Slashdot Mirror

Meshach writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about how Google has revealed some of the inner workings of the Google Search service. The main change is that sites that are not in English will be translated then included in the search results. Google said it has also improved the way it recognizes official Web sites, like those published by the government, and will give those sites higher ranking in search results. Google does not usually reveal such details but the article speculates governments have been pushing for more transparancy."

Stirling Newberry writes "New York Times has a report on web-surfing speed tests that their reporter ran using Glasnost, a tool that mimics the bittorrent protocol and measures the results. BT in the UK was among the worst. From the article: 'In the United States, throttling was detected in 23 percent of tests on telecom and cable-television broadband networks, less than the global average of 32 percent. The U.S. operators with higher levels of detected throttling included Insight Communications, a cable-television operator in New York, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, where throttling was detected in 38 percent of tests; and Clearwire Communications, where throttling was detected in 35 percent of the tests.'"

Three weeks after undergoing a crash test, a Chevy Volt caught fire. The car's battery was determined as the cause of the fire, though GM said its protocols for deactivating the battery following a crash would have prevented it. Either way, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association is now on the case. They're planning additional testing of the batteries, though they were quick to say, "Based on the available data, N.H.T.S.A. does not believe the Volt or other electric vehicles are at a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles. In fact, all vehicles — both electric and gasoline-powered — have some risk of fire in the event of a serious crash." According to the president of an engineering firm, "If a lithium battery is pierced by steel, a chemical reaction will take place that starts raising the temperature and can result in a fire... If the piercing is small, that reaction can take days or weeks to occur."

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times explores some of the best ways to teach kids and finds that some of the new tools are encouraging the kids to share their work with each other. One teacher first tried to keep the kids quiet and staring at their own monitors but found it was better to let them copy each other. He calls MIT's Scratch a 'gateway' tool. Then the article points out that programming Blender with Python is not as hard to pick up as your grandparent's programming languages — and kids today are learning them in a few months." The Wikipedia entry on Scratch is worth reading, too.

theodp writes "NYU risk engineering prof Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a suggestion that won't sit too well with the banksters. In his NY Times op-ed, Taleb writes: 'I have a solution for the problem of bankers who take risks that threaten the general public: Eliminate bonuses.' The problem with the bonus system, Taleb explains, is that it provides an incentive to take risks: 'The asymmetric nature of the bonus (an incentive for success without a corresponding disincentive for failure) causes hidden risks to accumulate in the financial system and become a catalyst for disaster. This violates the fundamental rules of capitalism; Adam Smith himself was wary of the effect of limiting liability, a bedrock principle of the modern corporation.'"

eldavojohn writes "A report form China's Environmental Ministry reveals that one tenth of China's 1.22 million square kilometers of farmland are polluted with heavy metals and other toxins. The AFP lists 'lead, mercury and cancer-causing cadmium' and points to the rapid pace of China's industrialization as well as factories and their operators flouting regulations and laws. Cheap batteries and lead refineries are slowly turning China into a land where whole villages are poisoned (11 incidents so far this year). According to Human Rights Watch the government's response to this scourge is laughable. The poisoned are denied treatment and China's Environmental Ministry offers no possible help: 'The report documents how local authorities in contaminated areas have imposed arbitrary limits on access to blood lead testing, for example by permitting only people living within a small radius of a factory to be tested. When tests are conducted, results have often been contradictory or have been withheld from victims and their families. And children with elevated blood lead levels who require treatment according to national guidelines have been denied care or told simply to eat certain foods, including apples, garlic, milk, and eggs.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Christopher Drew writes that President Obama and industry groups have called on colleges to graduate 10,000 more engineers a year and 100,000 new teachers with majors in science, technology, engineering and math but studies find that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree — 60 percent when pre-medical students are included. Middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion, but the excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg calls 'the math-science death march' as freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students where many wash out. 'Treating the freshman year as a "sink or swim" experience and accepting attrition as inevitable,' says a report by the National Academy of Engineering, 'is both unfair to students and wasteful of resources and faculty time.' But help is on the way. In September, the Association of American Universities announced a five-year initiative to encourage faculty members in the STEM fields to use more interactive teaching techniques (PDF)."

Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Wingfield writes in the NY Times that Apple's present pricing strategy is a big change from the 1990s, when consumers regarded Apple as a producer of overpriced tech baubles, unable to compete effectively with its Macintosh family of computers against the far cheaper Windows PCs. Now within the premium product categories where Apple is most at home, comparable devices often do no better than match or slightly undercut Apple's prices. 'They're not cheap, but I don't think they're viewed as high-priced anymore,' says Stewart Alsop. Winfield writes that Apple uses its growing manufacturing scale and logistics prowess to deliver Apple products at far more aggressive prices, which in turn gives it more power to influence pricing industrywide, and one of Apple's pricing secrets has been it's willingness to tap into its huge war chest — $82 billion in cash and marketable securities last quarter — to take big gambles by locking up supplies of parts for years."

uncleO writes "An article in the NY Times describes two studies that weigh the harm caused by cancer screenings against the benefits they provide. From the article, 'Two recent clinical trials of prostate cancer screening cast doubt on whether many lives — or any — are saved. And it said that screening often leads to what can be disabling treatments for men whose cancer otherwise would never have harmed them. A new analysis of mammography concluded that while mammograms find cancer in 138,000 women each year, as many as 120,000 to 134,000 of those women either have cancers that are already lethal or have cancers that grow so slowly they do not need to be treated. ... In recent years, researchers have found that many, if not most, cancers are indolent. They grow very slowly or stop growing altogether. Some even regress and do not need to be treated — they are harmless."

Hasan M. Elahi writes in the NY Times about his run-in with the FBI several months after September 11th, 2001. They'd received an erroneous report that he had explosives and had fled the country, so they were surprised when he showed up at an airport and was flagged by watch-list software. Elahi chose not to fight the investigation, and provided the FBI with enough detail about his life to convince them that he was a lawful citizen. But then, he kept going, providing more and more information about his life, documenting his every move and making it available online. His experience has been that providing too much information affords almost the same privacy blanket as too little. Quoting: "On my Web site, I compiled various databases that show the airports I’ve been in, food I’ve eaten at home, food I’ve eaten on the road, random hotel beds I’ve slept in, various parking lots off Interstate 80 that I parked in, empty train stations I saw, as well as very specific information like photos of the tacos I ate in Mexico City between July 5 and 7, and the toilets I used. ... A lot of work is required to thread together the thousands of available points of information. By putting everything about me out there, I am simultaneously telling everything and nothing about my life. Despite the barrage of information about me that is publicly available, I live a surprisingly private and anonymous life."

