WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
Not a very long Winding Down this week I’m afraid, I’m suffering from a low level cold type bug, compounded by a not very good reaction a flu immunisation injection :( Mostly this week there are just URLs of things I think are worth looking at, but without my take on the issue. Normal service will (hopefully) be resumed next week. So, what we have this week is material on iOS11, Equifax, Saturn, galactic empires, the health risks of virtual reality, a help desk story, several different actors reading Poe’s ‘The Raven’, and an ironic quote. Scanner URLs point to a retrospective on Saturn, a Bluetooth bug, the question of ‘to google’, safe email, and secret sonar spying on your location in your home.
Well I guess we might as well get down to it :)
Shorts:
The Applistas among you out there, may want to hold off upgrading to iOS 11 for a while. It seems there are some problems. Some apps don’t work very well with it – some apparently don’t work at all especially if they are 32-bit apps. On top of that there appear to be serious problems if you get your mail via Microsoft Office or Exchange. All in all it sounds nearly as bad as the sort of problems caused by Microsoft’s upgrades!
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/19/ios_11_upgrade_hold_off/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/21/ios_11_screws_up_outlook/
And so to the Equifax shambles... The basic facts are: the credit reference company failed to apply a security patch available well before the break in. As a result all the information required to set up false identities of 143 million people in the USA and nearly half a million in the UK was stolen. And to cap it all, it took them two and a half months to discover the existence and depth of the breach, and a further 40 days to tell anyone about it. What a bunch of...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/08/equifax_breach_notification/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/08/lawyers_line_up_to_sue_equifax/
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ftc-opens-probe-into-equifax-data-breach/d/d-id/1329889
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/17/equifax_cio_and_cso_retire/
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/equifax-exec-departures-raise-questions-about-responsibility-for-breach/d/d-id/1329914
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/19/equifax_breach_experts/
Homework:
I’d like to draw your attention to a couple of interesting articles on the Medium Website. The first is a piece about what an unusual planet Uranus is, and how little we know about. The second is a discussion of whether it’s possible to have a galactic empire like the one in SciFi movies and books (and, of course Federation 2).
https://medium.com/@uncertainquark/mysterious-uranus-and-why-we-need-to-put-an-orbiter-around-it-462894903bed
https://medium.com/@uncertainquark/can-there-be-a-galactic-empire-d909fd76e326
I also found a rather worrying piece on the Medium Leeds University account, explaining the health risks of virtual reality. I was prepared to be very cynical, but in the event it made sense. I don’t think it says you should never use virtual reality apps, but it will give you an idea of what eye problems you should look out for...
https://medium.com/@UniversityofLeeds/is-virtual-reality-bad-for-our-health-the-risks-and-opportunities-of-a-technology-revolution-31520e50820a
Geek Stuff:
The register has a regular weekly column of horror stories from its readers who run help desks. This is one of my favourites:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/11/on-call/
Pictures:
We have videos this week for the pictures section. Listen to some famous actors and storytellers read Edgar Allen Poe’s classic, ‘The Raven’. I couldn’t get all of the videos to work, but I was able to listen to a fantastic version by Christopher Lee.
http://www.openculture.com/2017/09/hear-classic-readings-of-poes-the-raven-by-vincent-price-james-earl-jones-christopher-walken.html
Coda:
I thought I’d share a quote from Adolf Hitler in 1933. He boasted, “In twelve years from now you will not recognize Berlin!”
Scanner:
Cassini at Saturn: A Retrospective
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cassini-at-saturn-a-retrospective/
Billions of devices imperilled by new clickless Bluetooth attack
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/bluetooth-bugs-open-billions-of-devices-to-attacks-no-clicking-required/
‘Don’t Google Google, Googling Google is wrong’, says Google
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/13/google_developer_style_guide_forbids_google_as_a_verb/
The only safe email is text-only email
https://theconversation.com/the-only-safe-email-is-text-only-email-81434
Boffins blast beats to bury secret sonar in your ‘smart’ home
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/boffins_blast_beats_to_bury_secret_sonar/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers 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
24 September 2017
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.
