Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for October 10, 2019

Machine learning to profile Internet address hijacking; A TED talk on the future promise of video games; Quantum superposition observed in large molecules; an argument that technology is a side-effect from science; and a doctor's note on anti-biotics

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Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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1. Using Machine Learning to Hunt Down Cybercriminals - The problem of attacks against the BGP routing protocol has been known for decades, but the protocol remains vulnerable to this from of attack. In a collaboration between MIT's CSAIL and the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis at UCSD's Supercomputer Center, Cecilia Testart, David Clark, Philipp Richter, Alistair King and Alberto Dainotti looked into the problem of IP hijacking by examining data from 800 suspicious networks. They found that some of those networks had been successfully hijacking IP addresses for years. The goal of the research was to establish profiles for IP hijacking that could be used to predict the attacks before they happen. The findings were made by pulling data from BGP mailing lists and historical BGP routing table entries that had been logged every five minutes. A machine learning algorithm was trained against this data in order to identify malicious behavior profiles. Three particular characteristics of the malicious profile included frequent changes in address blocks, a tendency to advertise more address blocks, and IP addresses in multiple countries. The trained agent produced a false-positive rate of about 20% that had to be cleared manually by the team. The article suggests that this type of knowledge can be used to establish BGP filtering policies based on a network's reputation. It was first published by MIT News.


2. The transformative power of video games - In this TED Talk, Herman Narula, CEO of Improbable discusses his belief that one of the most transformative forces of the next five years will be video games. He supports this claim by pointing out that the average age of a gamer is 34 years old, and noting that more and more people are making their living by gaming - not just by playing the games, but with mods and music and artwork, too. Right now, he says, gaming employs thousands of people. In the future he predicts it will be millions. Everyone with a cell phone will have the ability to work in gaming. He also argues that fundamental limits are being broken that finally enable gaming to scale to an immense level. He doesn't mention Metcalfe's Law, but that's sort-of what he's talking about. The talk includes demo videos where thousands of people are getting together to build things in online worlds that realize sophisticated interpersonal and sociological concepts.


3. Giant Molecules Exist in Two Places at Once in Unprecedented Quantum Experiment - In the September 23 edition of Nature Physics, an international team of scientists reported that they have successfully demonstrated quantum superposition of molecules that are comprised of up to 2,000 atoms. It has long been known that every particle in nature is also a wave, including even humans, bacteria, stars, and planets. But, it has never been demonsrated experimentally with large particles before. The demonstration was done with a 6 1/2 foot machine that fires beams of these molecules through a series of grates and sheets with multiple slits. The machine and the molecules were so large that the scientists also had to account for forces and effects like gravity and heat. As with the well-known experiment with photons, the detectors behind the slits revealed an interfeerence pattern.
   
   Here is a video describing the classic "double slit experiment with photons:
   

Technology Is An Accidental Result From Science, Not The Point - Pointing to the example of quantum mechanics, this article argues that although technology often arises from science, technology is not the reason for doing science. The author makes the point that from nuclear power to the transistor, 25% of today's economy depends on knowledge of quantum mechanics, but that the people who developed the field of quantum mechanics did so out of curiosity, not because they knew where it would lead. On the other hand, in his books, Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues the other way, saying that scientists often follow behind the inventor to describe formally what the inventor already did. Personally, I think that theoretical and applied science work together in a sort-of iterative feedback loop, and it's probably a mistake to argue from anecdote. h/t RealClear Science

STEEM Antibiotics - Doctor's Notes - In this post, @blind-spot introduces a series of posts on antibiotics. This first post describes what they are, saying that antibiotics are drugs that counter infectious organisms by inhibiting growth or killing them. The article also notes, however, that the best drug one day may be the worst on another, so doctors need to be lifelong students. The problem with antibiotics to day is that after generations of use, many organisms have evolved to resist them. In future posts, @blind-spot promises to talk about: "How did we come to this? How do we fix it? -and- Why is this situation so bad? (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @blind-spot.)

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