The Flame program: Its purpose, features and threat.

What is the Flame program we're seeing so much in the news this past week? Various media have labeled the Flame a cyber weapon, an espionage tool, malware, a worm, and a virus.  For this article, let's call it a 'program,' because if you separate the code from the intent, it's simply an interesting computer program.

What brought Flame into the open? Depending on which source is accurate, Flame may have infected computers in Austria, Egypt, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.  One of Flame's features is that it can be turned off, so it doesn't spread blindly.  This controlled spread and the fact that it's most prevalent in Iran, led some people to see it as an Israeli or joint Israeli/USA operation against Iran's infrastructure and oil industry.

Flame has several interesting features separated into different modules.  It can:  record keystrokes (commonly called a 'keystroke logger'); be turned on/off; wipe hard drives; take screen shots; collect data and send it to a remote computer; use the computer's onboard microphone as a recorder; use a 'packet sniffer' to scan traffic on the computer's local network; and even activate a Bluetooth connection with cellular telephones.  Flame can be customized with some 20 different plugins.

While having all these options makes Flame a flexible tool, it also makes it a big program, far larger than programs like DuQu or Stuxnet.  In the past, worms and viruses were written to be as lean as possible--they ran fast and didn't take up much space.  But Flame seems like they just kept adding features and the program grew bigger and bigger.

Many in the media and computer world speculate that either a country developed Flame, or paid a group of programmers to write it.  It's odd to see that just like with commercial software, when clients keep demanding more features, the program experiences 'feature creep' and quickly grows in size and complexity.  It's usually a big headache for the programmers who have to keep up with it all.

Some articles are quite alarmist, declaring use of Flame as cyberwar and making dire predictions.  But Flame has probably been loose on the Internet since 2010.  And components like keystroke loggers and packet sniffers are not new things--they've been around a while.  What makes Flame interesting is that it has so many tool options, and it doesn't appear to spread indiscriminately.  By slowing the spread of Flame, its controllers kept it undetected for a longer period of time.

When computer experts encounter these type programs, they take them apart to figure out how they work.  So if Country A fires off a program at Country B, it may not be too long before Country A gets hit with their own weapon.  If you shoot a bullet at someone and miss, then can't pick it up, load it in their gun and fire it back at you.  But a program can be studied and modified.  It's a copycat world, so I predict we'll see something similar to Flame in the near future.

(Odd historical note:  The ancient Romans, being the practical folk they were, made the necks of their spears out of soft iron.  So when the Romans threw their spears at enemies, the points would stick in enemy shields and drag them down.  But the soft iron also bent, which meant the enemy couldn't throw them back.  Clever Romans.)    

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(Here is a good article at Wired, and this one at FoxNews, and this one, too.  The pic is from: http://blog.zlti.com/)

Memorial Day 2012

Here in the USA, it is Memorial Day, where we remember our military dead, and hopefully pray for the living still in the midst of war.

As a writer, I hope to write things that will make readers think and feel, or to make them aware of other writers whose work does so.  With that in mind, I encourage you to read this article by Lily Burana.  The article is well-written, and it contains two truly haunting photographs--one of a young military widow and a Marine guarding her husband's casket through the long night; the other of passengers on an airplane watching a casket unloaded from the cargo hold beneath them.

I also encourage you to visit Milblogging and read what our troops say in their own words, without the spin and agendas of politicians and the media.

No matter what country you're from, every nation has experienced the horror of war, and it's important to remember those who fell and those who still fight.

God bless our troops.

My new novel DEAD GIRL

On May 24, 25, and 26, my new novel DEAD GIRL will be free to download from Amazon.com.  If you enjoy urban fantasy, whether it's Harry Potter or Harry Dresden, I think you'll like this story.

Click the Amazon link on the right of this page, and please tell your friends.

Thank you!

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DEAD GIRL is the story of sixteen-year-old Dahlia Grove, who is trapped in the Shadow Lands, a parallel reality where packs of feral children battle monsters for survival in a haunted city.

She has one week to escape. If she fails, she dies. DEAD GIRL.

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Here's a brief excerpt:

Dahlia lay still in the easy chair in her trashed apartment.

There were no cars rolling by on the roads below the apartment building.  No engine noises.  No horns.  No sirens.  Andrew wasn't thumping up and down the hallway.  Dad wasn't singing in the shower.  No smell of coffee.  No sound of her mother's voice.

Outside the door in the hallway, something grunted.

