Gizmodo's got my back (well, really we just read the same blogs)

I wrote last week about Stuxnet as a language attack with real-world consequences. I also wrote about how some in the security world think that the level of sophistication and the specificity of the target suggests that a nation/state - rather than merely some hacker or group of hackers - might have orchestrated the attack. I mean, I don't have access to the Stuxnet code; I'm just reporting what some in the industry believe.

Today Gizmodo reports that "the Pentagon and German intelligence are being accused of creating the virus to take down Iran's atomic facility." They point to articles at a variety of news organizations who are reporting the accusation (scroll down after the jump). Interesting food for thought, especially if we ask ourselves the tough questions about the nature of military attacks (and what qualifies/what doesn't/etc.

Possible example that the pen IS mightier than the sword?

A while back, in my ENG 2353 (Professional Writing Technologies) class, I mentioned that no one country has oversight of the interwebs. In general, our participation - as individuals, as communitites, as part of a city/state/country/world - is without governance. I mean, it's not completely without government, but it's not exactly like the United States FCC can regulate globally-generated internet content. Well, not yet anyway.

So, I was reminded of our class' talk recently by two news-stories about the - hmm, how to describe it? - desire by some to globally regulate internet content. Maybe it's not merely about the desire; maybe desire is predicated (trumped?) here by necessity? I'm not 100% sure, but I do know that the ideas in these two stories speaks to the idea of content control/regulation. Read on!

Ever heard of Stuxnet? Probably not, and there's no reason you necessarily would have. However, some believe that it could very well kill everyone you know. Got your attention now? Wait, there's more!

Stuxnet is malware designed to deliver a pretty specific set of trojans into a computer system, theoretically then allowing some remote user(s) access into the infected system. Usually, trojans like that are designed to give those remote users access to our sensitive information: passwords, bank account/credit card info, etc. On that level, Stuxnet works a lot like malware you or I might get on our adorable little computers at home or school. However, (according to a great article on PC World) industrial cyber-security experts like Ralph Langer and Dale Peterson, CEO of Digital Bond, believe that because of the sheer complexity and artistry of the code itself, the malware likely was designed for a specific target: Iran's nearly-completed Bushehr nuclear reactor. In fact, Langer describes Stuxnet as "the hack of the century."

Stuxnet evidently targets some specific sectors of computer networks designed by Siemens, a big name in giant, industrial computer networks, among other things. The specificity and complexity of the attack, coupled with the small number of organizations that use the exact combination of Siemens' systems, limits the possible number of targets to just about one: Iran's nuclear reactor. Put another way, the Stuxnet trojans were designed to shut down "critical factory operations -- things that need a response within 100 milliseconds," according to IDG News' Robert McMillan (via PC World), not to infiltrate lots of different computers all over the world to steal lots of info like credit card numbers from regular Windows/Mac computers. McMillan argues that failure in those industrial systems could mean reactor meltdown, chemical catastrophe, etc, and that the target's specificity suggests that a new breed of cybercriminal - and/or "possibly a nation state" - created this malware to "destroy something big."

Up next time: "idea crime" and the internet!

Digital paper (well, really, really thin - paper-thin screens)

Yesterday, I mentioned to my Advanced Composition class the zany idea of digital paper. "Ha, ha, ha," we all said, but I stressed to them that I'd read about folks actually working on the technology and that there are prototypes out there.

In the interest of proving the utility of delivering and documenting sources, here are two articles - both from Gizmodo - about ultra-thin digital paper (that is, OLED screens that can show moving images but are really, really thin).

"How thin, Mike?" folks may ask. Well, evidently in 2007 Sony showed off a 0.3mm screen. Then, this year they showed a screen that's only 80μm (micrometers) thick, which Gizmodo points out is "about ten times the size of a red blood cell, or just a tiny bit thinner than a single hair."

LG (as reported by PC World this summer) and Samsung, not to be outdone by Sony, and sensing the complete awesomeness obvious professional and academic utility of flexible, lightweight video screens, are also working on (or have already displayed) prototypes.

Here are some videos of the real screens in action. Those images aren't projected onto the thin screen; they're projected from within the flexible material itself, jsut like an LED computer monitor. The first video is, I think, the 0.3mm version. the second is the even thinner (how thin can they go?!) version.

Chocolate and peanut-butter, or infoGooglegraphical

So, it's not much of a secret that I'm very interested in what Google does, as a corporation AND purveyor/collector/terrifying overlord of information.

And I'm very interested in the ideas behind good infographics. NOT only because they're pretty (oooh, soooo pretty...) but because they represent such wonderfully complicated data sets in particularly useful (and handsome) ways.

Anyway, I have to admit I got a kick out of an infographic on Gizmodo today (via Computer School, where it's bigger and better-looking, via TNW [sort of]).

1 trillion unique URLs? 1 exabyte of data in the next year? 40 billion pages indexed?! [POP.] What was that? Oh, it was my brain sploding.

What's it like to "work for" a company?

In preparation for our ENG 3353 resume and cover letter assignment, we talked a little about workplace culture and about whether or not a paycheck is (should be?) enough. Of course, any time I think about workplace culture, I'm reminded of some of CBS' coverage of Zappos.

60 Minutes covered the company a few years ago (5/25/08) in the context of hiring millenials. A big part of their claim is that workplaces have to offer young talent more than just a paycheck. Well, there's more to their claim than just that, so watch the video.



In addition to the 60 Minutes segment, CBS covered the launch party of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's new book, Delivering Happiness. In the video, you can hear evidence again of Hsieh's workplace mentalty, speaking of which, I just found out that Zappos has a "family" of employee-written blogs.




I also had my numbers wrong in class when I talked about Amazon's purchase of Zappos. It turns out that Amazon only paid the measly sum of $850 million, about $40 million of which went directly into employee's pockets.

So, as my students are putting together their work-related compositions, I want us all to ask ourselves, "What kind of company do I want (hope? ideally?) to work for?" Put another way, you want to think about crafting documents based on those fundamentals we've discussed about audience awareness, and that depends on lots of variables, including theorizing about ideal audiences, researching real audiences, logos, pathos, etc.