WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
So, what have we got for you this week? How about DRAM, energy company insurance – or lack of it, climate change and the scent of pine, car software safety, car black boxes, the USNO, a billboard to drink to, criminal dollar bills, and an opportunity for a wish. URLs point you to a GnuTLS bug, a DRM coffee machine, an internet censorship surprise, an Elder Scrolls Online preview, and the future of unmanned ships.
I think that should keep you going for the rest of the week!
Shorts:
This is for my US readers (at least for the moment). There is a class action lawsuit going on in the US at the moment over alleged price fixing of DRAM, a commonly used type of computer memory. So, if you bought electronic equipment between 1998 and 2002 it would certainly include DRAM. This includes not only computers but also games machines and electronic devices such as printers and scanners.
How you are supposed to prove purchases from that far back I’m not sure. Personally I don’t even remember what computer I was using at the time! However, I would suggest that those of you who live in the US and were using computers at the end of the last century point your browsers at the URL at the end of this piece and see if you qualify for a cut of the US$310 million settlement.
In the meantime I suggest that European readers keep their eyes peeled for something similar on this side of the pond.
http://dramclaims.com/
For years now, knowledgeable security experts have been predicting that the software security of companies will only really start to be effective when they find that they can’t insure against mishaps. Well, as the Byrds put it in their hit song ‘Turn! turn! turn!’:
To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn),
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn),
And a time to every purpose, under Heaven.
And now is the season for the big energy companies to discover that their security is so bad that no one will insure them against malware and attacks by hackers! Lloyds of London who arrange insurance on virtually anything you can think of, up to and including giant container ships, have seen an upsurge in requests for such insurance, and have been turning the requests down because of poor scores on the security assessments.
Things must be bad. Those sort of insurance contracts are very, very, lucrative. Normally if there is a problem the underwriters just jack up the premiums. For them to completely refuse insurance means that they are pretty sure that there will be a break in, and that it will be a bad one.
I suspect that the energy companies are just the tip of the iceberg. Time, I think for the big companies to start taking security seriously and laying down the money to upgrade.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/27/energy_sector_refused_cyber_insurance/
Climate change. An interesting topic. Guaranteed to provoke heated argument (or not, as the case may be). Well, more fuel has recently been added to the fire, so to speak, with the discovery that the ‘scent’ given off by pine trees combines with other elements in the air to form aerosols (tiny particles) which reflect the sun’s heat, helping to cool the earth.
Interestingly enough, as the ambient temperature increases so does the production of ‘scent’ by pine trees, and there are an awful lot of them around! So, if the climate changers are looking for a reason why temperature increases have stopped for the last 15 years, maybe they should take a look at the massive boreal forests of the northern hemisphere...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/27/natural_pine_aerosols_could_prevent_climate_change_really_being_a_problem/
Homework:
I’ve mentioned programming problems with cars before, and I’m sure readers will be aware of the fact that there has been ongoing litigation in the case of Toyota. Now, however, as a result of a legal case late last year, some details have become available of just how cruddy the code that controlled the accelerator was in the case of Toyota.
The code was examined by programmers from the Barr group. The results were very frightening if you are a programmer. For a start there were 11,000 global variables in the code! (A note for non-programmers: it’s considered very bad practice to have global variables in any code, let alone safety critical code.)
There was also recursive code. Recursive code is something that should not be used in embedded code such as this, because it’s too easy to run out of memory. When that happens in safety critical code – and I think the acceleration software could definitely be classed as safety critical – you can easily run out of memory. When you run out of memory with safety critical code, it’s not just your program that dies.
There’s a body called MISRA: the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association, which publishes rules for writing this sort of safety critical software. Among other things, those rules specifically forbid recursive software... But even worse, if that’s possible, it was found that although Toyota claim to follow MISRA standards, there were over 8,000 violations of the standard in the software.
Frightening. Especially when you realize that almost all recent models of cars use electronics and software to connect the accelerator pedal to the engine. Only if you drive an older car are you likely to have a mechanical linkage between the two...
http://i-programmer.info/news/91/6995.html
And talking of cars... A lot of the newer ones now have a ‘black box’ that collects data. One of the more interesting questions here is who actually owns that data? It seems that there is a blank area in the law here. No one yet knows whether you, as the owner of the car, or the car’s manufacturer own the data.
So far there hasn’t been a case on the issue that would clarify the situation. I’m sure that will soon be rectified, because that data is very valuable indeed. If it is owned by the manufacturer, then such data could be aggregated and used to design cars that matched the driving habits of the company’s customers. On the other hand, it’s personal data. Your personal data. Do you really want the likes of Ford or Toyota to know the details of your driving habits?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/17/connected_cars_phenomenon_raises_data_ownership_issues_says_expert/
Every wondered where all those electronic devices we use every day get their time from? Well it comes from a load of different places, but if you live in the US, it ultimately comes from the US Naval Observatory (USNO). ‘The Atlantic’ has an interesting short video, narrated by the USNO Chief Scientist, Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, explaining just where the time does come from!
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/358609/where-time-comes-from/
Take a look at this You Tube video – it’s showing a very neat low tech trick. It’s a billboard that condenses some 26 gallons of drinking water a day out of the air’s humidity. The billboard is located in Lima, Peru which, although it is on the coast and has a humidity of 83%, lies on the edge of the Atacama desert – the driest desert in the world. Understandably, Lima is short of water! The billboard is a neat trick which provides the locals clean, drinkable, water. Brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FWwii1dX4v8
For Geeks:
I’m sure that, like me, you’ve watched the Bitcoin furore with some bemusement – especially the demands by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin for the banning of the digital currency. Well I think you’d enjoy the rejoinder from U.S. Congressman Jared Polis.
In an open letter to the regulators, he demands that they also protect the US public from the dangers of US dollar bills, which, as he points out are, like Bitcoins, favoured by criminals. Indeed, as he points out, suitcases full of dollar bills are regularly used for illegal transactions in movies. Not only that, but according to U.S. Department of Justice study, “Crime in the United States,” more than $1 billion in cash was stolen in 2012. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein was discovered to have had truckloads of them!
It’s very funny – well worth a read.
http://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=371808
And finally, for those of you who want to wish on a falling star...
http://supernovacondensate.net/2014/02/14/wish/
Scanner: Other stories
GNU security library GnuTLS fails on cert checks: Patch now
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/05/gnu_security_library_gnutls_fails_on_cert_checks_patch_now/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/critical-crypto-bug-leaves-linux-hundreds-of-apps-open-to-eavesdropping/#p3
Keurig’s next generation of coffee machines will have DRM lock down
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/keurigs-next-generation-of-coffee-machines-will-have-drm-lockdown/
UK prime minister’s internet censorship mentor faces paedophile charges
http://news.techeye.net/business/camerons-censorship-mentor-faces-paedophile-charges
Beta tasting: The Elder Scrolls Online preview
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/03/preview_elder_scrolls_online_beta/
Rolls-Royce imagines a future of unmanned ships
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26438661
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Asti, Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
9 March 2014
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
