Computer Virus on board ISS

BBC The BBC is reporting that a laptop onboard the International Space Station is infected with a (trivial) virus.

The virus, Gammima.AG, is designed to steal passwords for a list of rather obscure (in the U.S. at least) online games. Since the ISS laptops don't have a 'net connection, this is n't a critical item, but still, it raises the issues of having proper A/V in orbit.

And it's kinda funny.

Forget Plug and Play, this is Play and Plug

Teddy Bear USB Drive.

Just rip off it's head and plug it in. You know you want one of these in your backpack. Imagine the looks you'd get in the airport/library/hotel business center.

"I have an entire app suite on this bear. It's great, everywhere I go, I have Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, and a sleeping companion..."

Via Boing Boing

Railhead, TIDE, and Government Terrorist Databases

The National Counterterrorism Center is running a program called 'Railhead' to upgrade the government's mater list of terrorists. Yes, there is a centralized master list, which is then used to create more targeted watchlists like the TSA's infamous no-fly list.

There are problems with the Railhead program, however. Rep. Brad Miller, D-NC, has authored a letter (here) pointing out some serious issues with the NTC program.

Miller, who chairs the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, cited "severe technical troubles, poor contractor management, and weak government oversight," which he said had brought the Railhead program to the "verge of collapse."

Railhead is supposed to replace the aging Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), originally built by Lockheed Martin. TIDE may have been functional and effective when it was delivered, but ad hoc developemnt practices and shoddy program management have seriously degraded its effectiveness.

Data tables have been added to the original TIDE database, without concern for duplication of data fields or proper indexing. As a result, over half of the 463 tables are not documented or indexed. What does that mean? Without a data dictionary (something that lets users know what is stored where, why, and how, in a database) it is nearly impossible for new users and admins to grasp just exactly what is stored in those ad hoc tables. This will result in data not be returned during database searches and a lack of database integrity.

Without a detailed index of the data stored in each table in TIDE, the SQL search engine is blindfolded, unable to locate or identify undocumented data.

For a mission as important as TIDE, seeing reports that the technology side has been so poorly managed just makes me shake my head.

So Railhead was supposed to come behind and fix everything, right? Well, in theory. But there are problems, of course.

First and foremost, there are accusations of financial misconduct and a lack of oversight within the Railhead project. But more concerning to me is that decisions are being made at a technical or program level that may render Railhead even less effective than TIDE.

Many of the undocumented tables in TIDE have been added over the years as 'enhancements' to the system, with the overall goal of improving effectiveness. As mentioned before, that has resulted in data being stored in multiple places, what I call 'data fracturing'.

The Railhead program cannot make sense of all this fractured data, and it appears that project managers have decided to just disregard it out of hand.

"Pocket liter [sic]," for instance, the scraps of information obtained when law enforcement, military or other officials empty a suspect's pockets, including phone numbers, addresses or credit card information, is contained in 23 seperate tables in TIDE, rather than one single uniform table. But as problematic as the current TIDE system is, counterterrorism analysts may lose access to key data if the new Railhead system comes on line as planned at the end of 2008. "Specifically, users will no longer have access to data that will not be migrated [to the new system], such as pocket litter and border summaries," another recent Railhead document warns.

So, Railhead will not migrate everything from TIDE? Why not? Is that a technical decision? A policy decision? Whatever it is, it seems to be a step back from where we are now.

TIDE is built in Oracle, one of several industry standard relational database management systems (RDBMS). It has (well, it had, prior to the creation of the ad hoc tables) a defined relationship structure, which lays out which tables are related to which other tables, and how. That is what relational databases are designed to do. Railhead is abandoning an RDBMS approach in favor of storing the data in an XML format. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a method of marking up data to describe what the data is and what it does. It can be like a database... but it isn't a database. There are concerns that the new Railhead will have inflated storage requirements and poor performance due to the decision to use XML. I tend to agree with those fears.

