Unprotected home computers vulnerable to hijack

Very interesting article by Susan Watts BBC Newsnight Science editor

Protect your home computer or you could unwittingly help to launch a cyber attack, experts are warning.
They say the rise in such attacks risks undermining critical national infrastructure and the future of the global economy.

Cyber expert: 'It is your responsibility to protect your computer from hijack'

Thousands of vulnerable personal computers are being signed up without their owner's knowledge to form "botnets", or "bot armies", sometimes spread across numerous geographical locations in countries all round the globe, experts have told BBC Newsnight.
These botnets are being used to launch so-called Distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks, which crash a website by flooding it with requests for information, or to harvest personal data such as credit card details or passwords.
Recent revenge attacks by the Anonymous hacktivist group against companies who distanced themselves from Wikileaks are one high-profile example where websites were crashed.
'Greater good'
Now, governments are urging people to take personal responsibility for what they say could prove a much broader threat to our digital world.

Botnets, or infected computers, whether in a citizen's personal computer or a corporate computer, are being used to launch these DDoS attacks against key industries and against governments Melissa Hathaway, former White House cyber tsar

Melissa Hathaway, former cyber tsar to US President George W Bush and a former advisor to President Barack Obama, told Newsnight:
"Botnets, or infected computers, whether in a citizen's personal computer or a corporate computer, are being used to launch these DDoS attacks against key industries and against governments, and so that would affect their ability to deliver essential services."
But on the day that the government has hailed the destruction of the last computers from the ID card database as a triumph of civil liberties, officials are clearly still working out how to sell us the idea that we should practice safe computing for a greater public good.
Multi-nation problem
Well-placed sources say that in a world in which we are utterly dependent on digital systems, they are anxious to limit any opportunity for disruption of critical national infrastructures like energy, water, food distribution and transport - all of which rely on computerised systems.
But the government does not want to be seen to be curtailing individual freedom. It feels a need for some form of cyber "Green Cross Code" - without having to legislate.

Experts say that botnet technology is becoming increasingly accessible

Julian Midwinter works for i2, a company which provides software to governments, intelligence agencies and commercial companies to help unravel the architecture of a botnet, where it is being controlled from, and by whom.
"The majority of these botnets are harvesting financial and personal information for those criminal organisations that run those networks for more traditional fraud, for example accessing your bank account.
"There was one recent one from Canada involving 100,000 computers linked across 75 countries - the distribution was all around the world."
'Botnets for hire'
He also flagged up problems with how accessible botnet technology is becoming:
"Historically you used to have to be a technical expert, be a proper hacker, and be really interested in computers. These days you can effectively go down to the local DIY store and buy a botnet kit that comes ready configured, you just need to install it with some very basic installers and very limited technical capability - set it up and off it goes."

An infected computer could be part of a botnet without you knowing or realising, so the more you protect your own assets the less the risk is that your computer is part of a botnet, the smaller the potential of botnets are, and the smaller any of the future attacks would be Tobias Wann, VeriSign Europe

Mr Midwinter told Newsnight about one group, calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army, which was recently found advertising a botnet-for-hire.
This, he said, is just one of many that are available online:
"They're on the darker fringes of the internet - in some countries it is easier to get to - in other countries they are harder to find.
"Some of them are very, very affordable… hundreds of pounds to get involved… some of them, depending on what you want to do, could be more expensive ."
Newsnight spoke to VeriSign, which runs the ".net" and ".com" domain names, and two of the internet's 13 so-called root name servers.
These are vital organs of the internet, without which you would not be able to send e-mails or link to websites.
Tobias Wann, of VeriSign Europe, told us his company's clients are having to deal with DDoS attacks in increasing number, and capacity.
He agrees that there is a need to foster personal responsibility on this issue:
"If you don't secure your computer and make it virus free there's a big risk your computer could be infected.
"An infected computer could be part of a botnet without you knowing or realising, so the more you protect your own assets the less the risk is that your computer is part of a botnet, the smaller the potential of botnets are, and the smaller any of the future attacks would be."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9393765.stm

When Patients Share Their Stories, Health May Improve

I really like this article:

  A gifted artist in his early 60s, the patient was a liver transplant candidate who learned he had hepatitis B some 20 years earlier. Despite the worsening fatigue that accompanied his liver failure, he threw himself into preparing for his transplant. He read everything he could about the procedure and the postoperative care, drilled doctors with endless questions and continued to drag himself to the gym each day in the hopes of being better prepared to withstand the rigors of the operation.

