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The silicon.com Weekly Round-Up: 30.05.03
Educational madness on a Jurassic scale...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 30 May 2003

Jeff Goldblum is best known for three things: his voiceovers in the Apple ads, his long running Holsten Pils campaign and his portrayal of chaos theorist Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park.

For the benefit of those readers living in small huts in Siberia who may be unaware of the film, a daffy billionaire (played by venerable luvvie Richard Attenborough) recreates dinosaurs from DNA trapped in amber on a remote island, to create a prehistoric safari park. Said dinosaurs inevitably break out from their supposedly secure enclosures and wreak havoc by eating the staff.

Meanwhile back in the real world on the leafy campus of Calgary University, the computer science department has announced it will offer undergraduate students a course on Computer Viruses and Malware, which also involves tuition on how to write them.

Presumably, somewhere on campus there is a secure server to host and test all these viruses. A whole safari park of nasty little digital dinosaurs, just itching to break loose, propagate over the web and take in the local delights of your inbox.

Back in Jurassic Park Goldblum's leather-clad maths whiz warns the dinosaur factory they're playing with fire, that nature cannot be contained and will always finds a way to break through.

Just how secure is that server? One of those things couldn't get out, could it? What if the cleaner unplugs the wrong lead when looking for a socket for the hoover?

(As it happens, the Round-up once visited Calgary University, a lovely place with lots of lush greenery - much like the island in the film. See? The parallels are alarming.)

In a press release, course tutor Dr John Aycock claims that "in order to develop more secure software, and countermeasures for malicious software, you first need to know how malicious software works and the mindset of its creators".

By arming students with the skills to write viruses, he argues, they’ll be better equipped to become security experts when they graduate. (At this point it's worth noting that the anti-virus community has come out as one to say it will never employ students from the course so Dr Aycock's presumption is a little misplaced).

More pressing is the question of whether this course should be offered at all. After all, the course is arming a legion of students - and all that implies - with the skills to cause billions of dollars of damage to IT systems worldwide.

And not merely to corporate networks, but more importantly to those of the emergency services, hospitals, schools and, ahem, universities.

Meanwhile, back in Jurassic Park Jeff Goldblum wags his finger at the Park's resident lawyer (and bookies' favourite for first dino-snack) and tells him: "Your scientists were too pre-occupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

So is this just another case of science insisting on the necessity of progress without considering the potential detriment to the wider world outside the sanitised walls of the laboratory?

The point being that Dr Ayock's assertions are fine and dandy, until you factor in the fallibility of human nature. All things considered, maybe this is one beastie that should be left in the amber...

Last week, the Round-up brought you the tale of an Australian traffic warden who was sacked by SMS.

Your own tales of SMS woe came flooding in. To begin, we turn first to a man who was unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend for withholding textual favours.

It soon became apparent that the relationship depended on him texting his partner every few hours. Towards the end of a trip abroad, where he couldn't use his phone, he received a curt text saying: "Right, it's over, you're dumped - I won't put up with this kind of treatment."

He said: "As soon as I landed I sent a cutting message back saying how sad I thought she was. It was a shame because when we were together she was a great girl, but when she was moody or on her own she turned into a high-maintenance mobile-meltdowner."

Another reader had a new man in her life who had recently brought love's warm glow to her cheeks.

That is until she was sent a saucy message which ended with: "I love you, Jill & can't wait to see you again".

The problem being that her name wasn't Jill.

Meanwhile, the UK government has announced plans to use text messaging to combat the rise of truancy in schools.

Under the 'Informer for Schools' scheme, teachers can send a text message, email or voice message to parents as soon as it is known their child has failed to turn up for class that day.

A survey of 50 schools involved in the scheme reported an average reduction in truancy rates by two per cent.

It would probably be a lot higher if the majority of mobile-owning parents actually bothered turning their phones on once in a while...

And finally, the Round-Up has a problem: Wayne Rooney doesn't like me.

Now, to be absolutely clear I've never met the pug-faced Evertonian boy wonder, not in the real world that is. However, we're well acquainted in the utterly obsessive world of Championship Manager 4 - a football management game where you take control of a team, which promptly takes control of you.

I spent weeks chasing Rooney's signature, guaranteeing him first-team football at a bigger club, European competition and of course more money per week than the average 17-year old could spend in a year. I danced round the flat in elation when he finally signed on the dotted line. (The Round-Up's other half does not approve.)

Yet, no sooner had he walked through the stadium gates, shaken hands with his new team mates and said "Howdy-doody" to the press, than he announced that he "dislikes me" and felt "unsettled". Bet his agent put him up to the deal, the unutterable swine. Meanwhile, another member of the squad said he feels "a little jaded".

The Round-Up's played Doom and Quake and spent many an evening huddled in a murky, pixelated dungeon corridor gazing at the meter on the screen telling me I only have one shell left in the rocket launcher as I wait for a purple demon to turn the corner and start hurling balls of green fire. But that's what demons do. This business with Rooney is different, this is personal. You take this kind of stuff to heart.

Having said that if Wayne were to march into my virtual office brandishing a rocket launcher and take aim I would have no hesitation but to take drastic action and fine him a week's wages. Maybe even two weeks' wages if he actually pulled the trigger.

The Round-Up has an addiction and is trying to deal with it. Maybe you can help. Perhaps a relationship has suffered because of computer game addiction. Or maybe you've spent months trying to get to the next level of a game. Let us know your tales of gaming madness. More importantly, if you know how to make Wayne Rooney like me.