Readings
Discussion Questions
- How does evolution relate to biologically-inspired security?
- How does trust relate to biologically-inspired security?
- What do you think of the panel question "Is there anything left to learn?" Is it the right question to ask about biologically-inspired security?
Notes
Lecture 20
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G1
- biology has created working security systems, so reasonable to try replicating
- trust is the basis of everything, including bio-inspired security
- question is a bit stubborn
- hasn't been good for past scientists who have said this
- was more "what's next to learn"
- how can you replicate vaccines in computers?
- computer vaccines would also have to change over time in response
to attacker innovation
- "inactivated malware"?
- barely scratched the surface of how the brain works, so still lots to learn
G2
- evolution is a testbed for security mechanisms in biology
- biological entities don't protect secrets
- we keep learning more about biology
- what is the purpose of learning from biology?
- we've pulled in the big concepts, so we may be on the downward slope
- focus on more niche features of biology
- we've used the big ones
G3
- bio-inspired security is based on a system that evolved, so is related to evolution
- trust arises in how malicious activities can be detected and stopped while normal system functioning is allowed to proceed
- question is what is left to learn
- gap between fields seems to be growing, not much communication
- lots of crossover between other fields, why isn't it there in security?
Project presentations
- 5-10 minute presentations
- just present your project
- basic idea
- what you've done
- what you're going to do
- make sure to spend 1-2 slides explaining the research problem/area
- why are you doing this work?
- for the literature review part, give a high-level overview
of past work
- for proposals, do a brief lit review (1-2 slides) then describe
your proposed research
- have between 5-10 slides
- 5 is probably enough
- "Principles" was my first first-author publication
- the principles part holds up today in terms of "what is cool" about
immunology from a computer security perspective
- Panel came out of a rejected paper
- bit of a consolation prize
No "subsystem" in biology does exactly what you think it does
- the systems evolved, they weren't designed
- so no clear separation of concerns
- immune system is for maintaining homeostasis, not "security"
- co-existence is always an option
- immune system is also a "distributed nervous system"
- neurotransmitters are similar or are the same as the chemicals that
immune cells use to communicate
When we talk about "bio inspired security" or any cross-disciplinary work,
we are comparing models to models
- mapping models onto models is a subtle business
- can often lead to more confusion than clarity
living systems evolved, so they survived in the face of evolving threats
- neat trick to learn for computer security!
- but...do we understand how they evolved?
Rather than metaphors, I want to get at underlying principles
- solid foundations rather than shaky mappings
That foundation is clearly evolution, at least in part
- but I think we got evolution wrong
evolution (to me) is an interplay between cooperation and conflict
- cooperation is a key survival strategy
- but cooperation is only safe if it is with those you trust
- those who won't betray you for personal or short-term gain
The central problem of computer security is making sure systems cooperate
only with those who are trustworthy
- more than "authorized" as credentials can be compromised
so from this perspective, computer security IS the problem of how to evolve computers in a world where trust isn't assumed
(note we mostly assume code, systems, services are trustworthy and thus can be trusted, and when they aren't our systems just break horribly)
bio-inspired security is the process of learning from systems that don't assume trust - how can they be built, how can they work?
- but living systems are interesting just to the extent they are examples of such systems