A Russian cyber-security firm says it's found the world's first cellphone worm, but one of the largest makers of cellphones says the threat is minor. The worm attacks Series 60 cellphones made by Nokia, Siemens and others that use the Symbian operating system. The worm accesses phones using their Bluetooth wireless connection. The worm causes no real damage, but it does copy three files to a hidden directory, displays the word "Caribe" on the screen, and runs an infected phone's battery down by continually searching for another victim.
Google offers 1 gig of storage, which is more than 100 times the storage offered by Yahoo or Hotmail, or any Internet service providers that we know about. The powerful searching encourages account holders to never delete anything. It takes three clicks to put a message into the trash, and more effort to delete this message. It's much easier to "archive" the message, or just leave it in the inbox and let the powerful searching keep track of it. Google admits that even deleted messages will remain on their system, and may also be accessible internally at Google, for an indefinite period of time.
After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that's needed to force Google to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries.
Bottom line? My guess is that within 4-6 hours there would be scattered blackouts and brownouts in numerous areas, within 12 hours much of the system would be unstable, and within 24 hours most portions of the United States and Canada, aside from a rare island of service in a rural area near a hydroelectric source, would be without power. Some installations served by wind farms and solar might continue, but they would be very small. By the end of a week, I'd be surprised if more than a few abandoned sites were still supplying power.
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