NicknamesAreStupid writes "The NYTimes reports on a book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew P. McAfee (MIT director-level staffers), Race Against the Machine, which suggests that the true threat to jobs is not outsourcing — it's the machine! Imagine the Terminator flipping burgers, cleaning your house, approving your loan, handling your IT questions, and doing your job faster, better, and more cheaply. Now that's an apocalypse with a twist — The Job Terminator." Reader wjousts points out another of the authors' arguments: that IT advances have cost more jobs than they've created.

necro81 writes "An advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon issue new recommendations that pre-adolescent boys be vaccinated against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). The disease is sexually transmitted, endemic in the sexually active, can cause genital warts in both men and women, and is the primary cause of cervical cancer, which kills hundreds of thousands of women globally each year. The three-dose vaccination has been available for several years and is already recommended for pre-adolescent girls. Vaccinating boys should further reduce transmission."

eldavojohn writes "The 18th century Copiale Cipher has finally been decoded after a few minor breakthroughs were made by linguists versed in machine translation analyzing the document. From the article, 'Kevin Knight, a computer scientist at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, collaborated with Beata Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden to decipher the first 16 pages. They turn out to be a detailed description of a ritual from a secret society that apparently had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology.' The Roman characters and abstract symbols turned out to be a sort of encryption of the German language. The important clues they discovered were that the Roman characters were nulls (misleading junk) and the bogus looking symbols the actual text. Lastly, a colon would mean a duplication of the last consonant. A cipher falls to word-frequency analysis. Perhaps the researchers could start another 'weekend project' and tackle The Voynich Manuscript for us?" Update: 10/25 15:25 GMT by T : eldavojohn adds also a link to the final translation.

Hugh Pickens writes "Reuters reports that Chinese solar companies could soon find themselves bereft of some of their biggest foreign markets as Western manufacturers intensify a solar trade war and seek stiff anti-dumping duties on low-cost Chinese products. German group SolarWorld says it is working on steps to curb alleged price dumping by Chinese rivals in Europe as a group of seven U.S. solar companies urges the U.S. government to slap anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made solar energy products. Western solar companies have been at odds with their Chinese counterparts for years, alleging they receive lavish credit lines to offer modules at cheaper prices. 'American solar operations should be rapidly expanding to keep pace with the skyrocketing demand for these products,' says Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon whose office authored a whitepaper called 'China's Grab for Green Jobs.' (PDF) 'But that is not what has been happening. There seems to be one primary explanation for this; that is, that China is cheating.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Matt Richtel writes that many employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard send their children to the Waldorf School in Los Altos where the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. Computers are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home. 'I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school,' says Alan Eagle whose daughter, Andie, attends a Waldorf school, an independent school movement that boasts an 86 year history in North America. 'The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that's ridiculous.' Advocates for equipping schools with technology say computers can hold students' attention and, in fact, that young people who have been weaned on electronic devices will not tune in without them."

EccentricAnomaly writes "The New York Times has a story about a leaked NASA study that showed it would cost $80 BIllion less and get astronauts to an asteroid sooner if NASA used fuel depots instead of developing a new rocket. According to the article, NASA's response to the leaked study is to start developing fuel depots in addition to continuing its new rocket program. Because, after all, who doesn't need more cool stuff."

mayberry42 writes with news that President Obama has announced an end to the U.S. military engagement in Iraq. All U.S. soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of the year. "Mr. Obama said that as of Jan. 1, 2012, the United States and Iraq would begin 'a normal relationship between two sovereign nations, and equal partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect.' In a videoconference on Friday morning with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Mr. Obama told him of the administration’s decision, which grows out of an inability of the United States and Iraq to come to an agreement on leaving a few thousand military trainers in the country. The United States had earlier agreed to exit Iraq by the end of the year and leave 3,000 to 5,000 troops in Iraq as trainers, with some members of Congress advocating the retention of a reduced fighting force as well. But Pentagon lawyers insisted that the Iraqi Parliament grant immunity from legal prosecution to the troops if they were to remain."

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the derided-on-slashdot paywall for the NY Times hasn't brought down the paper so far. The Times now reports 300,000 digital subscribers (to e-reader versions and the web combined) and digital advertising revenue for the part of the company that includes the paper has increased 6% this quarter."

MC Hammer was among tech entrepreneurs announcing new products at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The rapper's product is a new search engine called WireDoo. Sadly, it is not an index of things you can't touch, but instead a search engine focusing on relational items. Searching for the word "car" will bring up topics related to a car, like insurance, pricing and safety ratings. WireDoo is still being built and not available to the public yet.

An anonymous reader writes "In the New York Times, Kenneth Chang writes about the 100-year starship conference, where 'an eclectic mix of engineers, scientists, science fiction fans, students and dreamers' discussed ideas for how to travel across interstellar space, including 'how to organize and finance a century-long project; whether civilization would survive, because an engine to propel a starship could also be used for a weapon to obliterate the planet; and whether people need to go along for the trip.' Some of the proposals were pretty far out, such as Joseph Breeden's concept for an engine-less starship (propelled using a gravity slingshot on a near-sun trajectory). Others were a little less forward thinking, although still futuristic by current standards of space exploration: nuclear rockets, fusion, lightsails, and so forth. So, can we go to the stars? Wait a hundred years, and we'll see!"

An anonymous reader writes "The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a recommendation to parents that kids under the age of two should be limited in their time watching television and using computers. They say there's 'no such thing' as educational programming for kids that young, and that they benefit much more from real human interaction (PDF). Psychologist Georgene Troseth said, 'We know that some learning can take place from media, but it's a lot lower, and it takes a lot longer.' The article continues: 'Unlike school-age children, infants and toddlers "just have no idea what's going on" no matter how well done a video is, Dr. Troseth said. The new report strongly warns parents against putting a TV in a very young child's room and advises them to be mindful of how much their own use of media is distracting from playtime. In some surveys between 40 and 60 percent of households report having a TV on for much of the day — which distracts both children and adults, research suggests.'"

