Viruses: not just for PCs anymore

As microprocessors become ever more ubiquitous, so, too, do opportunities for malware. Be afraid: some gadgets are far more personal than your personal computer ...

Let's start with malware that's been crafted to seize control of your smart phone. From Reuters, "GSM phones vulnerable to hijack scams": 

"Flaws in a widely used wireless technology could allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instruct them to send text messages or make calls, according to an expert on mobile phone security."

Why would anyone target smart phones?

"... hackers are paying unprecedented attention to the devices as smartphone sales have outpaced sales of PCs."

Much idiocy, the occasional triumph of common sense, and a look ahead

So: a virologist decided to investigate how to make the avian flu (aka, H5N1) more contagious.

It apparently wasn't enough to know that the disease -- transmitted through contact with the feces of infected birds -- has killed 600 people and has a 60% human fatality rate. Now there's an airborne strain. Pleased at punch with his accomplishments, said virologist wanted to get the details published. Because, you know, no one could possibly abuse this research.

Madness.

Tell, don't show?

A standard bit of advice to aspiring authors is to show action, not talk about it. It's often good advice: showing a world explode (for example) is more dramatic than saying that it did.

Like all rules, "show, don't tell" has its exceptions. Telling can be an effective technique, too.

Following my recent trip to England I felt the urge to reread the various cases of Sherlock Holmes. My hotel in London was in walking distance of 221b Baker Street (and indeed, my wife and I did visit the Holmes Museum at that address.) But keener is having seen many of the locales in which the beloved stories take place, on land and on the Thames.

The connection with today's topic? Holmes called himself a consulting detective -- clients come to his flat and describe their cases. We don't hear the recitations from the point of view of the client (generally the one with first-hand experience), nor even of Holmes. We aren't privy to the client's thoughts at having witnessed the invariably odd events, nor to Holmes's thoughts on having heard the recitation.

What readers know of the cases generally comes from the notes of of his faithful (and often clueless) biographer, Watson. Or from the reports of the Baker Street Irregulars: street urchins dispatched by Holmes to watch things for him. Or from newspaper excerpts.

Maybe the Mayans had it right ;-)

Submitted for your approval ...

"VW agrees to kick the "Crackberry" habit": Is it a harbinger of sanity or an omen of pending doom?

"Will China Break?" as Paul Krugman suggests? Or will the bull safely exit the porcelain emporium?

While teams of particle physicists feverishly search for a needle in a haystack's worth of haystacks, one physicist spends $2,600 for a custom Lego kit to build a 9,500-piece scale model of CERN's Atlas (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) detector -- part of the hunt for the Higgs boson. Heavy.

From the Department of Don't Believe Everything You Read, be sure to read "Doh! Top Science Journal Retractions of 2011."

Cosmic greetings of the season

WISE Presents a Cosmic Wreath

(But as with Arthur C. Clarke's classic short story "The Star," you wouldn't want be in the neighborhood when the show began ...)

Cyberwar heats up

Did you find my January cyberwar post futuristic?  If so, the future is now.

From AP (via Yahoo News), here's an item from security firm McAfee: "Report: Global cyberattack under way for 5 years." To begin: 

... cybercriminals have spent at least the past five years targeting more than 70 government entities, nonprofit groups and corporations around the world to steal troves of data.

 McAfee Inc. said in a report Wednesday that the attacks have targeted a broad range of organizations, including the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee and companies mostly in the United States.

McAfee did not say who may be behind the attacks but says the culprit is likely a nation state.

Cul de sac

My life is crazy-busy these days. So: what better time than today to share a few of the more interesting items from my web-clippings file?

Remember the 1993 movie Six Degrees of Separation? Neither do I. Regardless, the Kevin Bacon game proves too easy. See "Facebook Claims 4.74 Degrees of Kevin Bacon."

As the Eurozone and the EU itself crumple, Brussels bureaucrats took the time to tackle a vital consumer-protection issue. See "Europe's ruling on water preventing dehydration – another 'angels dancing on the head of a pin' moment."

(That topic has a certain Douglas Adams feel about it, does it not? How soon can we expect new workplace protections for telephone mouthpiece sanitizers?)

But truly exciting -- and now I'm not being sarcastic -- is a recent initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. To wit: "Darpa seeks nanotechnology defense against novel pathogens." Consider:

Where credit is due

Unless this is your first visit -- in which case, "Hi!" -- you likely know that I'm a onetime physicist and computer engineer, and that I remain interested in science and technology.

It continually amazes me how few people I meet have any interest in either subject area.

Admittedly, seemingly esoteric things can fascinate me. (Like whether, as recent experiments suggest, neutrinos can travel faster than light. Like the nature of dark energy: a label of convenience for our present state of ignorance, not an explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe.)

But my fascination with the cutting edge of science isn't why others' disinterest in science and tech surprises -- and, yes, saddens -- me. Come. Travel with me to my youth.