BKITSALV.RVW 940621 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 5353 Dundas Street West, 4th Floor Etobicoke, ON M9B 6H8 416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 800-263-1590 800-567-4797 fax: 800-565-6802 or 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158-0012 USA 800-CALL-WILEY 212-850-6630 Fax: 212-850-6799 Fax: 908-302-2300 jdemarra@jwiley.com aponnamm@jwiley.com "It's Alive!", Cohen, 1994, 0-471-00860-5, U$39.95 Other popular works have attempted to address the issue of artificial life and "living" computer programs. None, however, have had the technical depth and background that Cohen brings to this book. The originator of formal computer virus research, he has also been a strong proponent of the use of viral techniques for powerful solutions to common systems problems. Much of the book deals with the difficulty of defining "life". It is remarkably troublesome to try and build a formula which includes all "living" things, but excludes entities such as crystals, fire, and mud. (A similar difficulty is experienced by those attempting to define computer viral programs as opposed to utilities and copy programs.) However, like the Creationists who point to gaps in the fossil record and a lack of proof that "special creation" *didn't* happen, Cohen tends to use the definition problem as a negative proof of the vitality of computer programs; we can't prove they *aren't* alive. Chapters two, three, eight and nine are all, basically, variations on this theme. Interesting, thoughtful, and well-written, but remarkably similar, nonetheless. Chapter one introduces the book overall, and chapter four introduces the formalities necessary for defining viral programs. Chapters five, six and seven deal with real contenders for "living" programs. Conway's "Game of Life" is a repetitive, rule-based pattern generator, best explored with computer automation and graphics. Core Wars (or Corewar as Cohen refers to it) is a venerable programmers' sport of pitting programs against each other to see which can "survive" the longest. (A disk is included with the book, but the text indicates that neither a version of "Life" nor "Core Wars" is included. These programs can be found at various program archive sites on the nets.) Chapter six explores "living programs"; UNIX shell utilities which Cohen avoids calling viruses--but which might not be defined as viral, in any case. While the book is both easy to read and technically solid, the one flaw it has is a lack of breadth. It would have been interesting and, likely, edifying to have examined work in genetic programming, neural network research, or a number of other topics. This work is very good, as far as it goes, but it could have been significantly stronger. A provoking book. I hope there are subsequent expanded editions. I hope Cohen puts more work into his contention that viruses can be used safely. (And I hope he includes an MS-DOS formatted disk, next time. I can't see my father- in-law giving me permission to extract these files on his computer.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKITSALV.RVW 940621 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (contact: 1-800-SPRINGER)