Stirling Newberry writes "The New York Times reports on the continued expansion of the sea route along the Russian side of the Arctic Ocean. It was only in 2009 that outside ships were allowed to ply this lane, but Russians have used it since the early 20th century. What makes this year a landmark is that the polar ice cap is smaller at its September minimum than before, allowing large container ships and oil tankers — the backbone of sea commerce — to travel between Europe and Asia, saving time and money over the Suez route, as well as avoiding several politically unstable regions of the world. Putin has been pushing development along the route. While the northwest passage is only gradually opening, the opposite side of the Arctic Ocean looks set for expansion. Siberian Riviera anyone?"

Hugh Pickens writes "David Streitfeld reports that Amazon is aggressively wooing top authors, gnawing away at the services publishers, critics and agents used to provide. 'Everyone's afraid of Amazon,' says Richard Curtis, a longtime agent who is also an e-book publisher. 'The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,' adds Russell Grandinetti, one of Amazon's top executives. 'Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity.' But publishers are fighting back at writers who publish with Amazon. In 2010 Kiana Davenport signed with a division of Penguin for The Chinese Soldier's Daughter, a Civil War love story, and received a $20,000 advance. In the meantime Davenport packaged several award-winning short stories she had written 20 years ago and packaged them in an e-book, Cannibal Nights, available on Amazon. When Penguin found out, it went 'ballistic,' accusing her of breaking her contractual promise to avoid competition, canceling her novel, and suing Davenport to recover her advance. Davenport knows her crime: 'Sleeping with the enemy? Perhaps. But now I know who the enemy is.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is running a story on people hacking the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. 'Using Mr. Giddings’s home-brewed E.V. fuel-level display, Leaf drivers get the confidence to extend their driving range by 10 percent or more. His gauge, which displays the actual state of charge, reveals that the Leaf dashboard’s "zero bars" display comes on when the battery pack has several miles remaining.' Here's an interesting quote from one of the hackers, Phil Sadow, who was interviewed for the story: 'I don't like the term hacking because it's been portrayed by the media as something evil. To me, hacking is actually very American. Go out to the garage. Take it apart. Make it better.'"

afabbro writes with news that Google is working to follow up its cloud music service with an MP3 store capable of competing with Amazon and Apple. The NY Times reports that "According to numerous music executives, Google is eager to open the store in the next several weeks," but it's unclear "whether Google would be able to close the necessary deals with labels and music publishers in time to open a full-service store." The Wall Street Journal confirms in its own (paywalled) report that negotiations with Warner, Universal, and Sony are still a long way from resulting a deal.

Richard.Tao writes "Scientists have recovered the RNA of the virus that caused the plague by digging through an English mass grave, and compiling [from several partial examples] the genetics of the virus. Though the plague still persists, scientists have believe the ancient strain was different due to a different onset of symptoms."

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iCloud service has been a little overlooked in the bunfight for the iPhone 4S. When it was first announced some predicted it would wipe out companies like Box.net, DropBox and so on. As the NYTimes put it, "Maybe Apple will kill them all.' Box.net's CEO disagreed and it looks like he was right. You can't store PDFs and images on iCloud except with PhotoStream, there's no co-editing, and the document management interface is a shambles."

bs0d3 writes "U.S. Intelligence has hired social scientists to mine the vast resources of the Internet — Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones. They intend to use this info to track sociological laws of human behavior — enabling them to predict political crises, revolutions and other forms of social and economic instability. Privacy advocates are deeply skeptical of the project, saying it reminds them of Total Information Awareness, a 9/11 Pentagon program that proposed hunting for potential attackers by identifying patterns in vast collections of public and private data: telephone calling records, e-mail, travel data, visa and passport information, and credit card transactions. In a recent budget proposal, the defense agency argues that its analysis can expose terrorist cells and other groups by tracking their meetings, rehearsals and sharing of material and money transfers."

Stirling Newberry writes "The New York Times reports that an upcoming paper by Martin E. Hugh-Jones, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, and Stuart Jacobsen – all of whom have long questioned the closing of the Bruce Ivins anthrax case – points to the presence of tin in the spore samples as a sign that the samples mailed had been processed beyond what Ivins alone could have done. While not disputing that the spores came from Ft. Detrick, Hugh-Jones, who has co-authored several papers on anthrax signatures, contends according to the Times: 'it appears likely that Dr. Ivins could not have made the anthrax powder alone with the equipment he possessed, as the F.B.I. maintains. That would mean either that he got the powder from elsewhere or that he was not the perpetrator.' For a good summary of the case from a medical standpoint, this paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine is an excellent place to start. A review by the National Resources Council that stated the evidence available was not sufficient to locate the source of the spores is also available."

Hugh Pickens writes "Renee-Nicole Douceur, the winter manager at the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole, was sitting at her desk on August 27 when she suffered a stroke. 'I looked at the screen and was like, "Oh my God, half the screen is missing."' But both the National Science Foundation and contractor Raytheon say it would be too dangerous to send a rescue plane to the South Pole now, since Douceur's condition is not life-threatening. Douceur's niece Sydney Raines has set up a Web site that urges people to call officials at Raytheon and the National Science Foundation. However, temperatures must be higher than -50 degrees F for most planes to land at Amundsen-Scott or the fuel will turn to jelly. While that threshold has been crossed at the South Pole recently, the temperature still regularly dips to 70 degrees below zero. 'It's like no other airfield in the U.S.,' says Ronnie Smith, a former Air Force navigator who has flown there about 300 times. A pilot landing a plane there in winter, when it is dark 24 hours a day, would be flying blind 'because you can't install lights under the ice.' The most famous instance of a person being airlifted from the South Pole for medical reasons was that involving Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, a doctor who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer. Using only ice and a local anesthetic, she performed her own biopsy with the help of a resident welder. When she departed on October 16, 1999, it was the earliest in the Antarctic spring that a plane had taken off."

