, and we talked about the exo skeleton and how something like that could become infected. Of course, again people would

say this is scaremongering because it hasn't happened. But you know, there is r f I D chip and yes it doesn't it doesn't X a Cutney code, right because it just scans. But whatever is scanning that could have some sort of UM security problem with it and and could be UM infected. Right, Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not trying to raise the hackles here. I'm not trying

to get nuts. But I think it's pretty amazing. But the really interesting thing is it's you know, viruses that occur naturally, that's just a product of evolution, things evolving and filling various niches out there. Uh two do what organic or any kind of animal needs to do. But but but human Uh computer viruses are man made. They are created things. So it's it's like there's something in us that just could not resist. We we had to. You know, conceivably, we could have this this like pure

technological world and the Internet would just be flawless. There would be there would be no viruses, there would be no um, you know, virus scans popping up on your computer. But we we just we just couldn't do it. We just can't have nice things. We have to have to create something that can that can can mess up the other dude's computer and potentially mess up our own or passing on our flaws. That's what you're saying. Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of people will say that viruses

are just sloppy code. When you come down and in sloppy code, I guess in not protecting it um systems from viruses. Oh so it's like saying that it wouldn't be a problem if the systems were more Yeah, um, but I do. I think that's really interesting that you say that, because, Um, Susan Blackmore and someone we've talked about before. She's a memeticist and she's also a parasychologist. But in the skeptics camp. Does she have pink hair, blue, blue, yellow?

It depends on the day. Yeah. Yeah, she's kind of got a wonderful rainbow of air. Because I've been looking at our articles and then suddenly, like pictures were showing up in Google Search, you know, the little Google image search bar, and I'm like, whoa is that her? It makes sense. She's she's into a lot of really cool areas. Yeah, yeah, she's. She's a very interesting, um woman. And she actually if you get our website, I think you'll probably see the

most recent picture of her hair. But other than her hair, um, she's she's done some really um interesting research into this, into memeticism, and and just to talk about this to quick overview, a meme is basically just an idea that's getting perpetuated, much like code or virus and um to go back to like like l O L cat, like any like let the internet, any of these ideas that suddenly like everybody just starts running with it and doing it until it becomes so annoying you don't want to

even go on the internet anymore. Exactly. She's basically she took Richard Dawkins idea of the selfish gene basically, and and sort of ran with and said that language and communication is information that's copied with variation and selection. So a mom and as an idea that's self perpetuating and essentially it takes ideas and moves them in a viral fashion, so that none of that is a surprise to me? Is it to you? I mean that makes perfect sense

to me. Um. So she all says this is based on universal Darwinism, that that algorithm that he sort of accidentally came up with, which was you know, if you've got variation, if you've got selection, um, if you've got replication, which is also heredity, then you will have some sort of um basically evolution, or you'll have design that came out of chaos that was independent of any sort of

thought or mind behind it, which is really interesting. So she takes this idea one step further though by saying that we're not just these gene machines that are replicating ourselves um and mem machines that are are replicating our thoughts or ideas, but we're also tem or team machines, which is technology means basically, So what she means is that we're we are perpetuating technology and that we are the hosts. Oh, so this gets into the whole like

what does technognology want? That it's an extension of ourselves, and that that ultimately like we're we're facilitating the technological evolution exactly. I mean she she goes on to say, actually that we we think we have a choice in the matter, that it's us who decided to perpetuate the internet, um, and so on and so forth. So not the virus, the computer virus is not only virus, but technology itself

is potentially the virus. Yeah, exactly, exactly, So she said, when we're basically the host and they're just writing on our backs until they can begin self replicating themselves, and then of course I'm sure they'll shed us. Um, but until you've got to go to the moon first? Who got to go to Mars first? Who got to leave the solar system first? Machines they've been they've been working us for decades, and she says to like, our brain is actually evolving for them, the way that our brain

is processing information. I Mean, some people will say that the brain is just a computer, but of course that's um, that's that's sort of not a correct analogy. But certainly we get to the more we live with computers, the more we want to think the mind as a computer. And right, it gets into that hole. And then it was like, I think it also gets in the whole argument.

