There’s a theory about German culture that goes something like this: Germans are very good at all sorts of things – making films, making cars, making beer – but in order to be truly popular with a people that like to consider themselves intellectuals, you have to write a book.

Interview: Charlotte Roche

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. Coming of Age in Second Life is the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe.

Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group.

Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself.

Coming of Age in Second Life

Some months ago, my contacts in the defense industry alerted me to a startling development that has escalated to the point of near-panic in nearly all corners of Government security and IT infrastructure. The concern: a high number of counterfeit Cisco routers and switches installed in government networks that experienced upgrades and/or new units within the past 18 months.

The US government has been attempting to avoid these issues by only using higher-end Cisco partners/suppliers; however, the highly competitive lowest-bid environment of government procurement has inspired several vendors to look for cheap alternatives for hardware ...

A few weeks ago, my sources provided information on a scathing investigation summary by the FBI. They've indicated that a critical Powerpoint document has been quietly circulating after a few internal presentations.

As you can see, the FBI is concerned about critical infrastructure damage, AND, the potential of access to secure government systems. Many have been speculating that the counterfeit hardware will provide backdoor capabilities and access into compromised networks for the originators of the equipment. In fact, some areas of speculation regarding the counterfeit Cisco equipment has focused on the possibility that the hardware is being manufactured expressly to deploy exploitable systems far and wide into the wild. The rationale being that the likely "wholesale" price of the counterfeit routers and switches are so low and profit margins likely very thin, that the only real advantage may be gained from downstream system exploits in the future.

The threat is real. Compromised hardware of potentially hostile foreign origin sits within secure networks of the US government, military, and intelligence services. And as you now see, the FBI has been concerned about it.

Graphic file export of the FBI's Powerpoint document slides.

FBI Fears Chinese Hackers Have Back Door Into US Government

World Made By Hand, by James Howard Kunstler -- a novel of America's post-oil future

A black bear is being sought by New Jersey police on suspicion of stealing a minivan.

A Worrisome Precedent

The Defense Department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems. So why does the Pentagon still have no idea where its money goes?

Pentagon's Accounting Mess

It may seem like sort of a waste of time to play World of Warcraft with your son. But you're actually interacting with each other. You're solving problems. They may seem like simple problems, but you're solving them. You're posed with challenges that you have to overcome. You're on a quest to gain certain capabilities. I haven't spent a lot of time playing World of Warcraft, because my impression is that it takes a serious amount of time to play it well.

Vint Cerf: What I've Learned

Núcleo is a toolkit for exploring new uses of video and new human-computer interaction techniques.

The núcleo toolkit

Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.

Where Are They?

Once, society celebrated money-making chancers and lauded prudent hard workers. Today, says a new book, it is plying us with dumbed-down ‘stuff’ in order to keep us infantilised.

The cultural contradictions of consumerism