My Friend Doug

Me, Cedric, Doug - around 1982

Two weeks ago, we talked. Really talked - about work, about old times, about nothing important that felt like everything. His voice was weaker than before, but it was still him. Still Doug, the guy I'd known for forty-five years, whose expertise in yeast and fungi identification had earned him recognition nationally as a mycologist.

Each visit since showed me less of my friend. First, the conversations grew shorter, his words more labored. Then came the days he mostly slept, stirring only when I gave his hand a shake. Last week, even that response faded.

His breathing changed completely. What was once steady became urgent, desperate. Each breath sounded like a struggle I couldn't help him win. He thrashed against sheets, against pain, against something I couldn't see or understand.

Was he dreaming? Was some part of him still in there, wrestling with memories from four and a half decades of friendship? Maybe he felt the strength that once earned him multiple degree black belts in judo, or remembering those early Pan-Mass Challenge rides we tackled together every summer - pushing each other through the hills, sharing water and encouragement, pedaling together for cancer research, raising money to beat the very disease that finally took him. Or maybe he was laughing at one of countless crazy memories - so many things that still make me smile.

I sat beside this man who changed my life in 1980. I'd just finished a one-year internship in clinical laboratory science, trying to figure out my next steps, when I interviewed for a position in the clinical microbiology lab. Competition was fierce, he was on the interview team and hired me. He saw something in me I hadn't yet seen in myself. Three of us became inseparable - Doug, Cedric, and me. But by 1982, my mind started to drift. Hospital work wasn't for me; I wasn't a good fit. When I decided to leave and a new direction, and Cedric headed off to Hawaii, Doug stayed behind. As he put it then, "Someone has to stick around and save lives."

It was difficult when I left the lab. In some ways, I was giving up, admitting I did not like the work. Back in 2012 I wrote about my decision to leave here.  Some were upset with my decision. But Doug - Doug encouraged me always. He understood that sometimes the best thing you can do is recognize when a path isn't right for you, even when others see it as failure.

And he did stay, saving lives for decades through his work, his dedication to understanding the microscopic world that could heal or harm. Doug was amazing at fungi identification - a skill that required incredible technique. Growing the fungi, using sticky tape to collect the flowering head, staining it, then identifying it under the microscope. I sucked at that. Doug was incredible at it. Over the years, he rose to become laboratory director, leading with the same precision and expertise he brought to every slide he examined. Through all these years, no matter where life took us, we remained in touch. If I needed anything - anything at all - he was always there. That steady presence, that unwavering friendship, became a bedrock I could always count on.

Five years ago, he had his bladder removed - the first major battle against cancer. Every three months after that, the trip to Dana-Farber in Boston for stent exchanges. He hung in there with that same determination he brought to everything - the judo mat, the Pan-Mass Challenge, his meticulous lab work, his life. He fought the good fight until the very end. 

The last word I heard him say was "pizza" a few days ago, when a dietician came in and asked what he wanted for dinner. She asked if he wanted fish - he hated fish. Even then, even barely able to speak, he managed to tell her he wanted pizza. That was so Doug, holding onto his preferences, his personality, his fight, right until the end.

Yesterday morning, things slipped away. His wife, his son, his dog, family - all left behind, trying to navigate a world that suddenly feels a lot smaller without him. The cruelest part is losing a rock-solid constant, a person who dedicated his life to saving others, who gave people a start and then a push, and who spent forty-five years being a true friend.

Rest up buddy. 

SIM Cards as Weapons

A successful attack could have caused 911 service disruptions, market instability and security communication breakdowns during this major international event.

Yesterday, the United States Secret Service stopped a major telecommunications potential disaster by shutting down 300 sophisticated SIM servers and confiscating 100,000 SIM cards that were deployed near the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. The attack system combined digital warfare capabilities with physical sabotage methods against physical infrastructure through the utilization of authorized cellular network equipment. The attackers converted legitimate SIM servers that telecom companies use for testing and marketing into command centers for launching extensive denial-of-service attacks across the NYC region.