A couple weeks ago, you asked questions of Stanford professor Jonathan Koomey about what has been dubbed Koomey's Law — the idea that the energy efficiency of computing doubles every 1.5 years. Read on for Professor Koomey's answers to the questions you raised. What makes this a non-trivial extension?
by Anonymous

What makes your law a non-trivial extension of Moore's Law, which states that the transistor count would double every 18 months due to an increase in density? E&M theory states that if you cut a wire's length in half, it's resistance cuts in half. Granted density in this case is a 2 dimensional expansion and wire resistance is a 1 dimensional formula, but what makes this different from what a freshman in college can infer from an R = (resistivity * length)/cross sectional area?

Jonathan Koomey: First, it’s important to note that we assessed these trends empirically, using measured power data for each computer system in our dataset, and it’s often valuable to confirm with actual measurements what theory implies. Just because the result sounds intuitive to you after the fact doesn’t mean that it isn’t valuable to confirm with real data that the trends actually exist. And of course we discuss in the paper the driving forces behind the reductions in power use per logical switch (and they involve more than just reductions in I squared R losses in the wires). I’ve pasted below two relevant paragraphs from the article:

For vacuum tube computers, both computational speed and reliability issues encouraged computer designers to reduce power use. Heat reduces reliability, which was a major issue for tube-based computers. In addition, increasing computation speeds went hand in hand with technological changes (like reduced capacitive loading, lower currents, and smaller tubes) that also reduced power use. And the economics of operating a tube-based computer led to pressure to reduce power use, although this issue was probably a secondary one in the early days of electronic computing.

For transistorized and microprocessor based computers, the driving factor for power reductions was (and is) the push to reduce the physical dimensions of transistors, which reduces the cost per transistor. In order to accomplish this goal, power used per transistor also must be reduced; otherwise the power densities on the silicon rapidly become unmanageable. Per transistor power use is directly proportional to the length of the transistor between source and drain, the ratio of transistor length to mean free path of the electrons, and the total number of electrons in the operating transistor, as Feynman (2001) pointed out. Shrinking transistor size therefore resulted in improved speed, reduced cost, and reduced power use per transistor (see also Bohr (2007) and Carver Mead’s thinking in the late 1960s, as summarized in Brock (2006, pp. 98-100)).

In addition, the fact that the trends have now been confirmed empirically means that people can get on with considering the implications of these trends, which I think are under-appreciated. The idea that we’ll be able to use ever more efficient computing technology in distributed applications will revolutionize data collection, communications, and control of processes, and people are only now starting to think about what may become possible.

As one of many examples showing the potential of ultra low power computing, consider the wireless no-battery sensors created by Joshua R. Smith of Intel and the University of Washington (coverage in the NY Times and the Economist). These sensors scavenge energy from stray television and radio signals, and they use so little power (60 microwatts in this example) that they don’t need any other power source. Stray light, motion, or heat can also be converted to meet slightly higher power needs, perhaps measured in milliwatts. The contours of this exciting design space are only beginning to be explored, and they are enabled by the trends identified in our paper.

I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of a shift in industry focus from raw performance to power efficiency for mobile devices. Some of the best engineers will be drawn to the problems of ultra low power computing in the same way as they’ve were drawn to high performance computing (HPC) in the past (no doubt terrific technologists will also continue to focus on HPC, but anytime a new hot area opens up there’s a migration of talent to that new topic).

Finally, I would add that the truly unexpected result was that the trend in computational efficiency extends for a longer period than Moore’s law, all the way back to Eniac in 1946. So these trends in computational efficiency are an inherent characteristic of computers that use electrons for switching, and are not limited to the microprocessor era. I, for one, did not expect that.

Your Take on Futurists?
by eldavojohn

What is your take on the interpretation of Futurists -- like Raymond Kurzweil -- in regards to extrapolating these 'laws' out to extreme distances?

JK: The physicist Neils Bohr once famously said “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” It’s important to be careful in making long-term extrapolations, even if some technological trend has continued for some time. I think it’s fair to say that Moore’s law (and the trends in computational efficiency we identify) have more years to run, given how far we are from theoretical limits, but exactly when we’ll hit a real roadblock it will take someone more brash than me to say. I discuss the theoretical limit based on Feynman’s calculations below, and we will eventually reach that, but there may be ways to sidestep those limits. We’ll have to see how clever we can be!

Lets work this backwards ...
by PPH

... and see where the Babbage Engine fits on the curve.

JK: Since the Babbage engine never operated, I’m not sure how we could do this. I believe that some parts of the engine have been created using modern machining practices, but I don’t think anyone has ever made one in complete form. If someone has, I’d be interested to measure its electricity use and estimate its performance (of course, it was designed before the era of electricity). Nordhaus (2007) reports that

Early calculators were “dumb” machines that essentially relied on incrementation of digits. An important step in the development of modern computers was mechanical representation of logical steps. The first commercially practical information-processing machine was the Jacquard loom, developed in 1804. This machine used interchangeable punched cards that controlled the weaving and allowed a large variety of patterns to be produced automatically. This invention was part of the inspiration of Charles Babbage, who developed one of the great precursor inventions in computation. He designed two major conceptual breakthroughs, the “Difference Engine” and the “Analytical Engine.” The latter sketched the first programmable digital computer. Neither of the Babbage machines was constructed during his lifetime. An attempt in the 1990s by the British Museum to build the simpler Difference Engine using early-nineteenth-century technologies failed to perform its designed tasks. (reference: Swade, Doron. The Difference Engine. New York: Viking Press, 2000.)

Nordhaus, William D. 2007. "Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing." The Journal of Economic History. vol. 67, no. 1. March. pp. 128-159. [http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/recent_stuff.html]

Nordhaus does attempt to estimate the speed of computation possible by hand calculations as well as abacuses, to compare to more automatic methods.

Infinity w/ reversible computing?
by DriedClexler

This one doesn't seem to have fundamental physical limits, so long as we eventually transition to reversible computing, in which the computer does not use up useful energy because every process it uses is fully reversible (i.e. the original state could be inferred).

All the limits on computation (except regarding storage) that you hear about (e.g. Landauer limit) are on irreversible computing, which is how current architecture works. It is the irreversibility of an operation that causes it to increase entropy.

