viral

A relatively novel and sophisticated, complex enough to suggest the monetary backing and support of a state-financier, computer virus some suggest (auch auf deutsch) may be the first volley of a new cyber war. While I believe that this may be local retribution for the death sentence of an Iranian blogger in absentia whose punishment may be transferred to his father, because the bulk of infections have been visited on industrial control systems, vulnerable to infiltration, in Iran, many think it may be a collaborative effort between the Mossad of Israel and the United States to either gather intelligence or outright sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities. This is a dangerous move, especially since it could propagate out of control and invite reprisals.

Rather than dampen Iran’s efforts--maybe experimenting in this sandbox is just a distraction for something else, however, I believe a bigger target of opportunity for these or any nation, because of the nature of the Stuxnet virus which can obscure the safety parameters of an industry system and fool operators into thinking that the system is running normally when in reality its overheated or running on empty, would be the antique and clunky relays of the New York stock exchange to clandestinely inflate trading and sustain confidence or else plunge it into panicked selling. World stock markets are probably the single most influential and easily accessible industrial control systems out there and much of the swings in trading are adjudicated by the reflexes of machines.

wayback machine: einheit und ostalgia

The reunification process of East- and West-Germany happened in several phases and was highly formalized, from the Mauerfall, treaties, to economic desegregation to the ultimate political and sovereign reunion, whose twentieth anniversary is commemorated on next Sunday, 3. October. Der Spiegel (auch auf englisch) has aggregated perspectives on this theme and offers personal memories and reminiscence. From the point-of-view from all these years forward, it has been fascinating to watch the stampede of documentaries touching on all aspects and sharing H's personal experiences and memories of the way things were and the transition.

Living near the former border and cold-war frontier, we have explored the monuments to the period in depth and visit storied sites in the east quite often, whose part in the DDR are not to be discounted and dismissed but still do barely seem an instance in the far-reaching histories of these places. Germany and Europe is a continual reinvention and now a peaceable conglomerate, but I do wonder what measure of the present condition will be recalled and honored twenty years on with the luxury and comfort of change and reform.

white fright

Huffington Post contributor, John Ridley, offered a funny, provocative piece the other day, "The unbearable whiteness of anti-intellectualism."  Despite the economic down-turn, the honey-pot for exploiting the fears of white people is bottomless and apparently no limits either to the credibility of distractions.  Stoking such irrational fears sells fall-out shelters, pharmaceuticals and newspapers, as well as financing wars and political campaigns.  The spate of shock-and-awe US headlines are endless: political indiscretions of a teen-age witch, mad-hatter's tea party, chimera influenza, rubbish-bins that snitch if one does not recycle, and don't forget the bed-bugs, roving terror threats and vague warnings never to be off-guard.   I am sure it is not a phenomena peculiar to Americans but I do believe that they have elevated the art form. 

Meanwhile, more pressing, tangible and less phobic concerns are ignored, like the American government trying to hide the true scope of its indebtedness like a guest on a day-time talk show that's appealing to this same fear base, or sacrificing one's privacy in the name of someone else's estimation of security, and abusing the natural environment.  Scare-mongering is not a helpful tactic, and rather a race to the bottom that appeals to and enhances those latent feelings of panic that exacerbates small differences.  

l'ecran magique

Available from Headcase, purveyors of many things weird and wonderful, is this iPad sleeve in the form of a classic Etch-A-Sketch, which was originally a French invention which had its premiere at the International Nürnberg Toy Fair in 1959.  This is pretty cool and is a perfect match, although a violent shaking is probably not to be recommended.