Here’s a diagram (AI generated with input from me. Click it to enlarge) showing how the attack infrastructure was 
positioned to create maximum disruption during the UN General Assembly, with the technical capability to disable communications across the New York metropolitan area when world leaders and critical services needed them most. The network operated through SIM servers which handled hundreds of cellular connections at once so it could have generated attacks from fake phone users numbering in the tens of thousands. The system has the capability of overwhelming cell towers with connection attempts that could trigger a chain reaction of failures throughout telecom networks. Here are the key technical elements shown in the diagram:

Attack Infrastructure (Left Section)

• Remote operators controlling the network from anywhere
• 300 SIM servers managing 100,000+ SIM cards simultaneously
• Attack capabilities including spoofing, mass communications, and network overload

Target Infrastructure (Center)

• Multiple cell towers across the NYC area
• Network operations centers managing call routing and traffic
• Coordinated multi-vector attacks overwhelming the cellular infrastructure

Critical Impact Zone (Right Section)

• UN General Assembly with world leaders present
• Emergency services (911) that could be disabled
• Financial markets dependent on cellular communications
• Cascading consequences affecting public safety and government operations

Scale Indicators (Bottom)

The diagram shows this wasn't a small operation - it was a sophisticated, professionally-equipped attack infrastructure positioned strategically within 35 miles of one of the most important international gatherings, with the technical capability to create a communications blackout during a critical time when reliable communications were essential for security and emergency response. The timing, location, and scale suggest this was designed to cause maximum disruption during the UN General Assembly, potentially creating chaos that could endanger both world leaders and the general public.

Does Each SIM Need An Acccount?

Now, you may be asking yourself - Don’t I need a cellular account with a provider (Verizon, AT&T, etc) to make calls, access the web, and send texts? Yes - you do! Legitimate cellular accounts are required for this type of SIM server attack, which makes the incident even more alarming. Each of the 100,000+ seized SIM cards needed to be activated with real cellular service plans to connect to cell towers - the attackers couldn't simply create fake connections. This means someone had to establish, fund, and maintain an enormous number of cellular accounts, representing a massive financial investment and sophisticated planning operation.

The scale suggests this was far beyond typical cybercriminal capabilities. Attackers likely used a combination of stolen identities, shell companies, compromised existing accounts, or international roaming arrangements to create this vast network of legitimate cellular connections. The sheer logistics of managing 100,000 active cellular accounts - along with the monthly service costs - points to either state-level resources or a major compromise of cellular carrier systems. This requirement for legitimate accounts actually strengthens the theory that this was a nation-state operation, as few other actors have the resources and sophistication to establish and maintain cellular service at this scale while keeping it hidden from authorities.

Security experts for years have been warning about an attack like this. This incident has exposed physical layer weaknesses in essential infrastructure to the general public. 

Ball Bearings

A month or so ago, someone I knew growing up died. What follows is a memory from around 1964.

Her father fixed cars. The shop was across downtown, by the river.

Marbles were everything in second grade. Kids brought bags of them to school. Cat's eyes and steelies and the clear ones that looked like ice. Recess was marble time.

"Want to see something?" she asked one morning in Mrs. Elsden’s class.

She opened her small hand. Three steel ball bearings sat in her palm, perfect and cold.

"From Dad's shop," she said.

I took them. They were heavy for their size. Heavier than any marble. I rolled them between my fingers during reading time. They made no sound.

At recess, I put them in my marble bag with the others. My friend Jimmy watched.

"Those aren't marbles," he said.

"I know."

"Let me see."

"No."

The ball bearings made the bag heavier. They clicked against the glass marbles when I walked. I liked the sound.

After school, I found her in the bus line.

"Thank you," I said.

She shrugged. "Dad has boxes of them."

I kept those ball bearings for years. I lost them in one of my moves after college. I’ve looked for them but never found them.

Her father kept the shop going as far as I know.