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Constructing computer virus phylogenies
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Goldberg, Leslie Ann, Goldberg, Paul W., Phillips, Cynthia A. and Sorking, Gregory B. (1996) Constructing computer virus phylogenies. University of Warwick. Department of Computer Science. (Department of Computer Science research report). (Unpublished)
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PDF (Department of Computer Science Research Report)
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Abstract
There has been much recent algorithmic work on the problem of reconstructing the evolutionary history of biological species. Computer virus specialists are interested in finding the evolutionary history of computer viruses - a virus is often written using code fragments from one or more other viruses, which are its immediate ancestors. A phylogeny for a collection of computer viruses is a directed acyclic graph whose nodes are the viruses and whose edges map ancestors to descendants and satisfy the property that each code fragment is "invented" only once. To provide a simple explanation for the data, we consider the problem of constructing such a phylogeny with a minimum number of edges. In general this optimization problem is NP-complete; some associated approximation problems are also hard, but others are easy. When tree solutions exist, they can be constructed and randomly sampled in polynomial time.
Item Type: | Report | ||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Computer Science | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Phylogeny -- Mathematical models, Computer viruses -- Mathematical models, Evolution (Biology) -- Mathematical models | ||||
Series Name: | Department of Computer Science research report | ||||
Publisher: | University of Warwick. Department of Computer Science | ||||
Official Date: | January 1996 | ||||
Dates: |
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Number: | Number 297 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 17 | ||||
DOI: | CS-RR-297 | ||||
Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Computer Science | ||||
Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Re-use Statement: | L.A. Goldberg, P.W. Goldberg, C.A. Phillips and G.B. Sorkin, “Constructing Computer Virus Phylogenies”, <i>Journal of Algorithms</i> <b>26</b>(1) pp. 188-208(1998); to appear | ||||
Funder: | United States. Department of Energy, European Strategic Programme of Research and Development in Information Technology (ESPRIT) | ||||
Grant number: | DE-AC04-76AL85000 (DOE), 7141 (ESPRIT) | ||||
Version or Related Resource: | Goldberg, L.A., Goldberg, P.W., Phillips, C.A. and Sorkin, G.B. (1998). Constructing computer virus phylogenies. Journal of Algorithms, 26(1). pp. 188-208. | ||||
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