On Tech Brief today: geo-passwording, Google's latest dictum, and the dangers of peddling e-smut.

• Conspiracy theorists, take note. While several commentators out there have suggested links (that would be well-nigh impossible to substantiate) between the recent Stuxnet worm attack, Iran, and Israel, there is another intriguing possibility.

Jeffrey Carr writes in a blog for Forbes that when India's Insat-4B television satellite malfunctioned in July, television operators were forced to redirect their dishes to a satellite run by General Electric and a state-owned Chinese operator.

Mr Carr reminds us that China and India are competing in a renewed race for a manned moonshot, and reveals that the Indian space agency runs the very Siemens software that the Stuxnet worm targets:

”My objective for this post is simply to show that there are more and better theories to explain Stuxnet's motivation than just Israel and Iran... I hope others will pick up this thread, give it a good yank, and see what unravels.”

• You know the conundrum - too many sites need a password. We forget them, we duplicate them, we put in fabulously silly passwords like "password". A host of alternatives has been mooted over the years, some of which have been pictorial in nature: you simply click on the relevant bit of the image that you nominated as your password. The problem is that hackers can watch where you point your mouse.

Now, Discovery writer David Teeghman takes a look at the latest idea - an online map on which you choose your "passplace". The precise latitude and longitude actually act as the password. Mr Teeghman points out that:

”Mouse-tracking software can still see where on the screen your cursor goes. But it doesn't know what map you're looking at. And because the password map is zoomable, and you can move it around, the mouse's position on the screen doesn't tell a potential hacker where your unique spot is located.”

• Et tu, Google? Our inbox is budding with news that Google Translate now works in Latin too. The translation of Tech Brief's query "It is a bit curious that Google would bother - doesn't everyone who needs to know Latin already know it?" comes out as a frightfully erudite-looking:

”Frenum est ut Google curiosus esset molestum - quicumque non requiritur cognitio iam scire Latine?”

Overcome with excitement, Tech Brief attempted a translation of that text back into English:

”This is the curb to Google is troublesome to be curious as to - who are not now hear the man needs to know Latin?”

• Ever catch yourself sneaking a glance at the Kindle in the hands of the person next to you? Be prepared to blush. James Ledbetter of Slate has enjoyed a certain frisson noting that the Kindle's top-selling item at the moment is the racy title Compromising Positions.

On the one hand, running such sauciness as a loss leader may "sully the e-reader's reputation" - but a greater revolution may be at hand:

”The growing ubiquity of e-readers could unleash latent demand for nonvisual pornography. The Web long ago eliminated the embarrassment factor of having to purchase erotica at a store or newsstand; stored in digital form on an e-reader, it needn't be seen by partners, families, or anyone at all.”

Well. Tech Brief may be next to you on the bus, so be wary.

• The race to be the best in search often seems to be one that Microsoft is doomed to lose. But the latest statistics from Nielsen suggest it may be starting to win the psychological battle. For the first time Bing, along with MSN and Windows Live, overtook Yahoo.

Microsoft has grabbed 13.9% of the share market, while Yahoo is down to 13.1%. But with Google still commanding 65.1%,Tech Brief thinks Bing had better start searching for some super-powered trainers if it is ever going to catch up.

The rivals tend to match each other like for like when it comes to offerings and PC World ponders when Bing will copy Google's latest innovation.

"Will Bing implement instant search on its own, or decide that it's not an idea worth imitating?"

• The threat of rogue employees abusing access to privileged information is one that haunts most big organisations but when that organisation is Google the amount of data that can be accessed is frighteningly huge.

This is illustrated by details emerging in the case of David Barksdale, a 27-year-old engineer sacked by Google for using his privileges to spy on and harass people, including four children.

Gawker reports that in the harassment of one 15-year-old, he

"tapped into call logs from Google Voice, Google's internet phone service, after the boy refused to tell him the name of his girlfriend."

Barksdale's motivation seems - as far as we can tell on these scant and scurrilous details - to have been purely to show off how much data he had access to, rather than any more nefarious purpose. Even still, it will ring further alarm bells for those banking on the fact that Google "won't be evil".

Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington wants heads to roll; he says that

"[I]t is absurd that there aren't more dire consequences facing those that choose to molest that data. If a Google employee rampages through my e-mail, Google Voice or other data for no justifiable reason, I expect a lot more from the company than simply terminating them."

