WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
No WD next week, I’m afraid. This is one of our regularly scheduled breaks (not to be confused with our regularly unscheduled breaks...). So, to tide you over I’ve increased the number of Scanner URLs. You can save some of them up to read next Sunday over breakfast! In the meantime, this week we cover the latest NSA break in, inane ideas from Equifax’s former CEO, diabetic ink, the Nobel Physics Prize, an interesting technical problem, pictures of giant straw animals, not to mention an interesting and prescient quote from the great Benjamin Disraeli. The scanner section covers material on a radiation spike on Mars, telegram T&Cs, cracking the vegetative state a little, remote baggage drop off for air travel, the effects of smartphones, re-writing history, all is not well in the cloud computing realm, a software apocalypse, and finally finance and patches.
Hopefully, that little lot will keep you going for the next fortnight!
Shorts:
I see that the NSA seems to have suffered yet another break in. This time it was caused by a contractor putting NSA data and hacking tools on his laptop and taking them home to do some work. That’s not allowed, though I suspect it happens more often than the NSA would like to admit.
Exactly how the hackers got hold of the tools and data is a bit murky, though the consensus seems to be that the computer was spotted by the hackers because Kaspersky Anti-Virus software detected the hacking tools and reported them to Kaspersky HQ so they could develop defences against the tools.
Exactly how the hackers got into the laptop is not reported, but if you want my best guess (and I am a sociologist, after all...) I would say that he (or she) tried to use one of the hacking tools, but the anti-virus software wouldn’t let him/her. So, the anti-virus software was turned off for the duration by the contractor. <Enter a Russian hacker>.
https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/russian-hackers-pilfered-data-from-nsa-contractors-home-computer-report/d/d-id/1330056
I see that the former CEO of Equifax is claiming that a single security worker was at fault for not applying the patch that would have stopped the breach from happening. That’s rubbish. Complete and utter rubbish (and many other less polite words unsuitable for a family missive like this one). This is a company we are talking about, and a large company at that. It was a failure of the security procedures developed by the company. And no one has explained why it took the company two months to fess up to the breach.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/04/sole_security_worker_at_fault_for_equifax_fail_says_former_ceo/
Hmmm, so scientists have developed a smart ink that you can use as a tattoo ink to detect blood sugar levels in diabetics. Well, as a type 2 diabetic (it runs in the family, by grandmother died from the complications after she refused treatment, so I take it pretty seriously), I’m not impressed. Why would I want one of these things on my arm telling everyone I’m a diabetic?
In my experience, the problem is not the monitoring, but getting people to do something about it. Obviously type 1 diabetics do need constantly monitoring, but a more user friendly solution would be a watch or Fitbit type wrist thingie.
Nice try, but it’s not just about science, it’s about people too.
http://newatlas.com/dermal-abyss-smart-tattoo/51572/
Homework:
I see that the Nobel Physics Prize was awarded to three scientists who led the quest to detect gravitational waves. Without wishing to belittle the work of those awarded the prize, this seems to me a classic example of why the Nobel Prize is, at least in the sciences, no longer appropriate. The gravity wave detection result was the result of 50 years of work involving thousands of people – scientists, engineers, programmers, administrative staff, grant awarding bodies, universities, even administrators! It would be difficult to identify all the people involved, let alone give them all a prize medal.
The Nobel Prize system was set up towards the end of an era when ground breaking discoveries could be made by a couple of polymaths working on their own, but times have changed, and now breakthroughs in the modern word are made by teams, not individuals. We need to change our ways of acknowledging their contribution.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nobel-physics-prize-goes-to-gravitational-wave-scientists/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#First_prizes
Geek Stuff:
Each week ‘The Register’ website carries an article from one of their techie readers about their best worst call-out to customers. Most are either hilarious, or make you wince (or both) but there was one recently that I though was really interesting. It concerned a stack of computers installed in a large bank that kept rebooting every night (the computer, not the bank...). And, no, it wasn’t the cleaner unplugging the computers in order to plug in the vacuum cleaner.
But I’ll let you read the rest of the story!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/29/on_call/
Pictures:
This week’s pictures are of some pretty impressive giant sculptures of animals – made entirely of straw. They are in Niigata, Japan, and were built as part of the Wara Art festival. I don’t think I would like to meet any of them on a dark night!
http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2017/10/02/rice-straw-animal-sculptures-from-the-2017-wara-art-festival/
Coda:
This week’s quote is from Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister in the second half of the 19th Century:
“I hold that the characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.”
Actually, he was talking about the 19th Century, not the internet... [ From a speech at Oxford, UK, on 29 November 1864.]
Scanner:
NASA missions detect massive aurora and radiation spike on Mars
http://newatlas.com/nasa-mars-solar-storm-aurora-radiation/51566/
A small gem from the telegram era
http://mailchi.mp/martingeddes/a-small-gem-from-the-telegram-era?e=eab3a9dc66
Nerve implant ‘restores consciousness’ to man in persistent vegetative state
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/25/nerve-implant-restores-consciousness-to-man-in-vegetative-state
Is remote baggage drop-off the next travel innovation?
http://www.airport-technology.com/features/featureis-remote-baggage-drop-off-the-next-travel-innovation-5935412/
Have smartphones destroyed a generation?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
Who controls the past? China’s pressure on western academics
https://www.worldcrunch.com/opinion-analysis/who-controls-the-past-china39s-pressure-on-western-academics
When AI takes our jobs, only developers stand a chance
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3228526/it-careers/when-ai-takes-our-jobs-only-developers-stand-a-chance.html
It’s hangover time for enterprise cloud computing
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3229187/cloud-computing/its-hangover-time-for-enterprise-cloud-computing.html
The coming software apocalypse
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/
The finance sector is littered with vulnerabilities, and guess what – most can be resolved by patching
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/22/finance_web_security/
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
8 October 2017
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.