Could the whole process be bypassed by the near-infinite efficiency of reversible computers?

JK:Here’s the flip answer: Only if you can afford to wait infinitely long for your answer.

Here’s the more serious answer: in principle, reversible computing could have a revolutionary impact, if we could figure out how to do it, and some folks are working on this. But I haven’t seen any near term applications of such devices—if you know of any, please let me know.

Multicore or System on a Chip Speed bumps?
by eldavojohn

A lot of consumer grade machines have begun focusing on multicore chips with a lower frequency to provide the same or better perceived computing performance than a high frequency single core chip. What happens when a technology like this subverts our craving for higher transistor density? Can you argue that your "law" is immune to researchers focusing on some hot new technology like a thousand core processor or a beefed up system on a chip in order to improve end user experience over pure algorithm crunching speed?

JK: First, I would call it (like Moore implied in his own papers) an empirical observation rather than a law.

But in any case, I don’t think that the transition to multicore has “subverted our craving for higher transistor density,” we’re just using the transistors in a different way. The density of chips (measured in components per square centimeter or equivalent metric) will continue to increase, it’s just that the scaling of clock speeds that drove performance increases for so long is no longer possible (mainly because of high leakage currents inside the chip). So that means we need to make many cores and then modify software to capture that performance.

At the end of the day, WHAT you choose to do with the computing power is unrelated to the trends we identify, but I would argue the focus of device and software design is inevitably moving towards enhancing the end-user experience because these trends in efficiency are allowing ever more mobile devices to serve people’s immediate needs in an ever more personal way.

How will this affect programmers?
by Anonymous

When we eventually hit the physical limits of atoms, will programmers eventually stop their autistic quest for more and more layers, more and more complexity and more and more languages to move a number from one address to another?

How will programmers affect this?
by skids

While sarcastic, the above question is an important one: as computing power has increased, the tendency of coders to just ride over badly coded underlayers rather than redesign them competently and efficiently has increased. Why bother cutting out bloat that causes an 80% penalty on system efficiency when you can just use a more efficient chipset to get the same result?

So my question is whether you have put any thought into similarly quantifying the opposing software bloat factor, and what he sees the total balance of system works out to.

JK: Software bloat is a real issue, and I agree with your analysis that the ever-improving hardware picture has allowed poor coding practices to continue. But with the shift to multicore, there’s been at least some burden on programmers to change their ways—they have to modify their code to take advantage of multicore performance, so their skills are actually needed to capture increased performance (which is new, or at least a throwback to the early days of computing, when the programmers had so few hardware resources to work with that they had to be extremely parsimonious in their coding).

In the paper, we write:

Whether performance per CPU can grow for many years more at the historical pace is an ongoing subject of debate in the computer industry (Bohr 2007), but near-term improvements are already “in the pipeline”. Continuing the historical trends in performance (or surpassing them) is at this juncture dependent on significant new innovation comparable in scale to the shift from single core to multi-core computing. Such innovation will also require substantial changes in software design (Asanovíc et al. 2006), which is a relatively new development for the IT industry and it is another reason why whole system redesign is so critical to success.

This really doesn’t address the serious issue you raise about bloatware, which I think is a generic problem that other people more skilled in software design than me can address much better than I can. It’s hard to quantify it because it is so situation specific, but someone at a university somewhere may have tried to do this—I just don’t know.

Applied to Other Kinds of Computing?
by Anonymous

How well does Koomey's Law fit other kinds of computing? For instance, has the energy efficiency of cell phone microprocessors followed the same trend as desktop computers and servers? What about embedded systems like routers and car engine controllers, or specialized hardware like game consoles?

JK: These are all excellent questions (which we raise in the article) and I’m actively seeking data, but I don’t have anything new to report on this yet. I’m also interested in trends in data transmission power efficiencies, because that’s a key limitation on these mobile devices. And I’m digging around for battery capacity data over time as well.

Moral/Ethical
by vlm

Here is the list of moral / ethical arguments about the path we're on, as seen in your law. You saw the path clearly enough to define a time based law. Are there any issues I'm not seeing on our current path?

1) Lower energy consumption at point of use
2) Higher energy consumption at manufacturing point
3) faster cpu = bigger programs = more bugs = lower quality of life
4) faster cpu = stronger DRM possibilities
5) Better processing * battery life = better medical devices
6) Better processing * battery life = better 1984 style totalitarian devices
7) Lower energy consumption = less air conditioning demand = decreasing average latitude of data centers = population shifts or whatever or something?
8) More money required for both hw and sw development = good for big corps and bad for the little guy

JK: Hmmm, I’m not quite sure where you are going with this. There are pluses and minuses to all technological innovations, but I’m pretty sure the benefits will outweigh the costs in this case (as long as we put proper restraints on how collected data can be accessed by the authorities).

Batter Capacity vs. Processor Speed
by vlm

Have you run into a law relating battery capacity (either per Kg or L) vs processor speed over time? I bet there is some kind of interesting curve for mobile devices. Or, maybe not — that’s why I'm asking a guy with previous success at data analysis in a closely related field...

JK: Great questions. I haven’t seen any quantitative regularity in how battery power densities vary over time, but am actively looking for data. I hope to have something to report about that (along with the other trends I’m investigating, as I describe above). If you know of any good data sources, please let me know.

Queen of Hearts
by Anonymous

What do you think about the following observation: that every X years the amount of computing operations we use to perform basic calculations doubles (by virtue of doing those calculations with more complex software, slower languages...), so when you factor in Moore's law (and your own), the amount of useful calculations we do with computers remain more or less constant.

JK: This is related to the bloatware question above. I haven’t seen any quantitative estimates of the real cost from bloatware, but computing is becoming more widely distributed throughout the society, and it’s hard to believe that will the proliferation of more and more mobile devices and all the chips now incorporated in embedded systems that we’re doing less useful computing work than in the past. Some folks have tried to quantify total computational work being done, but it’s hard to do: Hilbert, Martin, and Priscila López. 2011. "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information." Science. vol. 332, no. 6025. April 1. pp. 60-65

Feynman Quote
by yakolev

Mr. Koomey, if we take your numbers from the attached article, which may not have been quoted correctly

Feynman indicated that there was approximately 100 billion times efficiency improvement possible, and 40,000 times improvement has happened so far.

