Hack and Sack

You may have heard recently that a computer worm infiltrated and seriously debilitated two Iranian nuclear facilities. I'll admit that when I first heard about this, my reaction was one of awe. The more details that come out, though, the more it becomes clear (yet again) that the real battlefields are in a virtual world; that the largest military in the world can't necessarily keep a nation from being brought to its knees.

When word first spread of the worm, the popular belief was that the creators of the worm - the "Stuxnet worm" - were those most likely to be harmed by the production of those facilities, the Israelis.  This theory was based on a word found in the worm ("Myrtus"), which may have been an intentional reference to a biblical figure who saved Israelis from the Persians. Couple this with the wide smiles sported by Israeli officials when asked about Stuxnet, and the theory didn't seem that wild. "Oh, those Jews and Persians. They'll never get along, will they?"

I actually had my own conspiracy theory. It wasn't the Israelis. It was the U.S., or the Chinese, or the Russians, and they were merely practicing on the Iranians for a bigger target.

As the worm has been studied, some new information has emerged. Check out this FoxNews article for the details (if you read one linked article in this post, read that one). I don't know about you, but that article blew me away. (By the way, yet another blow to Microsoft's security credibility. And was anyone else surprised to see a nation using Windows as the OS to control their nuclear facility?).


Now, as coordinated and precise as the attack was, I suppose it actually shouldn't be that surprising. I think it's generally understood that governments, militaries and even large corporations have divisions whose sole purpose is to poke holes in the defense of their opposition and infiltrate or destroy. Wikileaks recently let it out that it was the Chinese government that hacked Google in early 2009. There are reports of China and Russia hacking into U.S. electrical grids. Heck, in 2002 the U.S. tried to sell the Chinese a bug-ridden plane for the Chinese President. We even have our own cyber-intelligence division here at TLATL, but it mostly consists of Coovo calling up the authors of our rival blog The Lou and The Loop and pretending to be their mom and asking if they remember her maiden name because she forgot it again.

If our governments and national infrastructure aren't safe, neither are the big banks. So my question to everyone is, how scared should we be? Is it pointless to be paranoid about things out of our control, or are there any, even small, steps we can take to protect ourselves? Friend of TLATL Joel once wrote to me "Paranoia will destroy ya." True, but stories like these still make me feel a little helpless.

Hope that cheered everyone up! And if you get any calls from your mom asking for her maiden name, just tell her it's "passw0rd".

Twittermania

A couple years ago, I started hearing all the tech podcasters talking about the newest fad, Twitter. Described as "micro-blogging", well you know what Twitter is. A way to syndicate a quick thought or your location to people who are interested stalking you.

Twitter grew, and grew, and with the rise in popularity came numerous outages in the service (I suppose it's hard to afford the infrastructure for ever-increasing volume when the company doesn't really have a way of generating money). But it just got more popular.

The tech podcasters had a good prediction, though. Once a celebrity (Britney was the oft-cited example) figured out how easily they could easily leverage the app as a way to reach their fan base, Twitter would explode.

And it has. Britney was perhaps one of the first, biggest stars to join (although it's believed that it's her PR people actually "tweeting"... probably because of the lack of grammar and spelling mistakes). Ashton Kutcher got in early. It was one of the many Web 2.0 tools employed effectively by the Obama campaign. Shaq started using it to give away tickets before games. Of course, the adoption of Twitter as a marketing platform by celebrities hasn't come without it's flops and moments of humor.

Then a few months ago I saw Jimmy Fallon using Twitter as a way to let fans send questions for his guests on his show. A month later I saw SportsCenter posting athletes' tweets. Pokerroad has teamed with Twitter to provide up to the minute updates during the WSOP. It's no longer a geek buzzword, it's everywhere now.

And there have been numerous rumors of tech giants in talks to buy Twitter - even though Twitter still has no way of making money!