XML is a fantastic tool to transfer data in a neutral format from system to system, since it carries with it an internal description of what the data is. However, it does not contain, necessarily, a descriptor that explains how that data relates to other data.

So we have a deployed IT system that is a technical mess (TIDE), being replaced by a new system that is having serious development problems and is suffering from some questionable policy decisions (Railhead). Where does that leave us?

References:
Ars Technica Article
Rep. Miller Letter
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Staff Memo
CNET Article

There Is No Terrorist Profile

Well, it would appear that Britain's own MI5 has determined that there is no way to accurately profile people for being a terrorist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1

It concludes that it is not possible to draw up a typical profile of the "British terrorist" as most are "demographically unremarkable" and simply reflect the communities in which they live.

In a world gone crazy, where "Islamic extremists" are practically the bogeyman, this is a refreshing look on the real world of terrorism.

Crucially, the research has revealed that those who become terrorists "are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism".

Rational actions. That is the important thing to understand. Terrorists are people who are rationally acting on perceived slights or political motives, and they can come from all types of people or populations. And stereotyping undermines the capabilities of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to effectively identify and classify threats. This research should only reinforce that simple fact.

Here comes Fay

Work has been hectic this week... because it's going to rain. I've got a good little rant worked up for MerrickFamily. I'll let you know when I get that up.

Another Star Wars Movie

Seems I'm in a content rut... been busy this week, haven't had any time to write.

Here's a spoof of Luke and Han fighting off Tie fighters after their escape from the Death Star.

Death Star Over San Francisco

Here's a cool video showing how Fleet Week might look in San Fran if the Imperial Forces showed up, rather than the U.S. Navy.

Oh, what's Fleet Week? Read about it here.

Musharraf Resigns

President Musharraf of Pakistan has resigned.

Another article.

Okay, this bit of news hit me this morning, but I didn't have time to comment on it. Still don't really, so here's the highlights.

Pakistan scares the crap outta me and it should frighten you too. They are having stability issues, internal political violence, and they can't seem to shake the Taliban in their tribal frontier. All that isn't terrible... but they also have nuclear weapons. Sleep on that.

Musharraf wasn't the best game in town, but at least he played ball (to a point) with the U.S. That may have actually hurt him politically.

The ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), which is the Pakistani intelligence agency, has historical ties to fundamental Islam, ties to assassination plots (both against enemies and internally) and generally does whatever it wants. Without a strong hand guiding the ISI, or at least in collusion with it, they concern me. A lot.

I repeat, Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

As I was reading reports in Musharraf's resignation, a quote jumped out at me: 'Local media reports said he had been granted "safe passage" out of the country.' This is like saying, "President Bush resigned today, and was granted safe passage out of the country." That tell you anything?

I'm not a complete expert on counter-terror or counter-proliferation, but I certainly wish for more stability in any nation with a nuke arsenal.

File all that away in your happy box. I hope to have some more on this topic as I find some time to do some reading.

TV 'Storm Trackers'

Oh please. I'm so sick of The Weather Channel's and other news outlets 'storm trackers'. These are the idiots who go stand in the wind and rain to bring 'depth' to live reports about hurricanes, etc.

This morning, while watching a live TWC report from Key West, I see this fellow over there, talking about tides, storm surge and rainfall. Fine. But why is he wearing a rain jacket... with the hood up? It wasn't raining, and I know it's not cold, so what's the point? Here's a link to another report by him. Note that it isn't raining.

To make it even more ludicrous, while talking about the rainfall, with his storm jacket zipped all the way up, a couple strolls through the background - wearing shorts and t-shirts - with their Labrador Retriever frollicking in the surf. Busted!

All we needed was for him to be hanging onto a light pole to help him stand up in the 'wind'.

Jeez.

Star Wars: Clone Wars

Headed out to see Star Wars Clone Wars tonight. It was a lot of fun.

I posted about it on Merrick Family, go check it out.