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So apparently the Storm Worm—an email-propagating trojan that's creating an unknowingly-large botnet—has learned how to figure out when security researchers are probing it and is retaliating (Via Boing Boing via Slashdot):

The Storm worm is fighting back against security researchers that seek to destroy it and has them running scared, Interop New York show attendees heard Tuesday.

The worm can figure out which users are trying to probe its command-and-control servers, and it retaliates by launching DDoS attacks against them, shutting down their Internet access for days....

As researchers test their versions of Storm by connecting to Storm command-and-control servers, the servers seem to recognize these attempts as threatening. Then either the worm itself or the people behind it seem to knock them off the Internet by flooding them with traffic from Storm’s botnet....

Now, if I were approaching this news from a science fiction (writing) or a conspiracy theoretical angle, I'd be seriously wondering if this isn't the rise of a distributed sentient AI.

(*cough* Skynet *cough*)

This isn't a new idea. William Gibson back in '98 wrote a script for "The X-Files" based on the same premise: a computer virus (several, actually) was loosed upon the internet to spread and evolve and bootstrap itself into a networked emergent AI.

Then, of course, it tried to kill everybody who tried to stop it.

Not surprisingly, I had to comment on this.

Topping the list of words most likely to make web users "wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard" was folksonomy, a term for a web classification system.

"Blogosphere", the collective name for blogs or online journals, was second; "blog" itself was third; "netiquette", or Internet etiquette, came fourth and "blook", a book based on a blog, was fifth.

"Cookie", a file sent to a user's computer after they visit a website, came in ninth, while "wiki", a collaborative website edited by its readers, was tenth.

I can only really get behind two on this list: "blogosphere" and "folksonomy". I'd never heard of "blook" until now, and I'll continue to pretend it doesn't exist.

I hate "blogosphere", and I hate more that I've actually used it in conversation and writing. "Blog" I'm good with. I love "blog". "Blog" is succinct, and people pretty much know what it means. "Blogosphere", on the other hand, is just... is just... yeah. How about just "online community" instead?

I thought "folksonomy" was dumb the first time I saw it, and I continue to pretend it doesn't exist. Fortunately, its use seems to have dropped off significantly.

"Wiki" I like, too. Great word. Even better than "blog", as far as I'm concerned. I don't get the the hate here.

"Netiquette" and "cookie"? Seriously? Man, those ships have sailed. Like, back in 1995.

Okay, that's not exactly true: we got our internet service back at work around 3:30pm or so. But that still means we spent the better part of a day without.

The problem, as it turned out, was a dead SAS unit. (I have no idea what "SAS" actually stands for; it's basically like a cable modem for the wireless broadband nonsense.) Not the cranes at all. What's truly irritating is that it took OneEighty two days to figure this out, and most of today for the tech to "prep" the new unit. What, are they stored in a vault under guard somewhere? Seems to me techs should have spare SAS units in their trucks, ready to swap out at a moment's notice.

So I spent the better part of the day in a bad mood at work, continuously fielding the inevitable "Is it fixed yet?" and "Why aren't we up yet?" questions and basically spinning my wheels. Ridiculous. Now we've lost two days of productivity and I just know I'm gonna be in a bad mood at work for the rest of the week.

Needless to say, I plan on switching us over to a hard line as soon as possible; I've already got some paperwork in motion. What a pain in the ass.

At work, that is. Our internet connection was down the entire day. And there wasn't a thing I could do about it except wait for the tech from OneEighty Networks (née HighSpeed Communications née EmpireNet) to try to fix it. With no luck.

The problem? Well, for starters we have OneEighty's goofy LMDS "wireless broadband" service, which, instead of an actual T1 or DSL or other hard line, employs a line of sight microwave relay system to connect to the internet. "Line of sight" means that anything getting between the roof antenna and the transmitter on Awbrey Butte will block the signal and put you out of commission. Oh, and really foggy/rainy/snowy/etc. days can interfere with the signal too.

(This was all set up well before I started with the company; I just inherited the problems.)

So today it was offline, and the tech can't figure out why, but his favorite theory is that one of the new giant metal construction cranes that went up last week is blocking the signal. Sounds reasonable, except the crane went up last week and we didn't start experiencing any problem until today (or possibly yesterday but no one was in the office to tell for sure).

So work sucks when there's no internet, because it really drives home just how much we rely on having a live connection. Probably 90% of what I do requires internet access. Stupid crappy "wireless broadband." I think I'm calling around tomorrow for quotes for a real connection.

Just a quick note here... I saw Wikipedia's new look this evening and I have to say, I like it.

Despite my headline, I'm not really going to go all Mulder on you and start ranting about Big Brother and privacy issues and all that. Instead it's just some thoughts I've been entertaining lately on technology and tracking people and habits on the Web. Some people may choose to see the things I'm writing about as conspiratorial, and that's fine for them; they may not want to read on, though :) .

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