Circuit Writer Version 5.5

by Jim Scheef

The name of my column changes slightly this month. The reason for the change will become apparent at the end.

A Taste of Armageddon

In Star Trek episode 23, two planets wage war by computer. Each planet plans their attacks and countermeasures in a computer (a large box with blinking lights, of course). The computers then determine an outcome using what we now call a simulation. When the results of an attack are determined, the “casualties” – anyone in a region “destroyed” in the simulation – voluntarily go to a center of some sort where they are executed. Since we have yet to make any (known) interstellar enemies, for now, we need only worry about cyber warfare with other countries here on Earth. Do you think this is rather far fetched? I have a hard time imagining that people would voluntarily agree to be executed, and so did Captain Kirk.

Gen. James Cartwright, of the U.S. Strategic Command, is quoted in an eWeek article (http://tinyurl.com/yqzfk5) that China is already actively engaging in cyber-reconnaissance through the probing of the computer networks of U.S. government agencies and private companies. "I think that we should start to consider that regret factors associated with a cyber-attack could, in fact, be in the magnitude of a weapon of mass destruction," Cartwright told the U.S.-China Economic Review Commission, referring to the psychological effects that would be generated by the sense of disruption and chaos caused by a cyber-attack. The commission submitted its report to Congress in November.

The same article quotes James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that cyber-attacks are more likely to strengthen the resolve of the targeted population than to cause real damage. "The effect is usually to solidify resistance, to encourage people to continue the fight, and if you haven't actually badly damaged their abilities to continue to fight, all you've done is annoy them, and what many of us call cyber-attacks [are] not weapons of mass destruction but weapons of mass annoyance," Lewis said.

I think they are both right. A denial of service or other attack of such a scale that it affected the use of the Internet for government or financial functions would be very serious worldwide if it lasted long enough. Gen. Cartwright says that such an attack would be part of an armed conflict, so one must also weigh the likelihood of an armed conflict with our largest trading partner, but this does point out that the Internet is vulnerable to large scale attack and both our friends and our enemies know this. Last month I mentioned the coming change to IPv6. IPv6 includes several security features baked in right from the get-go. It also opens up some new security concerns as peer-to-peer (P2P) is also inherent to IPv6. Whether our national government’s switch to IPv6 is altruistic or to drive profits at Cisco and Microsoft is open to discussion. Whether you are a Star Trek fan or not, Internet security should be a national priority (by way of standards organizations, not legislation) and IPv6 is coming, so be prepared to replace your router within the next two years. Tell the home router manufacturers that you will not buy their products until they support IPv6. (In the interest of full disclosure, I own stock in both Cisco and Microsoft, so I love the prospect of a new Internet equipment and software boom as we transition to IPv6).

‘Tis the Season of Lists

If you take a moment to think about it, you know that I’m writing this in early December. I haven’t even made my Christmas list, let alone done any shopping. (I hate shopping) Every year, I have a list – predictions, good stuff, bad stuff. So here is this year’s list of random thoughts:
Windows Vista may surpass the Microsoft Bob user interface as Microsoft’s biggest failure.
Someday, technology writers and cell phone reviewers will understand that the quality of the call is a very important attribute in a cell phone – not the megapixels in the camera.
In the “there is no free lunch” department, “free” citywide Wi-Fi is fading fast from the news and future reality. First it was never free, and then someone figured out that citywide means big! Hotspot is more like it. When it gets warm again, try sitting with your laptop outside the Danbury Public Library.
Will the government mandated Real-ID = RFID? The sort-of aborted New York driver’s license plan will use RFID. The only part aborted was the plan to allow undocumented immigrants to have a document. Will the libertarians in New Hampshire be willing to carry RFIDs in their wallets? Time will tell. As NY Gov. Elliot Spitzer will tell you, there are more issues to this that meet the iris scan of your eye.
New acronym – PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair).
Most of my objections to desktop Linux have been eliminated. Soon it will be as easy to use as Windows. The major applications are already available. All that’s needed is someone to explain this to the masses.

Blogging for DACS

The content in DACS.doc is not as easily available on the DACS web site as I would like to see it. Right now if you want to read an article from a past issue of DACS.doc, it can be hard to find. If you know exactly what issue had the article, you can see it with just a few clicks. However if all you know is the author or subject, you could have a hard time. Yahoo and Google often return a tangled mess of items as the search engines pluck words from the pages of the website plus the PDF files. There must be a better way. I would like to see easy to use indexes into our newsletter content.

Beyond just finding the articles, wouldn’t it be fantastic if there were an easy way for you to comment on an article? As more of our content has become commentary, a two-way discussion becomes even more appropriate. I think I’m describing a blog.

To test this concept, I’ve placed this column plus the last 12 in a blog at http://circuitwriter.spaces.live.com. Yes, this is Microsoft’s sort of reaction to FaceBook. I tried Yahoo 360, but it’s quite obvious that Yahoo is loosing interest in 360. “Spaces” is part of Microsoft’s newly expanded Live.com, so the site may have some staying power. This location may prove to be a temporary one if we decide to consolidate on a DACS blog site, so stay flexible as we work this out. For now, you can find and comment on my columns all in one place. Over time, I’ll add categories and tags to make the content easier to find. The column name change was needed because someone already has “Circuit Rider” in Spaces. Hey, I can adapt.