What was that?

She sat up fast.  Opened her eyes.

Damn.  Still here in the Shadow Lands.

The front door shuddered.  The chair she'd jammed beneath the door handle shook.

Dahlia pulled the ice pick from her pocket, crept around the broken glass to the door, and looked out the peephole.

A fat monster wriggled along the hallway, nose to the floor, sniffing.  The creature looked like a long-haired walrus.  It oozed by.  She heard it snuffle, then it curled around on itself and came back.

Hell.

It thumped against the door.  Dahlia jumped back.

This is the only way out.

The monster grunted louder and smashed into the door.  The chair's legs snapped and the door swung wide.  The monster's head came down on the broken chair.  It spotted her and growled.

The fat creature filled the entire doorway.

Dahlia ran to the window and pushed aside the plastic blinds.

No sun shone, just a flat, uneven gray light, diffused by heavy cumulus clouds.

The creature knocked the chair aside.  Its swollen body wriggled through the doorway.

Dahlia flicked the latch on the window and yanked up, but the window wouldn't budge.

The monster surged along the short hallway toward the living room.

She grabbed the fireproof safe off the floor and flung it through the window, shattering the lower glass.

Poked her head out of the broken window and looked down forty eight feet.

She looked back.  The monster reached the living room carpet and spread its jaws wide.

She swung a leg out over the window sill.  Her boot found the ledge, hit a pile of glass, and slipped.

She steadied herself.  The creature roared and surged forward.

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Find out what happens next.  Read DEAD GIRL.

The Virtues of Cats

For the last seven months, I've been feeding a feral cat that lives in my neighborhood.  It's a young cat, quite skinny, and very stealthy.  I named it 'Ninja' because it will slip up, gobble the food from its bowl, and run.  It is wary of humans, probably by instinct and also because some misguided neighbors tried to trap it.  Apparently, they do not understand the benefits of having cats around.

When I was school boy, we learned the Egyptians domesticated cats 3,000 or 4,000 years ago.  More recent evidence indicates the human and cat partnership may reach back 10,000 years to the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia.  Ancient farmers adopted cats because they kept rats out of the grain stored up for the winter, and chased birds and other creatures from vegetable gardens.  Cats are also good at keeping ships and boats free of rats.  Anyone who's ever had birds eat the strawberries in their garden, or rats and mice gnaw holes in their walls understands the value of cats. 

I have never petted Ninja.  I feed her not because she cuddles in my lap, but because she is hungry.  Between the steady supply of food and fresh water I put out, she appears much healthier.  And the partnership works both ways.  Last week she went under a neighbor's shed, killed a large rat, and brought it back to my yard. 

Some historians speculate that part of the reason the Bubonic Plague (or Black Death) spread so quickly in medieval Europe was because superstitious people killed off so many cats.  In their panic to find a cause for the plague, people also killed dogs, which eliminated another defense against rats.  Without a healthy cat and dog population to keep the rats in check, the rats (and the fleas they carried on them) mixed with the human population and spread the plague.

People may debate the whole cat or dog thing and which makes a better pet or companion, but it's an unfair comparison.  Both cats and dogs are predators, but they evolved in different ways and each is suited for different tasks.  And while we categorize cats as being domesticated like sheep or cows, I wonder how deep this domestication runs? How many generations of cats being born without human contact would it take before we list them as undomesticated?

While scientists figure this out, I recommend you do a few helpful things.  If you have cats, get them fixed and keep up to date on their rabies shots.  If you see a feral cat in your neighborhood, don't grab it unless you want a nasty bite and a trip to the hospital.  Don't run them over or trap them, unless you like having rats and mice in your yard--and maybe your house.

(This article explains about cats and the medieval plagues.  I found the picture of the cat here.)

Can you get smarter? Brain training, Nootropics and Intelligence.

People love super hero movies and comics.  Many of us wish we could pick up a car like the Hulk, or wield a magic hammer like Thor, but I suspect a lot of us also admire Tony Stark.  As Iron Man, Stark can fly and shrug off bullets, but when he takes off the armor suit, he's still a genius.  Batman is similar.  Take away the Kevlar suit and the wonderful toys, and Bruce Wayne is still the World's Greatest Detective.

Being very intelligent is a sort of super power in its own right.

Most of us would like to be smarter.  At some point in our lives we tackled a problem at school or work that brought us to the limit of our intelligence, and that's a humbling moment.

