Tech 'Improvements' That Actually Makes Things Worse

Intel has announced that back up for the "quondam-fashioned" BIOS-based PC is going by the wayside. It is existence dumped in favor of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which seems like BIOS on steroids.

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BIOS and UEFI tin can be thought of as middle men for the reckoner, making the hardware able to communicate with the Bone and to smoothen out operations.

The BIOS was semi-programmable in that y'all could upgrade it every bit necessary. The UEFI is programmable across the upgrade. This has two implications. One is abuse by hardware or software companies that desire to optimize the UEFI to improve their products' performance, probably at the expense of other companies. This could easily evolve into sabotage of the competition.

In that location is the possibility that one modification will wreck a different modification, without malicous intent.

Which brings us to the most obvious trouble—malware itself. Consider the potential for hijinks. At that place are numerous pieces of malware that infect today's modern browsers, hijacking them for the purposes of posting more advertisements or tracking users to an extreme. The intelligence community must be drooling over the possibilities with the UEFI. The bad actors in the hacker community must be salivating over the possibilities. It will non be instantaneous, but within the first twelvemonth some interesting cracks will appear.

I have a negative attitude almost this because I was around when the first few dopey computer viruses were employed beginning around 1985. Initially they were designed as pranks and would typically erase your hard disk and send a mocking message to your console.

The figurer virus went through several iterations and became generically called malware. Much of its usefulness (to hackers) now involves hijacking your computer to make it part of a "bot regular army" used en masse to assault targets for denial of service and other sorts of irritations. The purpose is to generally bring downward sites or simply harass someone or some visitor.

More than recently we've seen malware kind of circle back with ransomware. As in the early days when the idea was to erase your hard disk, ransomware promises to permanently encrypt your disk if you practise not pay someone money (typically in bitcoins) for a key. Millions of dollars have been made with this scheme.

All forth, from the 1980s until the nowadays, computer and Os and bit companies have been trying to make machines ameliorate than ever—and more secure. Instead they've merely fabricated everything more expensive and have mostly allowed things to get worse.

Why? Considering a lot of the best software and slickest ideas you ever see open up the machines upward to vulnerabilities, and that's because people who design the coolest code had no background in security. They are not paranoid enough. They just exercise things considering it is then cool. It's so juvenile in many instances.

With the new UEFI, the opportunity to get fancy at a more central level volition be irresistible to these same programmers. Once the better tools are available you'll begin to see some nifty programs. Then someone with the skills and the malice will come along and your life will be ruined.

About John C. Dvorak

John C. Dvorak

John C. Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the co-host of the twice weekly podcast, the No Agenda Show. His work is licensed effectually the earth. Previously a columnist for Forbes, PC/Computing, Computer Shopper, MacUser, Barrons, the DEC Professional as well as other newspapers and magazines. One-time editor and consulting editor for InfoWorld, he also appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, and the Vancouver Lord's day. He was on the get-go-up squad for C/Cyberspace likewise as ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) he hosted Silicon Spin for four years doing 1000 live and alive-to-tape TV shows. His Internet show Cranky Geeks was considered a …