Pictures From a (Botnet) Exhibition
If you watched the Alias television series, you may recall a scene in which Sydney Bristow, who had volunteered to help the CIA bring down SD-6, told her handler (Michael Vaughn) that they should be able to finish the job in a few weeks. As proof, she sketched a diagram of the organization. Vaughn countered by unrolling an enormous sheet of paper that shows the known components of SD-6. It was that kind of moment for me when I happened upon a sketch of a botnet. Botnets are collections of software robots that run systems automatically. They can be used for good purposes, but most of the ones we hear about are used by spammers and other criminals. Researcher David Vorel mapped IP addresses of computers controlled by a botnet and created an intricate geometric representation of the system. The images are frightening, but also remarkably interesting. Even beautiful.
You can see the diagrams here.
The image at the left is zoomed out to the maximum setting, so little detail is visible. If you visit the site, you can zoom in and look around.
At the right is a closer view of one small section of the diagram.
Several botnets have been found and eliminated, but some estimates suggest that 25% of all personal computers connected to the Internet will at some point become part of a botnet. Dutch police identified a botnet with 1.5 million nodes and officials in Norway shut down a botnet with 10,000 nodes.
A Wikipedia article on the Storm botnet notes that this network was created by the Storm Worm Trojan horse that is spread by e-mail spam. The number of infected machines is estimated to be between 160,000 and 1 million. The Storm botnet was identified early in 2007 and it has been used for various criminal activities. Police have been unable to identify the criminals behind it.
The botnet's combined computing power is greater than some of the world's top supercomputers, but security analyst James Turner says that comparing a botnet to a supercomputer is like comparing an army of snipers to a nuclear weapon. The main problem botnets pose is their ability to consume Internet bandwidth. The operators of Storm could easily run a denial-of-service attack that would be extremely disruptive.
Remember the Excel 65535 Problem?
Last year (October 7, if you want to be precise), I wrote about a display problem exhibited by Microsoft Excel 2007 involving math functions on the number 65,535 (and, as it turned out, some nearby neighbors.) Click the link to see an example of my test at the time. Here's what had happened: Some math functions that resulted in 65,535 (for example, multiplying 850 by 77.1) would produce a displayed answer of 100,000 instead of 65,535. In most cases, using the result in further calculations produced correct answers, but a few instances used the displayed value instead of the calculated value in memory and cascaded the error. The problem has been fixed, quietly.
At the time, I explained it this way: "65535 is a 'magic' number, a binary endpoint. Hex FFFF or binary 1111111111111111, the largest 16-bit number. Between 1 and 65535, there are 10,023 numbers that appear to create the wrong answer when used to divide 65535 and then to multiply the result. The result of the two math operations will display at 100000 instead of 65535."
Recently, I revisited the spreadsheet I had created to display the problem. When I opened the sheet, all of the answers were correct. It wasn't magic, but Microsoft's automatic update process.
< Last October, the sheet looked like this.
Now it looks like this. >
Column A: This is the column that contains the number used to divide 65535.
Column B: This is the quotient of 65535 divided by the number in column A.
Column C: This is the result of multiplying column A by column B and then converting to text. The right answer is 65535; the wrong answer is 100000.
Column D: This is the result of multiplying column A by column B and then adding 1. The right answer is 65536; the wrong answer is 100001. Note that all of the instances in which column C was 100000, column D was 100001.
Column E: This is a test that multiplies column A by column B and then compares the result to 65535. If the comparison returns TRUE, this column will be "OK"; if not, you will see "PROBLEM". Note that even if the previous 2 columns clearly illustrate that there is a problem, the comparison in this column is good, so in some ways, the math is OK. The uncertainty is a serious problem.
Last October, the Microsoft haters had a grand time trying to turn what was essentially a display problem into a life-threatening disaster. It wasn't that at the time and, now that numbers display as calculated, it isn't even a minor problem.
Nonsense From Apple
Every Sunday for the past couple of months, Apple has wanted to install something on my Windows computer. The notification doesn't say what it wants to install, but I presume that it's the useless (for Windows) Safari. I use Safari sometimes on my Apple computer, but I don't want it on my Windows computer. It used to be that Apple told me what it wanted to install, but now it's a deep dark secret. Well, sorry Steve, but I won't install something if your company won't tell me what it is.
"Apple Software update for Windows" doesn't tell me very much about what Apple wants to install on my computer. Because Itunes is up to date and because Apple has been whining about wanting me to install Safari, I assume that's what this is all about.
But Apple won't tell me and Apple gives me no way to find out. There is no way that I'm going to allow Apple (which has proven itself not to understand how to write a robust Windows application) to install something unless they tell me exactly what it is.
After a few weeks of this nonsense, I decided to find out what was generating these messages and get rid of it.
That was quite easy and I resolved another problem at the same time. Although I'm careful about allowing applications to install useless and sometimes harmful tool bars, the Ask.com toolbar had been installed for Internet Explorer. That's not a big deal because I don't use IE except for when some misguided code jockey designs a site that won't work properly with Firefox.
In the process of finding and exterminating the Apple Software Update (left), I also noticed the Ask Toolbar (right). Removing both of them took just a few seconds and eliminated the annoyances.
Why do companies insist on inconveniencing people this way?
Nerdly News
Yet Another Firefox Release Candidate
Will Mozilla ever release Firefox version 3? I waited until Firefox beta 5 was released before downloading it and liked what I saw (at least generally, because some of my favorite add-ons haven't been updated to work with version 3). Then came release candidate 1. After a few weeks, release candidate 2. And now release candidate 3.
Actually, this should probably be called RC2.0000001 because the modification is so minor. It contains a single change for Mac OS X users only; there is no change for users running previous Firefox Release Candidate versions on Windows or Linux.
If you're a Firefox user who has been waiting to download version 3, your wait will end on June 17. According to the Mozilla organization, "After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period."
I've already told you about the primary enhancements in the new version: Better memory management, faster operation, a lot of features that will make it easier to develop add-ons for Firefox, and a few additions the affect the user interface. In fact, there are more than 15,000 updates that address issues such as performance, stability, rendering correctness, code simplification, and sustainability.
If you're a fan of Firefox, you'll want version 3. If you're among the less than half of one percent of users who have stuck with Netscape, you'll want Firefox. If you're an Opera fan, you'll probably continue to use Opera. And if your favorite browser is Internet Explorer -- well, I'm sorry. (OK, that's needlessly snarky and IE7 really isn't a bad browser. It's just that Firefox is a better browser.)
AC/DC: A Wal-Mart exclusive
Somehow it seems that something is wrong with this picture: AC/DC has signed an exclusive deal with Wal-Mart to sell the band's new CD in Wal-Mart stores and only in Wal-Mart stores. You won't be able to get the CD from Itunes. You won't find it at Target or Meijer. No chance at Circuit City or Amazon. Apple's online music store may be the largest music retailer in the country, but Wal-Mart is the store that sells more CDs than anyone else.
Does this say something about Wal-Mart or its customers? CD sales continue to decline because most people want the music, not a shiny plastic disc.
Wal-Mart will certainly promote the CD heavily and previously Wal-Mart has dealt directly with artists such as the Eagles to bypass labels (sorry, RIAA). AC/DC last released a CD in 2000 and it sold just under 1,000,000 copies, but online music sales had barely begun at that time. Since then, online sales have increased and sales of CDs have tanked.
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