Bones Forums

It actually isn't that too far-fetched of an idea. Fractal patterns are generated in nature and you can create fractal patterns yourself also. For example, drip artists create fractal patterns in their artwork.

If you remember in the episode, Angela mentions that the edges of the ribs, I think it was the ribs, all had fractal patterns on them. The new villian had encoded his worm into those fractal patterns and as soon as Angela's computer program read those fractal patterns into its system it started running the worm program which caused her computer to crash and burn.

A computer worm is just code and codes can be made up of fractal patterns, so the idea that the 'bones' contained a computer worm isn't too much of a stretch for me.

I liked the episode and I think he'll make for an interesting villian, especially if he's as smart as I think they're going to write him, he'll be like a master chessplayer and be 3-4 moves ahead of everybody as they play catch-up.

I kind of wonder if they weren't forecasting how this new villain will be caught when he has that conversation with Booth where he states that by making things more complex to make them secure, we actually make them more insecure and then Booth answers it's simple guys like him that catch people like him.

So I'm thinking it's going to be something simple and non-techy that will trip the villain up, just a feeling.

Good episode. I do also echo other people's sentiments about why isn't there any mention of Parker?

Looking forward to the return of this villain, or as he calls himself The Hacktivist.

Now another 2 and 1/2 months or so till the next episode...sigh...well, at least there's still Castle, Once Upon a Time, and Person of Interest.

And I agree with this speculation.

Plus the virus on the bones was genius. And again as above explained, its not entirely impossible.

And now the long wait.....Sigh.

Up front, I really like the episode and the new direction the writers are taking us both at the business and personal level for the characters. I enjoy how the current suspect (OK, the villain) has a reasonable and honorable goal. It is his obviously bad choices of method that make him evil. One can pity him for not seeing he's as bad (if not worse) as the people he tries to expose.

Sigh, though. Your comment on the virus points out the one part of the episode that really got me upset. Many people are going to believe they/you/someone can scan a virus or Trojan Horse into your/their/any computer. You can't!!

I'm not saying something you scan can't cause your computer to act incorrectly, as it can. What I'm saying is the computer isn't misbehaving because you uploaded/scanned a virus, Trojan Horse, or malware. Why? What you scan is data and computers don't execute data - unless someone sabotages it in advance.

So while it is possible for what we saw to occur, it isn't for the reasons given in the story. The reason it is possible is because someone sabotaged the computer (built and cocked the gun) in advance and the scan "pulled the trigger."

What makes this even more "scary" are the possibilities this sabotage method gives to its user. While Angela says the "bone" added a zero to the fan control, how do we know that is all it did? Maybe before it added the zero it affected other computers on the network, including the security system or even set itself up to access the home computers of people working at the lab!!

How might it really work? Given our new "super villain" already showed he can break into computer systems, it is reasonable to have had him previously break into (one or both):

1) The lab where Angela works or
2) Into one of the software companies that makes products used by Angela.

In either case the guy (or gal) would create a program to look at each image entering the computer by whatever means (uploaded/downloaded) and look for a predefined image. Think of this like being an username and password. When the code sees the proper image, it would then break apart the rest of the fractal for additional steps / instructions. The implications are:

1) This image analysis code could be in more than just the computers used by Angela.
2) The code before it it added the zero to the fan control was able to affect other computers at the lab. NOTE: This is an assumption given most companies don't firewall each computer and the internal network. Firewalls typically are external. Even very security minded sites using compartments don't firewall each computer or even each application.

NOTE: The concept and usage of sandboxes is the closest one can get to really providing application level security. Yet, a really good villain can get past this by affecting the sandbox code, itself. My Senior college project was on operating system security and how one can bypass most if not all security by getting access to the hardware thus bypassing any designed security, audit trails, etc. Id' be happy to discuss this offline should it interest someone.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing where the writers take us with this villain. Hopefully they'll take us on a wonderful roller coaster ride that doesn't end as quickly as real roller coasters seem to end, but give us a long line of twists and turns. Who knows maybe this villain can end up helping them with a serial killer or two or three before he's put away.

Oh, here's a thought! Once caught, he's judge mentally defective for some reason and ends up with Zack, who notices ... well, another wide ride could start ... just a thought.