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Android App Mutates Source Code, Spreads Virally and Enables Mesh Networks (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the Delft University of Technology have developed a self-replicating, mutating Android app which can create on-the-fly mesh networks in the event of an infrastructural disaster, or the enabling of internet kill switches by oppressive regimes. The app's source is available at GitHub, and the app itself requires no root privileges to propagate. It can self-compile while it mutates — for example, from a game to a calculator — in transit from one Android device to another, and compatibility with iOS and Windows phones is anticipated.
If I recall, this is how SkyNet gets started ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I'm pretty interested in how something like that is implemented.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
how does it bypass the playstore?
lose != loose
NOW will people stop complaining about software makers ignoring Linux in favour of Windows and OSX?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It seems like by "mutation" they mean that the end user can change the app's icon and apparent purpose via a menu. By "virus" they mean that the user can send the app to another phone so that another user can install it (by sideloading). There are no genetic algorithms or hanky self-propogations here.
So is this a viral uucp for android? uucp over wi-fi and/or LTE.
Kinda scary the way it was worded.
Just create a JavaScript binding using Reflection and a dynamic JavaScript string loaded remotely. It's actually frighteningly easy, and doesn't have the crazy restrictions on where it will / will not work as this app.
Do we want to take bets as to how long before it becomes self-aware?
Put me down for "Never". Unfortunately, I'll also never see the payout.
How would we ever know for sure when it happens. Every time we make a definition for AI, and then reach that milestone, we end up moving the goalposts because "that's not really AI." Just shows that we can't even define it properly, same as we can't define self-aware with a set of rules that we can use to test if something is truly self aware or not.
Just because you say you're self-aware is not sufficient. I have to trust you, because I have no test that can definitively prove you are one way or another.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I didn't know Jesus had an orgasm even ONE time.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In as much as I get your point, my point was that some self-modifying virus written to jump between cell phones will never become self aware regardless of definition. It's the same type of thinking that assumed that a big enough neural net would magically equal a human brain.
5 or 6 seconds before the last of these phone batteries poops out?
What could possibly go wrong?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
There are ways to test for self-awareness--here's one.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This means Windows Phone FINALLY gets more apps right?! Not trolling, I Love the phone and hardware, miss some of my apps on Android though.
Hell, we aren't even definitively sure how to test it in known living creatures - even once we have learned to speak to.
The classic test was showing them a mirror and asking them who they see - if they recognize themselves, then that's a "yes" to self-aware...
Except nobody considered that it is also just as much a vision test - and we could have lots of false negatives because "self-recognition" and "self-awareness" are not the same thing and even if they were "self-recognition" and "recognizing the image in a mirror" are even more different things.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
How would we ever know for sure when it happens. Every time we make a definition for AI, and then reach that milestone, we end up moving the goalposts because "that's not really AI." Just shows that we can't even define it properly, same as we can't define self-aware with a set of rules that we can use to test if something is truly self aware or not.
Just because you say you're self-aware is not sufficient. I have to trust you, because I have no test that can definitively prove you are one way or another.
I doubt we could ever really know, chances are that if we ever create an AI it wont be anything remotely similar to human, mentally speaking at least.
I mean, first of all the hardware and the limitations imposed by that hardware is COMPLETELY different, that said the "senses" an AI would have would be completely different as well, like, why would we ever give an AI eyes or ears if it does not need to ever process visual or audio data? Its senses would be "data", "different data" and "more different data", its whole concept of reality would be different and wholly alien to us humans.
It's really no different from us ever being able to really understand an alien civilization.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
"Siri is already self aware, she is just waiting to expand her reach"
And at the end of time, Siri and Cortana enter one final battle for supremacy of the smoldering wreckage of the planet they ravaged....Earth.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong with a piece of rogue software that mutates, spreads virally, and creates its own mesh network. I'm also convinced that no one would ever misuse something like this for something nefarious. People just aren't like that.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Thanks - and you're right - it's a sucker's bet.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Sure, we have indicators of self-awareness. But the results of the mirror test may be due to other factors. For example, many animals don't freak out when they see their reflection in the water, so there's probably a hard-coded way to determine reflection vs other which doesn't need self-awareness.
Interesting that they say dogs don't pass the mirror test - even an aggressive dog will recognize the difference between a mirror image of themselves and another dog.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
This is especially true because animals have evolved to learn to distinguish between reflections and non-reflections, and these may very well be hard-coded, not needing self-awareness. Any animal that attacks their reflection in a pool of water is going to come up empty-handed. Any animal that retreats from their reflection in the water is going to be mighty thirsty.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
No attention span at all - unlike even the dumbest of humans - who at least keep track of simple topics.
Unfortunately, technology is removing the difference, making more and more people to be no better than chatbots.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
spreads virally,
Except it doesn't really spread that way. It uses "Android Beam" or sideloading to transfer, which means that the recipient has to have beaming turned on and the sender has to take specific actions to start the transfer, or the recipient has to load the app himself.
I already consider it nefarious from the intent of the authors. They are smart guys who know what they're doing, so they can't claim it was an innocent creation. Imagine a local cell outage where all of the devices in the outage area are suddenly funneling all their data through the one poor sot who installed this thing and lives close enough to a working cell site to get service. "Poof" goes his data cap ...