WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Hmmmm.... It seems that contrary to my implying in the last issue that Chicago was in Michigan, it is in fact in Illinois. I can only put this down to the fact that every time I've been to O'Hare airport, the trip through the tunnels with the flashing coloured lights and the plastic lady voice saying 'Keep walking' all the time, made me think I was hallucinating. Anyway, thanks to reader Dave for pointing out the blunder!
Story of the week has got to be the announcement by the Malaysian government that it now has two dogs, Paddy and Manny, who have been trained to sniff out 'pirated' DVDs. Actually, reading the story reveals that they can only sniff out all DVDs, not just pirated ones. Maybe that means that the authorities think all DVDs in Malaya are pirated?
Anyway, time to get down to this week's Winding Down...
Shorts:
The EETimes has an interesting picture gallery with associated text entitled '35 People, Places & Things that will Shape the Future'. EETimes is the 'trade' newspaper for the microchip and electronics engineering industry, so it's interesting to look at their take on where things are going. As always with these sort of things, there are some weird choices - Al Gore for one - but in general, it's well worth a look.
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBHPr0FypUC0FrK0FsGW0Ee
It looks like the baddies got away with more than was at first admitted when they infiltrated the Pentagon nine months ago. At the time the authorities downplayed the intrusion, but now the CIO of the Defence Department has admitted that the thieves got away with an 'amazing amount of data' and that the break in continues to pose a threat to national security.
At the time the US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, told reporters that there would merely be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences. The latest report indicates a little more than that, to put it mildly. Network forensics show that the hackers accessed sensitive information which they encrypted before transmitting it back to base!
All told it took three weeks of solid work and US$4 million to clean up the mess.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/06/pentagon_breach_assessment/
The Pentagon breach used a known bug in Microsoft Windows, and this week a security researcher in New Zealand released a tool that takes advantage of another bug in Windows. Interestingly enough he demonstrated the problem at a security conference in 2006. The problem still hasn't been fixed - presumably Microsoft will take it seriously now.
The vulnerability is very simple. Take a Linux machine and connect it to the Windows machine via Firewire and you have unrestricted access to the Windows machine's memory from the Linux machine. Once you have access you can disable the password protection code, which is held in memory. After that, the sky's the limit!
http://www.theage.com.au/news/security/hack-into-a-windows-pc-no-password-
needed/2008/03/04/1204402423638.html
And now... The recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA), who seem to think that they have no need actually 'prove' their allegations that their victims were sharing copyrighted music files. They are currently resisting moves to force their attack dogs, MediaSentry, to disclose proof of its assertions of guilt by disclosing to the defendants' lawyers the methods and software it uses.
The RIAA, it seems, do not believe that they should be held up to the same standards of evidence that everyone else is, and are pleading that the requested information is 'proprietary' and 'confidential'. I have no problem with this - provided any evidence collected using the 'proprietary' and 'confidential' methods and tools is declared inadmissible!
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15131
Windows Vista is struggling to stay in the news these days. There was plenty of criticism in the early days, but now having a go at Vista seems too much like shooting fish in a barrel to make it fun anymore. However, there were a couple of pieces on Vista in the last two weeks.
The main one was the release of some classic material in e-mails unsealed by the court in the 'Windows Vista Capable' case. This involves disgruntled purchasers who discovered that their supposedly Vista capable computers bought before Vista came out, couldn't in fact run the full version of the operating system!
It seems that the specs for Vista capable machines were lowered so that machines using Intel's 915 chipset qualified. Unfortunately, that chipset can't run the more exotic graphical features of Vista - like Aero glass and Flip 3D. The e-mails make it seem likely that the reason for the lower spec was so that Intel could make its quarterly figures, and the price of 'capable' machines could be kept down.
Also in the letters released is a classic e-mail from a Microsoft board member to CEO Steve Ballmer saying that he has decided not to upgrade to Vista!
Microsoft also confirmed that it won't be releasing the SP1 Vista Ultimate upgrade/bug fix pack on time, because of problems with 31 of its language packs. Oops, I guess this means that the Vista volume activation hack will continue to work for ripped off versions of the software. Actually, thinking about it that's probably not a problem, since most people want to downgrade their Vista to XP, rather than the other way round!
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/03/01/microsoft_intel_vista_capable_emails/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/04/vista_activation_cracked/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/04/vista_ultimate_sp1_language_packs/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080305-the-vista-capable-debacle-intel-
pushes-microsoft-bends.html
And on a more positive note Microsoft's new World Wide Telescope project looks like it could be a truly great tool for teaching and research. Take a look at ted.com, who have a video showing off the way you can see a combined view from telescopes all over the planet and in nearby space. Brilliant! Congratulations, Microsoft :)
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/224
Now here's something I guarantee will never take off - a self-destructing laptop. It's being touted as the solution to all the data compromised by stolen laptops over the last period. The laptop contains a GPS and software on another machine monitors, via a wireless network, the location of the laptop. If the laptop moves outside the designated area, the data is destroyed.
I think any trial of the machine would last about an hour, just until the boss took his laptop home to polish up the report for the annual shareholders' meeting the following morning...
