WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
This week’s Winding Down is a gallimaufry* of treasures. AT&T+Time Warner, Amazon drivers, election security, email puzzle answer, a great crypto abstract, Kickstarter and Chinese manufacturers, an aurora and a nebula picture, not to mention the world’s longest Lego bridge. URLs in the scanner section will sweep you off to material on web design, NASA tech, a TalkTalk fine, our one Samsung piece this week, drying with ultra-sound, Windows 10, sunbathing and attention deficit, and finally, 5g security. Phew!
I’m sure you’ll all be devastated to know that there will be no Winding Down next week, but we will be back the week after...
Shorts:
As I write this news is coming in about the newly agreed purchase of Time Warner by AT&T for US$85.4 billion. It might be a nice deal for the shareholders involved, but I suspect AT&T’s customer sare not going to be very happy at the prospect, given its already wretched reputation. It’s too early to analyse all the implications, but I will say two things. The first is that a merger of this size will have enormous implications for all consumers, not just existing customers, because of the size of the conglomerate. The second is that an acquisition of this size is going to attract serious regulatory scrutiny, so it’s not going to happen for at least a year. Definitely something to keep an eye on over the next year or so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/business/dealbook/att-agrees-to-buy-time-warner-for-more-than-80-billion.html
I see that Amazon drivers (or at least some of them) are following the example of Uber drivers, and have filed a suit alleging that Amazon illegally classifies them as contract workers rather than as employees. I suspect that they aren’t going to be the only ones who will take this route. Amazon is wonderful if you are a customer, but, I suspect, somewhat less wonderful if you do grunt work for them.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/06/amazon_drivers_sue/
Homework:
With the US elections rapidly approaching, the topic of the security of the voting system is starting to loom large. Is it possible to hack the US voting system so that a hacker’s preferred candidate can get in? Not as far as the vote casting system is concerned – you would need too much time and physical access to the voting machines, not to mention a great deal of knowledge of many different varieties of machines. Hacking the software so that all the votes cast are for the hacker’s favoured candidate is a possibility, but has a fairly low probability, and would be somewhat obvious.
More dangerous, I suspect, is the question of how secure the voter databases are. By federal law the individual states are required to keep voter records on-line in a single place. The outcome of an election is defined by a relatively small number of states – the so called ‘swing states’, so that the number of databases needing to be hacked is relatively small. The hacking would have to be subtle to not be obvious, a little corruption here and there, mostly of registered supporters of the candidates that the hacker doesn’t want to win, but a small number of the other side and some of no affiliation as well, so it’s not too obvious.
Of course this won’t be possible if the data is properly protected, and we all know how diligent election officials are...
http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/hacking-voting-systems-a-reality-check/a/d-id/1327191
Geek Stuff:
So, how many emails on average do you think were sent each day during 2015? That was the question I asked last week. Well, the answer is around 205 billion! Surprised? Yes so was I. Like most people I assumed that email was only used by old crusties like myself and thus was giving way to communication by social media. But that’s not the case. Far from declining, the figure is projected to grow, reaching 246 billion a day by the end of the decade.
http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Email-Statistics-Report-2015-2019-Executive-Summary.pdf
I think this has to be the best abstract for a scientific paper I’ve ever seen. Take a look, it’s a very clever take on one of Grimm’s fairy tales!
https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09047
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html
Thinking of taking your latest brilliant hardware idea to Kickstarter for funding? That could just be a bad idea if it’s a relatively simple piece of hardware. Be warned, the design teams in China’s factories regularly scan the likes of Kickstarter for ideas. You wouldn’t be the first to find a knock off of your idea already in production and on sale before your funding has even got off the ground.
http://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-products-at-breakneck-speed-and-its-time-for-the-rest-of-the-world-to-get-over-it/
Pictures:
Two nice pictures for you this week: The first is a heavy duty aurora, caused by a massive amount of stuff ejected from the sun. The second is of a star forming region in in the North America Nebula called the Cygnus Wall. Hot stuff, so to speak...
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161023.html
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161011.html
London:
Calling all Lego enthusiasts! The UK’s Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) is host to the world’s longest Lego bridge. The bridge, a replica of the Severn Bridge between England and Wales, is 111 feet long with a central span of 52 feet. What’s more it’s a suspension bridge. A suspension bridge made 100% from Lego!
The exhibition on bridge engineering, of which the Lego bridge is merely the centrepiece, is on until next April. Looks to me like it’s well worth a visit!
https://www.ice.org.uk/events/exhibitions/ice-bridge-engineering-exhibition#
Scanner:
How the Web became unreadable
https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6#.5vjupe2h4
NASA technologies could save US airlines roughly $250 billion in operational costs
http://newatlas.com/nasa-environmentally-responsible-aviation/41173/
TalkTalk gets record £400k slap-slap from Brit watchdog
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/05/ico_finally_delivers_record_400k_fine_to_talktalk_over_breach/
Samsung ‘blocks’ exploding Note 7 parody videos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37713939
Ultra-efficient ultrasound takes the heat out of clothes-drying
http://newatlas.com/ultrasound-clothes-dryer/44905/
Windows 10 market share fell in September
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/10/06/windows_10_market_share_ifelli_in_september/
Sunbathing mothers guard against hyperactive babies
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/09/sunbathing-mothers-guard-against-hyperactive-babies/
FCC proposes 5G cybersecurity requirements, and asks for industry advice
http://fedscoop.com/fcc-proposes-5g-cybersecurity-requirements-asks-for-industry-advice
* Gallimaufry: I found this great word, which sounds like something out of Dr Who, on http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/gallimaufry while searching for a synonym for potpourri, which I used a couple of weeks ago. I could claim I immediately knew what it meant, but, actually, I had to look it up too!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
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 Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
23 October 2016
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
