Dear fellows of Twiv,

It is my understanding that us humans live in peace and symbiosis with some bacteria. Is there any such arrangement with any virus?

Another way to phrase the question; if all viruses were to be removed from the world, would we be better off?

A follow-up question, even more abstracted from the lab bench; if all viruses were gone, is it reasonable to believe that new ones would come into existence? How fast? From where? In one of the twiv episodes someone said “Any suffciently complex system has parasites”, so I assume given time something is bound to fill the niche of viruses.

All the best,

–Jesper Hogstrom

Actually, I had learned from the previous episode (#46) – which did air after I sent off my question – that there are at least one case of symbiosis between a virus and life. A type of grass that grows in volcanic areas needs to be infected with a fungi and a virus to withstand the heat in the ground.

Anyway, in episode 47, Vincent and Dick elaborated on my question from 49:57 to 58:40 (and Vincent thought it was a great question!).

In short, there are benefits from viruses:

* They speed up evolution by horizontal gene transfer.

* There is so much virus in the oceans, and that turns over a lot of carbon. Removing that and the carbon cycle would change, impacting the ecology greatly.

The ensuing discussion about if virus would re-appear in some way is also very interesting.

I do recommend listening to the entire episode.

Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad make the most well produced shows I’ve ever heard. And to top it off they always have an interesting topic, something about science or metaphysics or existential questions with well made interviews with interesting researchers in the field. And there’s more; Their voices sound so nice. It’s a bliss to listen to, and always make me feel good.

If I for some reason had to cut down on listening, I’d keep this show to the end.

This time I ran into This Week in Virology, http://www.twiv.tv/. It’s about viruses, not computer viruses, but “the kind that makes you sick”.

I have no prior education in virology, but this podcast made it very interesting and accessible, and on a level that discusses receptor molecules, gene sequences and RNA strands – in other words significantly deeper than your ordinary daily news paper. A whole new world opened, and I immediately subscribed to it when I got back home.

If virology and/or molecular biology is something that interests you, I really recommend this show. It’s weekly, one hour long and consists of recent news in virology, interview with a leading researcher and then weekly picks of books and other science podcasts. Everything done in a down to earth discussion style, with enormous amounts of information to learn!

–Jesper Hogstrom

I get logs mailed from my various systems on a daily basis. Several times a week they are filled with failed attempts to pick up mail from adam, annie, alonzo, bert, bill, caesar, daniel, david… as well as requests for /phpadmin/index.php /phpdbadmin/index.php, /phpsqladmin/index.php and so on.

The idea I dreamed up was fairly simple; either hook onto an existing intrusion detection system (IDS) like snort or write some other simple rules, maybe by analyzing log files from apache; “if an ip# requested 10 non-existing pages in 5 seconds, drop all packets from that source”.

I didn’t get very far in my thinking, before I realized someone else may have already done this. My first search yielded quite a few hits, including some stating it’s a bad idea to auto-block ip# based on IDS rules, mainly because of the many false positives.

However, one guy was right along my thinking with a Dynamic Firewall Daemon. The specs matched much of what I would eventually have set up myself (he said humbly). Other applications in the same area include fwsnort.

On the other hand, this article from linuxsecurity.com states “intrusion prevention is still at its early stage and there is no out-of-the-box product that will perfectly fits your requirements.” – though that was written ages ago (2006 I would guess based on the date of the first comment).

An insightful article from IBM gives some handy scripts, but not quite automation.

I readily admit to not being an expert in package filtering, but I do run firewalls, IDS and open only the ports required. What worries me a bit is that the majority of people out there are unaware of even the most basic facts about how to protect themselves from attacks. And even Pentagon have a problem securing their perimeter…

Before I completely take off on something else, I recommend the OnPoint Radio show on Cyber warfare. Much more high level than mere firewall scripts, but very eye-opening.

Anyway, if you have any experience on dynamic firewalls, open source or commercial, please feel free to share!

–Jesper Högström

Each post contains 3-6 reports, typically from a local source somewhere around the globe, followed by comments by the ProMED staff. A report may cover updates on the avian flu in Indonesia, a rabies case in Siberia or doixin poisoned meat ex Ireland.

I used to read everything, which was great in getting to know more about all kinds of creepy germs. Nowadays I admit I scan the headlines and only read the odd bit that catches my interest (rabies, out-breaks geographically near and new strange viruses from the tropical zone). I carefully archive every issue, as quite a few of these things make head line news. ProMED beats the average daily news paper both in timeliness and professional detail.

The organization has 30 part-time editors, moderators and technical staff. It is very professionally done, and I believe the majority of the subscribers are in the medical field or in some way closely related to it.

–Jesper Högström

To the rescue comes a speech by David Bolinsky in a ted.com presentation. David is a medical illustrator and works with Harvard University to help students understand – and appreciate – more of what really happens on a cellular level.

The animation near the end of the talk is truly amazing!

–Jesper Högström

Every month a jam-packed collection about security news, cryptography, security-mindedness and the latest research in related fields arrives in my mail box, and it is just full of interesting and intelligent ideas and thoughts.

If you have any interest in what makes us secure, what the latest development in snake-oil products has to offer or why a certain strategy looks good but is merely costly and why another strategy places the burden on the wrong party while a third – while not spectacular or expensive – may be the most effective of them all you should subscribe to Crypto-Gram.

Coming to think of it, I probably have Applied Cryptography in some shelf somewhere since way back when. I should re-read it. Or at least read it

–Jesper Högström

The show is about the latest development in neurology, brain development and related subjects. Sometimes Dr Campbell reviews a book, other times it’s an interview with a leading researcher in the field. The level is sometimes very technical, and always enlightening.

Show length is about an hour.

My peapod config for this:

Knowing more about how your brain works will help you understand yourself and others.

–Jesper Högström

Pretty pictures and really well sounding acapella singing – with a not so subtle educational twist on it.

–Jesper Högström

My favourite show of all times is OnPoint Radio from WBUR in Boston. It’s hosted by Tom Ashbrook, a man I hold in high esteem for his knowledge, insight and ability to penetrate the most diverse subjects.

An incredible eight or so 45 minute episodes per week are produced. Each one dedicated to a topic ranging from the financial situation in the u.s. economy, a hot chef in New York City to the expectations of LHC in CERN. Fridays there’s a very interesting news round up. More on that later.

In every show there are a handful of guests, always with the best insight in the issue at hand. That might be the author of a newly published book, CEOs, professors, diplomats or former ministers or foreign correspondents.

The discussion with the studio (or on-pnone) guests is always relevant and insightful. To spice things up, the phone lines are open, and I am impressed both by the quality of people calling in and of course to the call screeners. The callers on air are well spoken with relevant questions.

I’ve subscribed to this podcast for several years, and only skipped 2-3 shows. The average level is simply superb. I’ve learned so much about a huge variety of subjects from this show!

So, check out http://www.wbur.org/listen/podcasts/ and determine how to hook it up for you and your current system.

My peapod config section for OnPoint is as follows

  <feed>
    <title>NPR: OnPoint</title>
    <url>http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510053</url>
  </feed>

Enjoy!

–Jesper Hogstrom