A twofer from Slashdot

Slashdot had two stories this morning. One fantastic and one scary. Fantastic breakthrough on LED lighting. LEDs are the way to go. They are even more efficient than CFLs, dimable and have a much longer life expectancy. Also, they are not subject to early failure if they are put in a place where they will be repeatedly turned on and off and on and off during the day (such as a bathroom or storage closet) -- this behavior will kill a CFL in about 10% of its 'rated' life. The amount of Mercury in a CFL is a non-issue -- tiny enough as to be moot.

LED Lighting As Cheap As CFLs Invented
"New Scientist reports that a British team has overcome the obstacles to cheap LED lighting, and that LED lamps as cheap as CFLs will be on the market in five years. Quoting: 'Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Crystals of GaN must be grown at 1000C, so by the time a new LED made on silicon has cooled, it has already cracked, rendering the devices unusable. One solution is to grow the LEDs on sapphire, which shrinks and cools at much the same rate as GaN. But the expense is too great to be commercially competitive. Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem. They included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design... These LEDs can be grown on silicon as so many other electronics components are. ... A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny.'"

This next story falls into the class of disgruntled worker messing with the computer system:

Fannie Mae Worker Indicted For Malicious Script
"A former Fannie Mae contractor has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Baltimore, MD for computer intrusion. He attempted to propagate a malicious script throughout the company's 4,000 servers. The DC Examiner has details of the incident: 'Had this malicious script executed, [Fannie Mae] engineers expect it would have caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shutdown operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week. ... The virus was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling Fannie Mae's computer monitoring system and then cutting all access to the company's 4,000 servers, Nye wrote. Anyone trying to log in would receive a message saying "Server Graveyard." From there, the virus would wipe out all Fannie Mae data, replacing it with zeros, Nye wrote. Finally, the virus would shut down the servers.'"

Obviously, a system this large will have a comprehensive backup plan and they should have a fail-over strategy (think back to 9/11 how some companies were able to get back online in a few days while others could not and failed). The usual tactic for a disgruntled soon-to-be-ex employee is to run a script that changes the admin passwords or some such foolishness. From the DC Examiner article:

Makwana was fired from his contract position at Fannie Mae on Oct. 24 for changing computer settings without permission from his supervisor, FBI agent Jessica Nye wrote in a sworn statement. He had worked at Fannie Mae for three years as a computer engineer at the Urbana offices, where he had full access to all of the federally created mortgage company�s 4,000 servers. Before leaving work Oct. 24, Makwana allegedly tried to hide a code in server software that was set to activate the morning of Jan. 31, the agent wrote.

�Had this malicious script executed, [Fannie Mae] engineers expect it would have caused millions of dollars of damage and reduced if not shutdown operations at [Fannie Mae] for at least one week,� Nye wrote. �The total damage would include cleaning out and restoring all 4,000 of [Fannie Mae�s] servers, restoring and securing the automation of mortgages, and restoring all data that was erased.�

A spokeswoman for Fannie Mae declined to comment.

According to Nye�s statement, a senior computer engineer discovered the virus Oct. 29. The malicious code was hidden after a blank page, and �it was only by chance� that the senior engineer scrolled down and found the virus, Nye wrote. The engineer locked down Fannie Mae�s servers to determine whether other viruses were hidden inside and where the virus had come from, Nye wrote. Only about 20 Fannie Mae employees and contractors, including Makwana, had access to the server where the virus was stored.

An Internet Protocol address was eventually linked to Makwana�s company-issued laptop, Nye wrote. He was arrested Jan. 7.

The virus was set to execute at 9 a.m. Jan. 31, first disabling Fannie Mae�s computer monitoring system and then cutting all access to the company�s 4,000 servers, Nye wrote. Anyone trying to log in would receive a message saying �Server Graveyard.�

Probably thought he was a hot-shit computer guru but the fact that he was fired for: "changing computer settings without permission from his supervisor" speaks loud and clear that he was unsuitable for a corporate environment. There is no place in a large system of any kind for a free-wheeling rogue, regardless of how "good" that person may be at their job. Putz.