If we take Feynman's number at face value, this means that if computing efficiency improvements continue at the current rate (doubling every 18 months,) we will reach the theoretical maximum in 2043.

Based on that, do you believe that we will see a dramatic reduction in efficiency improvements in the next 10-20 years as we approach the theoretical limit, or do you think Feynman was conservative in his estimate?

JK: Your math is correct, as is the quotation of those numbers. If computing efficiency doubles every 1.5 years, it will take 21.3 doublings before we reach the theoretical limits identified by Feynman, which means will hit that limit in 32 years (i.e. in 2043).

Here’s what Feynman had to say in the book I cited:

Of course there is a limitation, the practical limitation anyway, that the bits must be of the size of an atom and a transistor 3 or 4 atoms; the quantum mechanical gate I used has 3 atoms. (I would not try to write my bits on to nuclei, I’ll wait till the technological development reaches the atoms before I need to go any further!) That leads us just with (a) the limitations in size to the size of atoms, (b) the energy requirements depending on the time as worked out by Bennett, (c) and the feature that I did not mention concerning the speed of light; we can’t send the signals any faster than the speed of light. Those are the only physical limitations that I know on computers.

If we make an atomic size computer, somehow, it would mean that the dimension, the linear dimension is a thousand to ten thousands times smaller than those very tiny chips that we have now. It means that the volume of the computer is 100 billionth, 1011 of the present volume, because the transistor is that much smaller 1011 , than the transistors that we make today. The energy requirement for a single switch is also about eleven orders of magnitude smaller than the energy required to switch the transistor today, and the time to make the transitions will be at least ten thousands times faster per step of calculation. So there is plenty of room for improvement in the computer and I leave you, practical people who work on computers, this as an aim to get to. (Feynman, Richard P. 2001. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. London, UK: Penguin Books.)

So the calculation Feynman did was based on a transistor using just three atoms. In theory, one could use individual nuclei (as Feynman suggests) or there may be another as yet totally unknown way to crack this nut. But using Feynman’s calculation as the ultimate limit, in about three decades (and probably before that) we’re going to hit some kind of limit using our current methods.

But even given that, we’ve got at least another decade of improvements (that’s what my friends at Intel tell me) and probably more. Every decade means a factor of 100 improvement in the power efficiency of computing (doubling every 1.5 years) but there are also vast improvements we can make in our software as well as our implementation of power savings in the standby power of these devices (which turns out to be a much bigger power drain than the active power, given that almost all computers have very low average utilization). Hitting these limits may actually force the software designers to get more efficient (we’ll see!). And we’re just at the beginning of using the technologies enabled by these trends to accomplish human goals, so I’m hopeful we’ll be clever and figure out loads of important applications that will become possible with a factor of 100 or 1000 improvements in efficiency over the next 15 years.

Haven`t we already fallen behind?
by Anonymous

The Pentium M (which is powering the computer that I`m using to type this) came out eight years ago. Let`s call it 7.5 and make our "Koomey factor" 2^5=32. The ULV chip ran at 1.1GHz and ate 6.4W, and we can add on the power of the 855PM northbridge which would make the total 8.2W. I don`t see any products on the market that are anywhere close to a 32x improvement on performance per watt. Do you?

JK: Our focus is on system power, not chip power alone. And you need to calculate what your current system is capable of in computations per kWh (which you can calculate from performance per watt) so you can compare to our numbers. But I’ll wager that the current crop of laptops (or the new Mac Mini) will blow away your old machine in terms of computations per kWh at maximum performance (which is what we measure).

__roo writes "The New York Times reports that the Occupy Wall Street movement has inspired hundreds of Facebook pages, Twitter posts, and Meetup events, and that 'blog posts and photographs from all over the country are popping up on the WeArethe99Percent blog on Tumblr from people who see themselves as victims of not just a sagging economy but also economic injustice.' What do Slashdotters think? Do you relate to the 99% stories? Do they make you angry — either at the system, or at the protesters? If it's at the protesters, is it rational or a just-world effect?"

An anonymous reader writes "FCC chairman Julius Genachowski revealed plans yesterday to overhaul the U.S. phone subsidy program and shift its focus to providing broadband access. He said, 'Broadband has gone from being a luxury to a necessity for full participation in our economy and society. If we want the United States to be the world's leading market, we need to embrace the essential goal of universal broadband, and reform outdated programs.' According to BusinessWeek, the program currently 'supports phone service to schools, libraries, the poor and high-cost areas.' Last year it spent $4.3 billion to provide support to over 1,700 carriers in high-cost areas. Genachowski hopes the change will put the U.S. 'on the path to universal broadband service by the end of the decade.'"

Apple is currently announcing various things about a new iPhone; the CNN Live has coverage as it is happening. Watch for updates as more information comes in. For those of you who like to read instead of watch, PC Magazine is^W was^W is running a live commentary stream (it broke and then unbroke). The New York Times also has a working live stream which seems more reliable. Update: 10/04 19:04 GMT by U L :Unexpectedly, Apple did not announce an iPhone 5, but rather an incremental update. CNet has a decent article about the features of the iPhone 4S. Additionally, all major carriers except T-Mobile will be getting the phone October 14th.

tekgoblin writes "Earlier today Rhapsody, the biggest premium on-demand music service in the U.S., announced that they would be acquiring Napster and finalizing the purchase of the company by the end of November. Best Buy, a huge global name in consumer electronics retail, is the current owner of Napster. Best Buy will only be keeping a minority stake after the sale of the company, while Rhapsody will acquire all Napster subscribers and additional assets."

x_IamSpartacus_x writes "According to a recent FOIA request the FBI doesn't always take names off of the Terrorist Watch List even when those people have been cleared of charges or had charges dropped. 'If an individual is acquitted or charges are dismissed for a crime related to terrorism, the individual must still meet the reasonable suspicion standard in order to remain on, or be subsequently nominated to, the terrorist watch list,' the once-classified memorandum says. The New York Times is running a story about it as well, saying the data is even used by local police officers to check names during traffic stops."

