Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: mike@everexn.com (Mike Higgins) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Hardware Error Checking Message-ID: Date: 24 Mar 91 23:53:44 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Everex Systems, Inc. Lines: 33 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In 71450.1773@compuserve.com (Steven B. Harris) writes: > Chris Phoenix reminds us that a spontaneous error in the con- >struction of a self-replicating machine might conceivably: >1) Cause changes in construction of the next (third) generation . . . >2) Impair the ability of the mutant machine to sense the error in . . . >3) Along the way, screw up the function of the machine so as to >make it dangerous. ... lots of stuff deleted ... I keep reading all these postings of people afraid of nanomachine replicators getting out of hand, and I keep expecting one of the replies to have the solution suggested by Ralph Merkle (didn't I read it here?). Since nobody else seems to remember it, I'll submit it: Encrypt the genes of your nanomachine replicators. There are data encoding schemes that are "self healing", meaning if you make a single bit error in the encoded data you can still decode most of the data (Hufmann coding works this way). But lots of other encoding schemes become TOTALLY UNREADABLE GARBAGE if you make a single bit error in transmission. So this is the solution: encode the genes of your nanomachine when you design it. The replicating machines are always making copies of their encoded genes, so if a SINGLE BIT error is made in duplication, the offspring is TOTALLY NON-VIABLE. Build your nanomachines so they don't have the equiment to encode data. The gene has to have an unencoded decoder built into it, or the decoding code could be in symbiotic machines duplicated at replicaion time, like mitocondria in our cells. If you think there is a chance that the TOTAL GARBAGE resulting from this type of error in decoding can result in meaningful data, I invite you to search for the text to Hamlet in a dump of all the binary files on my PC. (Or if you prefer biological systems, there's this troup of monkeys typing on typewriters... ;-) Mike Higgins mike@everexn.com