Misfortune Teller
Florida-based journalist and computer book author Rogers Cadenhead launched Cruel Site of the Day (www.cruel.com) on April Fools' Day 1996 as an antidote to the chirpy optimism of the Cool Site of the Day. Since then, Cadenhead has presented such lowlights as a site where users listen to panhandlers' pitches and rate them (charity.artificial.com) and a destination that documents buses plunging off cliffs (www.busplunge.org). Now, with the economy headed south, gloom and doom are back in style, and Cadenhead's Cruel Site is booming, with 13,000 hits a day and a host of imitators like Badlinks and Portal of Evil. "I think we've inherited the earth," says Cadenhead. "This is my life's work. Such as it is."
Blackhat Tricks
Why would a US Army tank officer turned Sun computer security pro leave his servers unprotected? To lure hackers. Lance Spitzner founded the Honeynet Project (project.honeynet.org) in 1999 to better understand the blackhat mindset. The project's first honeynet consists of four honeypots - networked computers that are run specifically to attract hackers. Spitzner and a team of 29 experts in programming, forensics, and psychology share their findings with the law enforcement and security communities. Spitzner plans to get three or four more honeynets up by the end of the year. "Being a tanker and being a security guy are a lot alike," says Spitzner. "When I talk about hackers, I think in terms of the enemy."
Industry Supermodeler
Without molecular biologist Leroy Hood, the race to map human genes might never have occurred. In the 1980s, he helped develop a high-speed automated gene sequencing machine, an integral element of the Human Genome Project (see "Hacking the Mother Code," Wired 3.09, page 136). These days, Hood is undertaking an even more ambitious endeavor: His Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology (www.systemsbiology.org) is hoping to build mathematical models for how genes, proteins, and other cellular elements work together in complex biological systems. Says Hood: "The next step is to take this genomic info and really understand how the DNA sequence translates and how the organism works."
The answers, however, won't come cheap. Hood is seeking endowments worth about $200 million from private and public donors, including agribusiness and pharmaceutical companies.
Passion Play
This Jesus may not be the son of God, but he certainly thinks he's God's gift. You can find a reasonable facsimile of Him on the Web at Jesus.com, the personal site of a Northern Virginia "creator of intellectual property" who looks and dresses like Jesus to attract the opposite sex. "The women on the West Coast really like me," says Jesus, as the 27-year-old insists on being identified. "I'm thinking about making a tour this summer." So, what does a golden-haired, blue-eyed fella with messianic tendencies look for in a woman? Ms. Right should be prepared to give "her world in the mutual quest to share the infinite." The guy's looking for a miracle.
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