Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In - Security Fix
Reports are trickling in about the impact from the Conficker worm, as infected systems passed zero hour at midnight and began downloading additional malicious components.
Here’s a quick roundup of some of the more notable incidents caused by Conficker so far, according to published reports:
- A nuclear missile installation near Elmendorf Air force Base outside of Anchorage, Alaska briefly went on a full-scale military alert after technicians manning the bunker suspected that several of their control systems were infected with Conficker.
According to wire reports, the remote facility temporarily moved to Defense Condition (Defcon) 3 in the pre-dawn hours, but quickly backed down from that posture. An airman at the installation who asked not to be identified blamed the mishap on “way too much caffeine” consumed by occupants inside the secluded underground control room.
Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication
Gmail Autopilot is Google’s latest step in its plan towards world email domination. Basically, it pulls sample text from emails you’ve sent before and offers you a draft reply to email piling up in your inbox. They suggest you can even send them out without reading them, but won’t allow endless loops:
What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?
Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot’s responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.
Qualcomm is spreading out from its tech roots into bio-engineering
It appears, however, that Qualcomm may face competition from Amazon.com, which unveiled plans for a much more practical version of a similar service
Inevitable: JURIST - Paper Chase: Cuba travel legislation introduced in US House
Injustice: Administrative Law Prof Blog: When the government goofs
Inspiring: Philip Barclay and Grace Mutandwa Blog from the UK Embassy in Zimbabwe. If only the US Embassy staff were empowered to provide honest commentary of this sort in every posting.
Intellectual Humor, John Holbo, Crooked Timber, Lewd and Prude. Don’t miss the comments - a good time is had by all, even in the hypo.
Interesting: Ian Ayres, I Pay Them to Leave
Interstate Commerce: Jurist: Federal judge rules sex offender residency law unconstitutional — still the minority view on the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006 (SORNA).
Haven’t much energy yet, so here’s linkorama to things you might have missed:
Stuff to look into:
Too much to do, and the A/C is busted.
Here are links to two very different, very good graphical presentations of information:
1) Personal Democracy Forum, net number of Meetup supporters forming offline groups and communities in support of the Democrats and Republicans.
2) History of Religious Geography in 90 seconds. No theology nor social history — just a nice set of spreading blobs showing the geographical spread of five major world religions.
Again, feel free to add yours.
There’s a constitutional crisis brewing, but other stuff goes on too:
No, there’s no pattern there. Feel free to post your own pointers to stuff in the comments.
Things you shouldn’t say at your dissertation defense
If your ratings are big you can get away with racism (more here)
The US government sure loves its lawless, secret CIA prisons — those would be the black sites where there’s water boarding and other torture or near-torture, and people seem to vanish and die. Is there any hope that our next President will end this shameful system? I am not optimistic about most of the candidates, although the worst abuses may be curbed.
Some recent political stuff to chew on:
Good stuff piled up while I was out of it.
Actually, I’m still coughing a lot. Class could be hard tomorrow.
Independent Counsel found insufficient evidence to warrant charging Robert Gates with a crime for his role in the Iran/contra affair. Like those of many other Iran/contra figures, the statements of Gates often seemed scripted and less than candid. Nevertheless, given the complex nature of the activities and Gates's apparent lack of direct participation, a jury could find the evidence left a reasonable doubt that Gates either obstructed official inquiries or that his two demonstrably incorrect statements were deliberate lies.Presumably the confirmation hearing will be rushed to have it happen in the lame-duck Senate, not one with a Democratic Armed Services Committee chair. If you want even more about Gates, have a look at the Senate debate on Gates's previous appointment in 1991.
So far, I've spent the majority of this weekend asleep. I've been battling some sort of bug for well more than a week, and at best I was holding it to a draw. So this weekend I tried to sleep it off. When I do 14-hours of sleep in a day (two naps and a long night), that means not much blogging. So here are a collection of links to things that accumulated while I was in the land of nod.
One of the sleaziest strategies in this election has been the unsubtle use of the race card by the GOP in the Tennessee election. The Democratic candidate, Harold Ford, is black, his opponent is white, and time and again the Republicans have made a very big deal of Ford being around or dating white women. Thus, the big push early in the campaign about Ford being at some party (when single) that had (white!) Playboy bunnies. And national Republican party issued a press release about Ford having gone on a date with a (white) college sophomore when he was a single thirtysomething. The national Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has paid for an entire web site just to push the Ford and white women angle -- while all the time saying it's a "values" issue (that a single man went on dates?)
And now, the TV commercial -- using at least some actors posing as voters -- that really lays on the sleaze:
Despicable.
Push-polling season begins. And the GOP thinks the winning smear issue is ... Mexicans swarming over the border.
Joe Sestak, Democratic Congressional candidate in Pennsylvania, responds to attempt to Swift Boat him.
US troops in Baghdad have had enough: "not an infantry mission anymore" and "worthless" "wasting our time".
Heavy-handed political commentary from Olbermann.
Heavy-handed humor: Too stupid to be President.
Linkorama.
China Buys Google (great web redesign at Slashdot!)
Orley Lobel argues that there isn’t enough hierarchy in law schools. (I think she’s serious.)
Internet as
Iraq, hell in a handbasket
Use Google Maps to track Zombies in your area
A star is born (perhaps).
He sounds like David Duke, and he’s coming to a Republican Presidential primary near you. If there were any moderate Republican candidates, you might expect this guy to suck air out of the right and open a space for a centrist. But do they exist? (Cf. Sadly No reads LGF so you don’t have to.)