But what if we could get smarter?

Companies are pursuing that idea in two ways--drugs and brain training.

Nootropics, also called smart drugs, are drugs that are supposed to make people smarter.  Well, sort of.  Drug makers claim nootropics do all sorts of things, including improve your memory, up your attention span and concentration, and even make you smarter.

Testing these claims is not easy.  It's difficult for scientists, doctors and the rest of us to even agree on what intelligence is.  After all, there isn't just one type of IQ test, but rather many tests.  And taking a drug that makes you feel more alert isn't the same thing as actually being smarter.  In fact, with many of these products, it would be more accurate to say they are 'productivity enhancers' rather than smart drugs.  In the same way that a big cup of coffee or a bottle of Mountain Dew is a productivity enhancer.

Among the drugs there are all sorts of approaches, including vitamins and herbs, recreational drugs, stimulants, blood flow enhancers, mood stabilizers, etc.  And like any pharmaceutical maker, these companies are looking to make money.

People tempted to experiment with Nootropics might consider that in many cases, there are no long-term studies of their effects, and little regulation of their safety and dosage. 

Brain training appears to be the safer route.  No nasty chemicals in your head, and scientists keep telling us that the brain is like a muscle.  Various companies offer training regimens that claim to increase our working memory, fluid intelligence and brain plasticity. 

I think if you train at a specific task, you generally get better at it.  You can practice counting cards in a Blackjack game or memorizing as many digits of Pi as you can, and you'll get better at that task.  But is this the same as being smarter?

Maintaining what you have may be a more realistic goal.  People that do crossword puzzles or study a new language or learn to play a musical instrument are definitely helping their brains stay sharp.  But I call that maintenance, not an increase in actual intelligence.

People looking for a magic pill or program to make them smart will probably be disappointed.  As the authors of SMART DRUGS 2 point out:  

"In practice, the first and most boring advice is often the most important. Many potential users of smart pills would be better and more simply advised to stop taking tranquillisers (sic), sleeping tablets or toxic recreational drugs; eat omega-3 rich foods, more vegetables and generally improve their diet; and try more mentally challenging tasks.

One of the easiest ways of improving memory, for instance, is to increase the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain. This can be achieved by running, swimming, dancing, brisk walking,..."

That sounds like pretty smart advice to me.       

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(Sources:  Wikipedia overview of Nootropics.  An article in The Atlantic wherein the author self-experiments with Nootropics.  The "Smart Drugs 2" page.  And a company called Lumosity that offers brain training.)

The timeless "Endless Summer"

Last month, Turner Classic Movies showed beach movies night after night for about a week, and I watched Endless Summer for the first time.  I'm not a surfer, and I really didn't know what to expect.  For instance, I didn't realize that it's a documentary, or that it was director/narrator Bruce Brown's seventh movie, but the first to see wide release in the US.

Brown began surfing in California in the 1950s at age 14, and was hooked.  He made several documentaries about the sport he loved, including "Barefoot Adventure" and "Surf Crazy," but "Endless Summer" was different.  The movie's concept of flying around the world, following the summer weather and chasing perfect waves, is the ultimate beach fantasy.

The movie's budget was probably about $50,000 USD, but that money took them from California to Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and West Africa.  Along the way, we the viewers learn not only about surf culture, but something about the local cultures as well.  We see that the playful nature of surfing captures people's imagination no matter where they live.  We also see some amazing surf footage.  Both surfing and camera equipment have changed in the 45 years since "Endless Summer" was released in 1966, but it's still thrilling to watch.

The best wave the surfers find in their journey is on a deserted beach--Cape St. Francis in South Africa.  The interesting thing is their definition of perfect.  The waves at St. Francis aren't these towering monsters that make for such dramatic photographs.  What made the wave perfect for them was its form, duration and rideability.  As Brown said in a 2010 interview, "At Cape St. Francis that day, anyone could have surfed it."

That attitude of looking for a good ride and a fun day permeates this G-rated movie.  I think anyone could watch it and smile because it contains an innocent charm.  It's not trying to make a big thematic point and clobber you over the head with it.  "Endless Summer" is about the joy of surfing and the camaraderie of surfers the world over.  And about the magic of catching that one perfect wave on that one perfect day--a memory that will stay will you for a lifetime.

(Sources include:  Internet Movie Database, the interview at Daily Stoke, the Endless Summer homepage, and Bing Movies.  The trailer is from YouTube.)