An anonymous reader writes "New York, California, and five other U.S. states have joined a lawsuit initiated by the Department of Justice that would block AT&T's merger with T-Mobile. 'The revised filing comes ahead of a court hearing next week, when the two sides are scheduled to discuss the prospects of a settlement. AT&T has said that it will contest the Justice Department's lawsuit, while also seeking a potential settlement.' CNet notes that 'States don't have the power to block the deal, but they can influence the federal regulators and make it more onerous if AT&T attempts to negotiate for concessions to close the deal. They can also slow down the process with their own lawsuits.'"

NotSanguine sends in a story about William Ludwig, a 65-year-old leukemia patient who underwent a new, experimental treatment that draws upon two decades of advances in molecular biology. Quoting: "Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors — and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins. At first, nothing happened. But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst. A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia. ... In essence, the team is using gene therapy to accomplish something that researchers have hoped to do for decades: train a person's own immune system to kill cancer cells."

Sometimes it seems like the U.S. government's relationship to commercial video games is mostly adversarial, as when public officials vilify or move to censor games (even when the results are mixed). An anonymous reader writes with a reminder that the business side of the games business has a much cozier government link, as reflected in this excerpt from the New York Times: "Because video game makers straddle the lines between software development, the entertainment industry and online retailing, they can combine tax breaks in ways that companies like Netflix and Adobe cannot. Video game developers receive such a rich assortment of incentives that even oil companies have questioned why the government should subsidize such a mature and profitable industry whose main contribution is to create amusing and sometimes antisocial entertainment." Since filling out even a simple return can be rather game-like, maybe they're just doing what they do best.

An anonymous reader writes "Last week the Department of Justice filed an antitrust complaint to stop the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Now, AT&T has responded, arguing that the merger would benefit consumers by increasing competition and freeing up spectrum. 'That means increased output, higher quality service, fewer dropped calls,and lower prices to consumers than without the merger,' they say. Meanwhile, House Republicans have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an explanation of 'what went into the decision to challenge the merger and whether the agencies considered the impact on jobs and economic growth.' A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 21."

An anonymous reader writes "Last week the Department of Justice filed an antitrust complaint to stop the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Now, AT&T has responded, arguing that the merger would benefit consumers by increasing competition and freeing up spectrum. 'That means increased output, higher quality service, fewer dropped calls,and lower prices to consumers than without the merger,' they say. Meanwhile, House Republicans have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an explanation of 'what went into the decision to challenge the merger and whether the agencies considered the impact on jobs and economic growth.' A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 21."

An anonymous reader writes "A bill introduced Thursday by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) would regulate the handling of consumers' private data and punish companies who screw it up (e.g. Sony). 'These rules would require companies to follow specific storage guidelines and ensure that personal information is stored and protected correctly. Companies that do not adhere to these security guidelines could be subject to stiff fines.' Blumenthal told the NY Times, 'The goal of the proposed law is essentially to hold accountable the companies and entities that store personal information and personal data and to deter data breaches. While looking at past data breaches, I've been struck with how many are preventable.'"

theodp writes "On Thursday, Google finally provided information on its energy usage, revealing that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. Still, the search giant contends that by using more power than Salt Lake City, Google actually makes the world a greener place. Google says people should consider things like the amount of gasoline saved when someone conducts a Google search rather than, say, driving to the library. As Police Chief Martin Brody might say, 'Google's going to need a bigger windmill!'"

twoallbeefpatties writes "Prominent Keynesian economist Paul Krugman has left a note on his blog at NYTimes about his view of Bitcoin, discussing its similarity to the gold standard and suggesting a drop in 'real gross Bitcoin product' as its users hoard the currency rather than spend it."

An anonymous reader writes "An article in the NY Times explains how the United States Postal Service is in dire financial straits, and will need emergency action from Congress to forestall a shutdown later this year. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said simply, 'If Congress doesn't act, we will default.' Labor agreements prohibiting layoffs are preventing one avenue for reducing costs, and laws forbidding postage rates from surpassing inflation rates keep income down. On top of that, the proliferation of e-mail and online bill-paying services have contributed to a 22% reduction in snail-mail volume since 2006. They're currently hoping for legislation that would relax their economic requirements and considering an end to Saturday delivery."

blitzkrieg3 writes "Classrooms all around the country are being fitted with one to one laptop programs, networking hardware, digital projectors, and other technology in order to stay competitive in the 21st century. Kyrene school district spent $3 million modernizing their classrooms. The problem? The increase in spending doesn't lead to an increase in test scores. Policy makers calling for high tech classrooms, including former execs from HP, Apple, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, want to increase technology investment despite the results. Others are not so sure, or think it is an outright waste of money."

mbstone writes "In Bonn, Germany, prostitution is legal, but a working girl must now pay for the privilege of soliciting on the Immenburgstrasse. She does so by inserting 6 euros ($8.45) in a hooking-meter made by Siemens and receiving a slip of paper licensing her to practice her trade for the evening. From the article: 'The city estimates that it has 200 sex workers, of whom about 20 ply their trade on the street. The Bonn government spends $116,000 a year for a private security company to guard the area and to provide security for the sex workers. Under the new meter system, street prostitutes must purchase the tickets to work between the hours of 8:15 p.m. and 6 a.m. Leaflets explaining the system, translated into several languages, are handed out to the prostitutes. After one warning, a sex worker caught working without a ticket would be fined up to $145.'"

