The swine flu pandemic is officially not happening any more. According to Intellectual Property Watch, the WHO has just declared that the pandemic threat of the H1N1 or “swine flu” virus has now passed. The names of committee members involved in declaring the pandemic threat were kept secret at the time to prevent conflicts of…
An article in JASSS reports a model of emergency response and concludes that organisations respond more efficiently when they communicate freely at working level. The article, by Zagorecki, Ko and Comfort, is called “Interorganizational Information Exchange and Efficiency: Organizational Performance in Emergency Environments”. The authros built “a simulated operations environment using agent-based modeling to test…
An article in the Economist for 11 July 2010 argues that economic forecasting should make use of agent-based modelling (ABM). That it does not yet seem to have used ABM is a good example of the way simulation takes place in silos. Traditional economic forecasting models are being blamed for failing to spot the recent…
Last December an aviation exercise in Lusaka caused panic when it was mistaken for the real thing. This year it is Zimbabwes turn. According to the Mercury News report, on 5 August “Zimbabwean aviation officials told news organizations that a Boeing 767 arriving from London was involved in an accident at Harares airport. Soldiers, paramilitary…
Wired recently reported raids on three alleged ETA (ETA, geddit?) members. Gives an insight into what some hackers are like. First of all, an ETA member pleaded guilty in May to computer-tampering charges for putting malware on a dozen machines at the Texas hospital where he worked as a security guard. He also installed the…
Official confirmation of a hacking attack on US electrical power infrastructure from the CIA, following a BBC report that attacks involing a bug in Windows shortcuts had been used in Mid-July and that Early attacks using the bug were aimed at the software control systems for critical infrastructure such as power stations.. According to the…
Interesting website on photo tampering, maintained by Hany Farid. Examples include the obvious political ones (Stalin etc) and advertising. Goes from 1861 (Abraham Lincolns head on someone elses body) to a Malaysian politician producing photographic evidence in July 2010 that he had been knighted by the Queen, and BP prettying up an image of their…