On the other hand, the device is custom made for James Bond villains. 'You see before you meeestair Bond a laptop that contains the only copies of the ID numbers for my Swiss bank accounts, and the firing codes for the secret weapons with which I am currently holding the world to ransom. These keys would be instantly wiped if the computer was removed from this room... You will be able to think on this while you take a swim in my pet piranha pool!'
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/12926/13950/virtuity-backstopp-
self-destructing-technology.phtml
Incidentally, it's not impossible that the self-destructing laptop is already in stealth use. As evidence I would point the finger at the Dutch tax office which has just managed to delete three quarters of a million tax returns, and doesn't seem to have any back-ups. The net result is that all those people are going to have to re-file their returns.
Unfortunately for the tax office, this isn't the first disaster. Last year 400,000 companies had to re-submit payroll details because of a software fault. To misquote Lady Bracknell, 'To lose one set of tax returns may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.' (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/sorry_we_lost_your_tax_return/
Did you know that the US government kills off more than 1,100 people a month who aren't really dead? It's typing errors at the Social Security Administration, which means that 35 people a day are recorded as dead by mistake. And it's really, really, difficult to get unkilled once the administration has you down as dead.
I'd guess that this is another one of those geek designed programs that assumed everyone did everything 100% correctly and failed to add facilities for dealing with human frailty. Of course, you can appeal against the 'death', but the average time for a Social Security Administration hearing is currently running at 483 days, with another 203 if you have to appeal the ruling.
Better hope it doesn't happen to you!
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/02/1344217
Nice to see that over here in the UK our policemen are alert to potential threats to schools. I think, though, that just a leeetle more net savvy is required. The latest schools alert was the result of a policeman reading a spoof e-mail doing the rounds. The e-mail purported to come from a 'Special Agent Todd V. Coleman' and warned about crystal meth being disguised as strawberry sweets and handed out in schoolyards.
Without taking the time to check it, the unnamed policeman fired off an urgent warning to 80 schools in the area. I'd like someone to send me his name and e-mail address - I have an Eiffel Tower to sell...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/strawberry_meth/
Homework:
The whole 'video games cause violence' discussion is marked by myths and hysteria which, until recently, have made it difficult to figure out who is right, and who is wrong. Now, however, an interesting book called 'Grand Theft Childhood' ,which attempts to take a cool look at the evidence, has been published.
One of the authors, Dr Cheryl K Olson, was interviewed by the GameCouch website, and the interview is fascinating. I'd really recommend it for an explanation of the problems with existing studies of the subject. I intend get hold of the book in the near future and I will post a review. In the meantime, parents (and others) would find it well worth taking the time to read through the interview which has plenty of practical no nonsense advice.
http://www.gamecouch.com/2008/02/interview-dr-cheryl-olson-co-author-of-grand-
theft-childhood/
If you are interested in the copyright debate, then a look at an article about the subject on ars technica will repay study. It's a comparison of the present rumpus with the battles over property rights between squatters and the authorities from the early days of the USA right through to the end of the 19th century.
To give an indication of the size of the problem it is only necessary to record that between 1785 and 1890 Congress passed more than 500 different laws to reform the property system! Eventually, the mess was resolved not by ever harsher anti-squatter laws, but by bringing the laws of the USA into line with existing social practice. I had no idea that regular property had gone through such a phase - I intend to find out more about it in the future.
Highly recommended.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/copyright-crusade.ars/1
On a somewhat more technical level, I'd like to draw your attention to the draft of an interesting paper from Scott Aaronson on the limits of quantum computers. The URL is for the draft, which is much better than the final version published in the March 2008 Scientific American, and is very accessible to those without a mathematical background.
An excellent antidote to the current hype surrounding quantum computers.
http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/limitsqc-draft.pdf
Finally, a note for the more academically inclined. the UN has done something really worth while. It has brought together its massive statistical databases and made them (relatively) easy to access via the Internet. This is sixty years worth of data provided to it by its members, much of it unique and available previously only through arcane procedures invoking aging and proprietary databases. The new system should make research a lot easier. Well done!
http://www.un.org/esa/desa/desaNews/v12n03/pubs.html#UNdata
Scanner: Other Stories
OLPC mesh networking tester explains how it works
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1228527977
Domains blocked by US Treasury 'blacklist'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=liptak&st=
nyt&oref=slogin
Dogs to sniff out DVD piracy in Malaysia
http://www.physorg.com/news123774990.html
FTC data: telcos and banks are the top targets for ID theft
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/28/FTC-data-telcos-banks-top-targets-for-
ID-theft_1.html?source=NLC-SEC&cgd=2008-03-03
Most spam comes from just six botnets
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/botnet_spam_deluge/
Cyber Storm II set to begin
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1447007406;fp;16;fpid;1
Biometrics plan for London Olympic builders
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/olympic_biometric_screening_plan/
Record box office indicates MPAA 'piracy problem' hot air
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080305-for-movie-biz-tales-of-piracy-and-
record-profits.html
Holograms with explosive power!
http://www.physorg.com/news124039000.html
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue There was also some material from a reader, which I saved somewhere safe, so I wouldn't lose it, and now I can't find it...
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
9 March 2008
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html
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