Simulated Laughter reads an al-Qa’ida document and asks if the terrorist disorganisation is moving to a new phase of “lone wolf” individualised terrorism. They argue that this would be a very bad thing. I disagree. I suspect the core of the disagreement is probably a cognitive framework issue. Laughter argues that the worst acts of…
Read More A man alone ain’t..A lot of ISP people are concerned about the volume of peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, especially thick stuff like video. To be more specific, they are usually concerned about the volume of P2P traffic their users draw from outside their networks, as after all, it’s the extra upstream transit they pay for, or the…
Read More Topology-aware P2PThe immeasurable SpyBlog has been doing fine work reducing the bamboozlement certain bloggers have been propagating regarding government e-mail addresses and the cash-for-peerages inquiry. (Shorter: “x.gsi.gov.uk” domains denote the top level of network security, not TEH SEKRIT EMAILS!!) But the Spy has found something, though – as well as the netblocks assigned to Energis and…
Read More Wardriving TonyOK, so Thomas P.M. Barnett is purring like a kitten at the discovery that his Blueprint for Action has been translated into Turkish. Barnett’s famed prescription, the so-called SysAdmin Force, seems to be vanishing under the far horizon. Check out this NYT report from western Afghanistan. It seems the Iranians are dramatically out-competing NATO &…
Read More Bandwidth! Low latency! Sexy!James Glanz of the NYT reports at great length on the electrical siege of Baghdad, with detail, network maps, and more. Great. Obviously, this being a blog, the primary meaning of this is an excuse to moan about the press. Why didn’t Glanz (or anyone else at the NYT) report on this back in 2004,…
Read More Electricity – let it wash all over me! Or notYou want disturbing search requests? We got’em. Two days ago, someone searched Indian Google for “security systems for British crown jewels” and landed here. Now, I think there’s a movie in that. They are to be found somewhere on VSNL’s network in India: traceroute.
Read More Classic DSR!This is very bad news from Baghdad, via perfect.co.uk, but note some details. For a start, a neat primer on modern urban warfare: On Saturday, the Web site displayed a recipe for civil war. It recommended protecting Sunni neighborhoods by “spreading snipers on the roof of buildings,” planting roadside bombs at neighborhood entrances and distributing…
Read More 1239. 7018. 4766. Now start a warZiff-Davis Baseline carries a huge report on exactly why the NHS National Programme for IT is a disaster. (Thanks, Charles.) First of all, a reiteration of a past point: they mention as one of the few successes the N3 tranche of the project, which turns out to be the deployment of DSL lines to GP…
Read More HOWNOTTO build a computer system“How would a Galileo-based road pricing scheme fit into the code of practice requirement of a direct relationship with the user?” Good fucking question. We’ve got David Smith, the deputy information commissioner, and among others Richard Clayton of the Cambridge Computer Lab’s security engineering group – that’s right, the guy from Light Blue Touchpaper –…
Read More Confoblogging: Trust, consent, and standardsThis pissed me off all week. Yesterday, the world’s biggest container ship, M/V Emma Maersk arrived in Felixstowe on her first trip from China to Europe. There has been a degree of pre-Christmas hype about this sailing, revolving around the notion that she is packed with nothing but Christmas presents-to-be. This may be a little…
Read More Saving the planet in the slowest possible way