Yellow Dog Productions

The only reservation that he mentioned was the same one all the other patients had — he feared that death would come before the perfect organ.
But during one visit just before he finally got the transplant, he confessed that he had been grappling with another concern, one so overwhelming he had even considered withdrawing from the waiting list. He worried that he would not be strong enough mentally and physically to survive a transplant.
In desperation, he told me, he had contacted several patients who had already undergone a transplant. “That’s what made me believe I’d be O.K.,” he said. “You doctors have answered all of my questions, but what I really needed was to hear the stories about transplant from people like me.”
Patients and doctors have long understood the power of telling and listening to personal narratives. Whether among patients in peer support groups or between doctors and patients in the exam room or even between doctors during consultations, stories are an essential part of how we communicate, interpret experiences and incorporate new information into our lives.
Despite the ubiquitousness of storytelling in medicine, research on its effects in the clinical setting has remained relatively thin. While important, a vast majority of studies have been anecdotal , offering up neither data nor statistics but rather — you guessed it — stories to back up the authors’ claims.
Now The Annals of Internal Medicine has published the results of a provocative new trial examining the effects of storytelling on patients with high blood pressure. And it appears that at least for one group of patients, listening to personal narratives helped control high blood pressure as effectively as the addition of more medications.
Monitoring the blood pressure of nearly 300 African-American patients who lived in urban areas and had known hypertension, the researchers at three-month intervals gave half the patients videos of similar patients telling stories about their own experiences. The rest of the patients received videos of more generic and impersonal health announcements on topics like dealing with stress. While all the patients who received the storytelling DVD had better blood pressure control on average, those who started out with uncontrolled hypertension were able to achieve and maintain a drop as significant as it had been for patients in previous trials testing drug regimens.
“Telling and listening to stories is the way we make sense of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas K. Houston, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and the Veterans Affairs medical center in Bedford, Mass. “That natural tendency may have the potential to alter behavior and improve health.”
Experts in this emerging field of narrative communication say that storytelling effectively counteracts the initial denial that can arise when a patient learns of a new diagnosis or is asked to change deeply ingrained behaviors. Patients may react to this news by thinking, “This is not directly related to me,” or “My experience is different.” Stories help break down that denial by engaging the listener, often through some degree of identification with the storyteller or one of the characters.
“The magic of stories lies in the relatedness they foster,” Dr. Houston said. “Marketers have known this for a long time, which is why you see so many stories in advertisements.”
In health care, storytelling may have its greatest impact on patients who distrust the medical system or who have difficulty understanding or acting on health information because they may find personal narratives easier to digest. Stories may also help those patients who struggle with more “silent” chronic diseases, like diabetes or high blood pressure. In these cases, stories can help patients realize the importance of addressing a disease that has few obvious or immediate symptoms. “These types of patients and diseases may be a particular ‘sweet spot’ for storytelling,” Dr. Houston noted.
This particular benefit from stories comes as welcome news not only for patients but also for doctors, who are increasingly reimbursed based on patient outcomes. “There’s only so much the doctor can do, so providers are looking for innovative ways to help their patients,” Dr. Houston said. While more research still needs to be done, the possibilities for integrating storytelling into clinical practice are numerous. In one possible situation, which is not all that dissimilar from popular dating sites, doctors and patients would be able to access Web sites that would match patients to videos of similar patients recounting their own experiences with the same disease.
Dr. Houston is currently involved in several more studies that will examine the broader use of storytelling in patient care and delineate ways in which it can best be integrated. Nonetheless, he remains certain of one thing: Sharing narratives can be a powerful tool for doctors and patients.
“Storytelling is human,” Dr. Houston said. “We learn through stories, and we use them to make sense of our lives. It’s a natural extension to think that we could use stories to improve our health.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/health/views/10chen.html?ref=health