Like you know, in a previous episode we talked about the interconnectivity between the brain and the gut and how you are more than just a brain, you are also this entire body. Um. But we want to apply the computer model to it and say we are a brain and the rest is just hardware. Right, So right, we want to say, right we we uh, we like the the computer model. We want to become the computer model. And the computer model has told us this from the get go. Well you want to become us, I think.

But it really is a very interesting argument that she makes, and she talks about cyborg technology in the different ways that we are trying to mesh our humanity with technology. So there you go. Yeah, that's I mean, my mind is blown a little just talking about it. Yeah, And it always, of course, it leads me back to the all roads lead to the technological singularity. Right the day wind computers take that light speed jump become bigger than us, um.

More more confident than us and just completely skyrocket following Morph's law and just just evolving in a rapid rate until they're just machine God's right, leaving us in the dust. Yeah, but potentially still loving us. A god can can love even his or her creators, right, So, but I know, I know, I love. I really do like your benevolent version of it. I'm going to stick to that. It makes me feel better. Well, we'll see or we won't see. Well, maybe we'll see. I don't know. No, no, no, somebody

will see. What do we have on the books here? Oh? We have some listener mail, do we not? We do? Yeah, it's just been pointed out to me. I hadn't really noticed that there's a there's an awesome robot noise that happens with the podcast whenever we do listen to mail. Oh yeah, which which sounds to me like it makes me think of like Maximilian the Red Robots from the Black Hole, like coming in, given us, given us the listener mail, given us the listener male thumbs up. Yeah,

so I think it's actually setting closer to you. I think guess where the robot left it. Let's see. Shall we start with this one. Um, this is from John and his subject climb was coffee beans from animals. Oh yes, uh, this is which we discussed and um the animal junkie. That's right, and he says on the Addicted Animal Junkies podcast released today, you tube speak of excreted slash fecal coffee beans, Julie said goats, and Lamb says cats do

the dirty work. It is actually palm civit cats, which are not cats and not monkeys as some stories call them, although another coffee is made from for mosen rock monkey vombit. Oh wow, well that was that's the most confusing explanation of all. I have no idea what the animal is now, yeah, I know. And that's it's funny because I always thought the Civic cat was a cat that was indigenous to Africa.

I could be wrong on that, but in my association with the Civic cat is that they used the uh anal glands um or some of the tissue or something from it in Chanel number five. Okay, yeah, to give it sort of the funky bass name. I suppose. Well that's great. Yeah, so there you go. But thank you Jones that that's we're gonna have to check into the

monkey vomits have a tough life. They're just constantly eating coffee for us and dying for our Chanel number five, or at least undergoing some perhaps unpleasant tinkering in their anal glands. Yeah, it's possible. And this is from mo on on our Facebook page and it says Kope lou walk is made from coffee berries that have been partially digested by wild tree cats. I think J. D. Samuel was talking about the legend of the first discovery of coffee.

The story goes a goat herder in Ethiopia saw his goats eat the berries and the uh started going bonkers, so he took the beans to some monks who made it into stew. Hooray for coffee. All right, cool, Yeah, I thought that the goats were involved with this. Go

to the original caffeine freaks, right Coffee Flavor Earth Yeah yeah. Well. Hey, if you want to find out more though about the viruses and computer viruses, you should definitely come to the how Stuff Works website and you can put virus or computer virus in the search bar and you will get all sorts of interesting results. We have a number of articles that deal with these very related topics and also through technological singularity in there. Jonathan Strickland wrote an excellent

article about that. So if you're still a little foggy about what it is or what it what it means, uh, that's a great article read. Remember you can always find us on Facebook or Twitter. We are blow the Mind on both of those, and you can always old school drop us a line at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon

in the upper right corner of our homepage. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes, m