I personally have no problem if people like to use Twitter to stay in touch with friends, follow people of interest, etc. To each his own. I think my attitude towards it kind of falls in line with this Conan bit, though:



But then, just when I feel somewhat justified for believing Twitter is a little silly, it becomes one of the only methods for getting on-the-scene news out to the world from the riots in Iran. The credibility of Twitter-based news can always be questioned, but it may be the best metaphor for the shift in "breaking news" journalism. The average citizen with a camera phone and Twitter now dictate the stories for journalists to run down.

And it's no different at TLATL. Instead of Coovo telling me what to write, me telling Ryan what to write, and Ryan telling Coovo what to write, we will be following the crowd. And what better way to dive right in than to head to Iran, meld in with the crowd, and work as undercover journalists. And you can follow it all on our Twitter feed! Hope to hear from you all soon.

Everybody Must Get Stoned!!

Well once again, Bob Dylan and Iran are in disagreement.

According to a recent article in the BBC, Iran has taken a critical leap into the future with its suspension of "death by stoning" from its arsenal of execution options. In other recent news, it has been discovered that the earth orbits the sun, not the other way around.

• In case you were wondering how someone is stoned to death, males are buried up to their waists and have their hands tied behind their backs. Females are buried up to their necks. Stones shouldn't be too big, lest they kill the person too quickly.
• In the last year a man was stoned to death for adultery. From what I've read, it looks like stoning is a pretty common punishment for adultery. In the U.S., it's possible that you'll get divorced and pay alimony, but that could always be supplemented with the profits from your reality show.
  
• Notice how Iran says it's "suspending" the practice? Not banning, not eliminating... suspending. It's like... To Be Continued...
• The Taliban were eager to piggy-back on the story, releasing this statement "The Taliban also does not practice death by stoning. Of course, this is because we have banned both throwing and stones."
• My wife thinks this story isn't newsworthy because we still execute people here, so why does the method of execution make a difference. She may (may!) have a point, but I thought of the Taliban line right when I heard the story and couldn't resist.

So you tell me, is this newsworthy? Would it be hypocritical for our nation to criticize Iran's methods of execution, when we still send people to the "Texas Toaster"?

Broken Promises, Exercise and Iran

I promised a post about Google Reader this weekend. I didn't do it. I won't bother making excuses, since I don't think I really upset anyone. But I will do it soon. Promise.

So since I randomly titled this post "Broken Promises, Exercise and Iran", I should probably find some suitable content for the latter two.

I recently purchased a pretty simple exercise tool called the Spri Xertube. I know what you're thinking - it's a remake of a popular '80's gimmick that your dad and that you tried a couple times but gave up because it pinched you. Seriously, that was annoying. Fortunately in the last 20 years, a non-pinching material has been invented - rubber.


No, it's not as effective as weights, has no Chuck Norris endorsement, and it won't land you a date with Andi (Andi!!!!! YOU GOONIE!!!-GOONie!!-Goonie!-goonie...). But it costs $13, can be purchased in varying degrees of resistance, and can effectively work just about every muscle in your body. No joke - the website has video demonstrations of multiple different exercises that can be done with the Xertube. And since it's essentially the size of a jump rope, it's a lot easier to travel with than a dumbbell set.

Moving on to Iran...

Around 6 months ago, a U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran had ended development of its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This calmed the nerves of many citizens fraught with the possibility that the U.S. would engage Iran in acts of war.

However, the BBC reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has information that suggests the weapons program may not have been curtailed. I won't take the time/space go into my thoughts on Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the article did spur the following quick reactions:

• Does the fact that this information is NOT coming from the U.S. (apparently, although the article didn't mention the specifics of the "multiple sources") make it more credible?
• What does this say about the reliability of U.S. intelligence?
• How happy is the McCain campaign? I won't go so far as to say that John McCain wants a nuclear Iran, but there are plenty of people who look at this as an "Every silver lining has a cloud" type of "problem".