• Tech-minded readers will no doubt have noticed that Nokia World's second day in London had an almighty clash with handset-maker HTC's extravaganza today. Nokia proved it's back in the high-end handset game this week, with claws out.

As Gizmodo noted, complete with a photo expose on the topic, Nokia provided journalists departing Nokia World for the HTC event with "HTC Press conference survival kits".

"They described the enclosed sandwich as 'The HTC. Ham, tomato, and cheese (not the most exciting) sandwich,' and listed the remaining items: 'an energy bar in case you need a boost. A giant foam finger to use during the Q&A (just to make sure your question gets answered). A pen and pad for doodling. Ear plugs and an eye-mask in case you feel snoozy.'"

Meow. Our own Jonathan Fildes was indignant when asked if he received one of the kits; in the service of you, dear readers, he spent all morning at Nokia World.

• Bringing the world we live in within our screens closer to the one we actually live in has long been the dream of scientists. Not so many, however, are working on bringing that hi-tech world directly into our mouths. Tech Crunch reports on the work being done by Professor Adrian D. Cheok.

"An electronic lollipop, for instance, could let you taste your favourite wine or your mother's home-made cookies, a jacket could deliver a hug to your children, while a text message could taste sweet or bitter by activating certain parts of the tastebuds."

Tech Brief likes the idea of a memory-inducing lollipop but draws the line at Professor Cheok's idea of a web-connected jacket for virtual cuddles.

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to @bbctechbrief on Twitter, tag them bbctechbrief on Delicious or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.

• Remember all that noise back in June about Google's StreetView cars gathering wi-fi packet information willy-nilly as they mapped the globe? Well, they stopped. Well, sort of. But they weren't alone anyway. Bob McMillan writing for PCWorld has taken a long look at how our wireless data could be and is being used. It's not all scary, Big Brother-style erosion of civil liberties stuff, but it is terra incognita:

"As it becomes increasingly important for programs that run on your phone to know exactly where you are -- to be location-aware in industry parlance -- having a way of figuring out exactly where you are becomes critical. But the companies collecting this data haven't come under much scrutiny, many users do not understand how the data is being collected or why, and security experts are just now starting to discover some of the ways that this information could be misused."

• Let's get a couple of things clear about exclusive carrier contracts for new handsets: consumers - and hackers in particular - don't much care for them. Before we leave PC World, lets have a look at their poll of people who don't want an iPhone4 in the US. While 20% cite their reasoning as Antennagate - reception problems due to antenna design - three times that many said the reason was AT&T's exclusive contract.

But for all those carriers vying for the latest, greatest handset, take note of a more insidious problem. A software update for the iPhone's operating system, iOS 4.1 came out on Wednesday and within hours was jailbroken - releasing it from ties to any particular network. It is pretty speedy for a jailbreak, but more than that, Dan Goodin at The Register points out, this one hits deep:

"The exploit... was soon confirmed by other hackers, who said that because the exploit targets such a low-level part of the operating system, Apple won't be able to stop jailbreakers without making significant hardware changes."

• Tired of file-sharing pirates stealing your copyright material? Wish there was a way to play them at their own nefarious web-based game? Good news: the Bollywood film industry can show you the way.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Indian firm Aiplex Software has been hired by Bollywood studios to track down copyright films being offered for download on the web and then executing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on the sites offering them. In the interview with Aiplex managing director Girish Kumar, it seems like business is booming - but he's not averse to picking up a few Aussie clients:

""We are tied up with more than 30 companies in Bollywood (and) with Fox STAR Studios - Star TV and 20th Century Fox - who are a joint venture company in India. If you want me to service any Australian companies I would be really pleased to come down and do a presentation and work for the Australian movie [industry] also if they are willing."

• It's really kicking off now with the whole connect-your-mobile-life-to-your-car thing. In January, Ford showed off a version of its Sync in-car software that allows voice commands to access mobile apps. Now the OnStar service offered by General Motors and Saab says that they'll be offering to allow to simply speak your Facebook updates to the car, or get your text messages read out to you.

Previously, the coolest thing OnStar could do was unlock your car in a spookily remote way, but CrunchGear has envisioned the brave new world we'll presumably soon be living in:

"Imagine this:
'Hello, OnStar. Facebook status update--In the car, about to drive.'
Pretty great, right? Eh, maybe some people will get a kick out of it. