Cyber war? Hah!

The DDoS attack on Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the Ex-half-term Governor of Alaska in support of WikiLeaks is a drive-by shooting compared to this stealth missile (or maybe the better analogy is a Predator drone, but I digress).

Stuxnet is a spectacular demonstration of what is possible with enough skill, time and money. It represents an unprecedented level of self control, subtlety and effectiveness never seen before by any malware. Three, count em, three individual zero-day exploits, controlled replication and a self destruct timer?

..and speaking of DDoS, didn't the whole "Jillian Assange is a criminal" thing get decided in the early 70s when the supreme court ruled the NY Times could publish the Pentagon Papers?

Oh yeah, did you hear that the FBI is now accused of planting multiple backdoors into the crypto libraries of OpenBSD. If true, this one's gonna leave a mark as the code in question is ~10 years old now. @HowdTheyMissThatOne

New Passport

For some crazy reason I thought passports expired on your birthday. I learned on Wednesday that I was wrong and my passport has actually been expired since June.

Not any more. Thanks to these guys, I have a shiny new passport with all maner of anti-counterfeiting tech. What a spectacular service they provide, I got a call from my personal advisor immediately after filling out the web based forms and received regular updates the whole way. My new booklet arrived this morning, just in time for a trip on Sunday.

Good advice from a great movie

"We must all fear evil men, but there is another kind of evil that we must fear most, that is the indifference of good men."

Can anyone name the movie?

Danny MacAskill -- Madman

Back on the bike

After almost a month off the bike I rode Stevens Creek Canyon and the Grizzly Flat trails last week with V. Since he's waiting for his new cross bike to arrive, he rode my Land Shark CX bike and I took the Indy Fab. It's pretty convient have a pair of cross bikes.

He shot this with his iPhone just as the light was fading. I kind like it.

See ya, iPhone

Dear Apple,

I see that you finally made the "Find my iPhone" app free as part of iOS 4.2. Sadly you chose to only make it available to iPhone 4 owners. As an iPhone 3GS owner I find this a little disappointing.

You choice in this matter has caused me to reconsider my choice of phone. I'm up for a new contract this month and I had planned to get an iPhone 4 if/when it launches on Verizon's network next year. But now, I realize that if I chose the iPhone I would be subject to your marketing whims for another two years.

Sorry guys, I just can't do it. I love your laptops and think the new Macbook Air is spectacular but my next phone will be an Android. Now where are the Android phone comparison sites...

The Internet is a powerful thing

An excellent read on the power of the internet, copyright law and bad judgment (and no this has nothing to do with illegal music downloading). Now, where's my copy of "Cooks Source"

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

I don't often agree with Michael Kinsley but in this case I sure do....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44500.html

What is the most dangerous game animal in the US?

Sure, you were probably going to say some kind of bear. That a good guess, as a combined group including Black, Brown, Grizzly and Polar bears have killed as many as 10 people in a single year. However that's not even close to the 150 people killed each year by the lowly White Tail Deer.

Read more about it here

The first rule of Facetime is...

Hold your phone at eye level or above. Nobody likes to look up your nose.