My latest book is "The Code Book" by Simon Singh, an interesting book that follows cryptography all the way from it's beginning to early 21st and late 20th century computer cryptography, including DES encryption and the powerful public and private key encryption scheme powered by the RSA algorithm. Also included is a short chapter about the mechanics of quantum cryptography and the power of quantum computers to break modern encryption systems. If you enjoy reading about security (Who doesn't? Sorry, bad question.) then you'll probably like this book.

The horror! Once again I have been struck by the security book craze; the latest title, Security and Usability, which appears to be a collection of essays written by numerous security gurus. (I think I spotted a certain Bruce Schneier referenced a couple of places.) It's quite the read, featuring many good points about how we can make secure systems without sacrificing usability. I'm already over a hundred pages in to it; which is a major fact considering I started less than 24 hours ago and have a very busy schedule. This morning I finished reading an essay about better visual security systems that could one day replace those annoying passwords! It's definitely an interesting read; and some of the thoughts that it's prompted might make a difference in the upcoming ZMS (Zine Management System) of Revision Magazine.

Reading Bruce Schneier's post on the new Storm worm was quite scary, even though I already knew about half of what he was saying about it. Seeing the complete description of the power and complexity of this twenty-first century worm was quite scary. With its new networking and distribution capabilities, Storm is virtually untraceable and invulnerable to anti-virus.

Why am I worried?

Although my computer and I are at little danger from this worm, primarily since I don't open emails with obvious subject lines like that, I am worried about what Bruce is calling Phase II. The time when the creators of the worm actually decide to do something with it. Since it likely has infected at least 1 million computers the total processing power behind the entire group of bots is monstrous. I fear that storm is just the beginning of worms that will take advantages of the complex networks and interconnectedness of the new Web 2.0 era.