The Conficker worm has passed a dubious milestone. It has now infected more than 7 million computers, security experts estimate.

On Thursday, researchers at the volunteer-run Shadowserver Foundation logged computers from more than 7 million unique IP addresses, all infected by the known variants of Conficker.

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When AT&T (T) grudgingly agreed to break itself up 25 years ago, it was seen as a truly momentous event in the history of the telecommunications industry. Today, however, some experts question not only whether the breakup of AT&T was necessary, but whether it even had any long-term impact on the telecom market.

The breakup deal forced AT&T to spin off its local divisions that would then become local exchange carriers, and in return, AT&T was allowed to keep its long distance services division.

However, the rise of wireless services as alternatives to landlines, as well as the entrance of cable companies such as Comcast (CMCSA) and Time-Warner (TWX) into the VoIP market, has led some to conclude that the breakup of Ma Bell is irrelevant to the current telecom market.

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The Internet engineering community is grappling with what to do about a serious flaw in the DNS discovered this summer, and the ongoing debate brings to mind a famous quotation from Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

At issue is whether the group should use its resources to encourage DNS registries, ISPs and enterprises to upgrade to the ultimate DNS security solution known as DNSSEC, or whether it should tweak the DNS protocols to address the so-called Kaminsky bug as an interim step.

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In 1965, artificial intelligence innovator Herbert Simon said that “machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do.” Two years later, MIT researcher Marvin Minsky predicted, “Within a generation … the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence’ will substantially be solved.” … Yet, here we are, decades later and what has artificial intelligence done for us lately? If you define artificial intelligence as self-aware, self-learning, mobile systems, then artificial intelligence has been a huge disappointment.

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Imagine, if you will, a world with no Internet. No email. No e-commerce. And no BlackBerrys. Email would be supplanted by snail mail; cellphones by landlines. Now imagine what the future would look like. Futurists say virtual business services of all sorts, accounting, payroll and even sales would come to a halt, as would many companies. This immediately made me think of E. M. Forster’s disturbing tale ” The Machine Stops.” Written in 1909, it describes the downfall of a civilization that had wrapped itself in the cocoon of an automated life-support system. But people began to think of the Machine as an infallible deity, and lived in their individual mechanical wombs, communicating and doing business only through the Machine.

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