aqua teen hunger force

Comparisons of genetically modified organisms to Dr. Frankenstein is a bit of an insult, since he did not go to mad scientist school for all those years to be called Mr. Frankenstein, and he reanimated a human cadaver, not a vegetable or a fish, and he brought his monster to life without gene manipulation nonsense. There is a debate over the American Food and Drug Administration's being poised to endorse the sale of genetically altered salmon as fit for aquaculture and fit for human consumption. This move seems very ill advised--to dabble with Mother Nature--especially at the behest of business people and fisher-folk. Animal husbandry has taken thousands of years of selective breeding to produce contemporary livestock and stabbing straight to an animal's DNA is a big presumption.  Europe is right to proceed with extreme caution and skepticism on this front.  There is a significant portion of any creature's genetic code that researchers have dismissed as redundant or hitchhiking, and tinkering with the chemicals that give this salmon the ability to mature faster may mean that its shelf-life is severely reduced, prone to food poisoning, or that its immune system is not so hardy. The gene responsible for fast growth could compromise safety by making venomous fish or hyper-intelligent fish who are more vocal about being eaten. And what if these GM salmon interbreed with natural populations? Salmon may lose their ability to navigate fresh- and salt-waters, the wild populations could get sick, or things could turn out like the Secret of NIMH.

meme

As thousands of Germans are choosing to opt out of Google’s roving eye, though it does not seem as dystopic as some mad, fascist Orwellian world-view, there are some concomitant actions in Germany and the European Union that are taking a circumspect and long view at the virtual frontier.
Ahead of a summit on data protection and consumer rights, politicians are calling for means, no self-regulated and left to the industry, to cover one’s internet tracks, especially those footprints left unintentionally and exploited by marketers or in digital photographs that record one’s location and that has a persistence of memory on the web. Surely, such government safeguards cannot satisfy everyone, and some argue that governmental efforts would be better spent on protecting consumers from disreputable internet service providers and other underwriters of fraud, but it is an excellent example of government predicting and adapting to technology, rather than reacting to it within an insufficient legal framework. Furthermore, the crowning achievement, at least in prospective circulation, comes from a working group in Strasbourg in the form of an “internet treaty,” similar to the line in the sand drawn with international cooperation over the ownership of the Antarctic or outer space.

This proposal aims to keep the internet globally open and neutral, curbing government influence over content or allowing deals that would make the internet two-tiered, given speed and preference to paid, premium content. This seems especially important as US, Canadian and other governments seek to assert regulatory control, censor and spoon-feed back to the world public what it already has created, sometimes out of desperation to cut deals in favour of big business or to realize and retain more tax revenues from internet activities.

unschärfe

Following a novel approach to saddling a chip with bits and bytes using pulses of light instead of miniscule electric current, subscribers to Moore's Law and general aficionados of bigger, better, faster, more are anticipating that quantum computing is within the industry’s grasp, promising computers that will be able to essay complex calculations that are outside of the realm of contemporary processors, making for better models and more accurate predictions as well as improved capability to conduct internet searches.

The amount of data banished to the virtual oubliette is increasing exponentially and scientists, from meteorologists, marketing executives, to chemists and astronomers, have increasingly complex scenarios to ponder through. Brute computational force, however, is not science or creativity—rather it is having that proverbial arsenal of an infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters to produce a literary classic. It is the same sort of logical extension that has given rise to those spontaneously generated 100 kilometer long traffic jams in China that pop in and out of existence with no explanation, since the country’s recent prosperity has allowed more to own a car. Likewise, discovering a new pharmaceutical by testing every possible permutation is no real accomplishment and interactions overlooked can present real dangers, especially if researchers become too reliant on computing power to filter out their red herrings and incompatibilities. The serendipity of a new finding, even from a mistake or stumbling upon something unexpected, goes out the window. Wouldn't the internet become an ironic genie if it could deliver exactly what was requested with no errata everytime?  How should one learn about anything new?  Besides, the nature of quantum mechanics does not suggest that circuitry would be without gremlins and bugs of an esoteric and unpredictable variety.  Maybe it would be like the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, and produce self-fulfilling prophesies, like creating the earthquake it predicts or randomizes non-sensical results, ballerina mountain range, feathered titanium gazebo. In computing it is ever garbage in/garbage out.