An anonymous reader writes "This article explores one of the stumbling blocks currently facing EV adoption: 'Sure, there are already public charging stations in service, and new ones are coming online daily. But those typically take several hours to fully replenish a battery. As a result, the ability for quick battery boosts — using a compatible direct current fast charger, the Leaf can refill to 80 percent capacity in 30 minutes — could potentially become an important point of differentiation among electric models. But the availability of fast charging points has in part been held up by the lack of an agreement among automakers on a universal method for fast charging — or even on a single electrical connector.'"

theodp writes "If Apple's looking for a seamless transition, advises the NYT's James B. Stewart, it definitely shouldn't look to Hewlett Packard. In the year after HP CEO Mark Hurd was told to hit-the-road-Jack, HP — led by new CEO Leo Apotheker — has embarked on a stunning shift in strategy that has left many baffled and resulted in HP's fall from Wall Street grace (its stock declined 49%). The apparent new focus on going head-to-head with SAP (Apotheker's former employer) and Oracle (Hurd's new employer) in enterprise software while ignoring the company's traditional strengths, said a software exec, is 'as if Alan Mulally left Boeing to join Ford as CEO, and announced six months later that Ford would be making airplanes.' Former HP Director Tom Perkins said, 'I didn't know there was such a thing as corporate suicide, but now we know that there is.'"

brothke writes "During the 1990's when Kevin Mitnick was on the run, a cadre of people were employed to find him and track him down. Anyone who could have an angle on Mitnick was sought after by the media to provide a sound bite on the world's most dangerous computer hacker. Just one example is John Markoff, who became a star journalist for his work at The New York Times, and a follow-up book and series of articles based on Mitnick. In Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the Worlds Most Wanted Hacker, the first personal account of what really happened; Mitnick says most of the stories around him were the result of the myth of Kevin Mitnick, and nothing more. In the book, he attempts to dispel these myths and set the record straight." Read below for the rest of Ben's review. Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker author Kevin Mitnick pages 432 publisher Little, Brown and Company rating 9/10 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 0316037702 summary Kevin Mitnick's fascinating firsthand story Some of the myths were that he was responsible for the phone of actress Kristy McNichol to be disconnected, and perhaps the most preposterous of them all, that he could whistle into a telephone and launch missiles from NORAD. The latter myth was responsible for him spending a year in solitary confinement. Mitnick notes that he thinks it was the federal prosecutor who got that idea from the movie WarGames.

But no one really knew Mitnick or what he was about. Left on his own, he would likely have been harmless. All he wanted to do was get into corporate sites, download code, play with the code and then move on to the next target. It is undeniable that Mitnick committed crimes; but it was unreasonable for the FBI to have made him a top priority for capture.

Perhaps the most widely stated myth about him is that he was strictly a social engineer without significant technical experience. While it was his gift of social engineering that facilitated his ability to get a significant amount of information from unsuspecting individuals; in many places in the book, Mitnick details technical Unix exploits that he carried out. The book makes it clear that Mitnick had the deep technical skills necessary to execute on the information he illicitly obtained.

While the book does have a lot of technical details, it mainly is about the human side of Mitnick. Chapter 1 is appropriately titled "Rough Start." He details his early days of growing up in the Los Angeles area.

These formative years as a hyperactive child, growing up with a single mom who had boyfriends that abused him and one who worked in law enforcement that molested him; may have been what led Mitnick to find solace behind a keyboard.

Mitnick writes how his first hack and entry into the world of dumpster diving was to forge bus transfers so he could ride around Los Angeles to occupy his time while his mother was at work.

In numerous places, Mitnick sincerely expresses his contrition for the pain he subjected his mother, grandmother, aunt, wife and others to.

Above and beyond his rough start, Mitnick also notes how he had his share of bad luck. He writes that too many times when he was growing up, including having to deal with various probation officers, unexplained failures in technology anywhere would be attributed to him. When the phone of his probation officers went dead, he was assumed to be the culprit.

The reality is that the world did not know what to make of Mitnick or what to do with him. It is pretty clear from the book and from every other account that Mitnick was never it in for the money. He simply was a hacker whose goal was to gain root, and nothing more. Such a notion was incredulous to law enforcement, and even to Ivan Boesky who Mitnick met in prison. When he briefly sat with Boesky on a prison bench, he writes that when Boesky found out he did it for the hacking thrill, Boesky replied that "you're in prison and you didn't make any money. Isn't that stupid?"

It is worthy to point out that Mitnick's escapades were radically different from that of Frank Abagnale, whom Mitnick is often compared to. In Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake, Abagnale writes that he impersonated an airline pilot, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks; all before he was twenty-one. For those myriad offenses, Abagnale served five years in prison, roughly the same amount of time that Mitnick served.

In chapter 31, it details how Mitnick's world turned upside down and the myth of Kevin Mitnick took hold with the now infamous Markoff 1994 New York Times article Cyberspaces Most Wanted: Hacker Eludes F.B.I. Pursuit. Mitnick writes that the article is what put the myth of Kevin Mitnick into overdrive, and would later embarrass the FBI into making the search for him a top priority. It also provided a fictional image that would later influence prosecutors and judges into treating him as a danger to national security.

Mitnick's eventual capture is detailed in chapter 35 — "Game Over." He notes that Assistant US attorney Kent Walker made a secret arrangement to provide Tsutomu Shimomura with confidential trap-and-trace information as well as confidential information from Mitnick's FBI file. This was done so Shimomura could intercept Mitnick's communications without a warrant, under the premise that Shimomura was not assisting the agency, rather he was working for the ISP.

Mitnick writes that he was never charged with hacking Shimomura, as it would have exposed the gross misconduct of the FBI, who apparently violated Federal wiretapping statues in the rush to track him down.

Overall, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the Worlds Most Wanted Hacker is a most interesting read. While the book does goes into technical details of how Mitnick carried out his attacks, editor William Simon provides the editorial assistance needed and makes the book extremely readable and enjoying. Much of the books readability is due to Simon, and Mitnick acknowledges this.

When a convicted felon writes a book emotions run high. In some ways, Mitnick's story is that of redemption. He did wrongs, paid his dues and is trying to move forward. Something like that should be admired. Never does Mitnick downplay his guilt or make Dan White-like excuses.

But some people will never let a person like Mitnick let go of the past. In his review of the book, Rich Jaroslovsky, a technology columnist for Bloomberg News shows no sympathy for Mitnick when he pretentiously writes that "genius comes in many forms. Kevin Mitnick has at least two, neither particularly admirable".

The book ends with Mitnick's release from prison and provides the reader with a fascinating story of one of the most recognized information security personalities. Ghost in the Wires is an interesting account of one of the most well-known information security personalities.

Mitnick's years on the run were simply a media circus and the years after his parole he found the terms of his probation so restricted that he could not touch a keyboard. Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the Worlds Most Wanted Hackeris an autobiography long in coming and worth the wait.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

You can purchase Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.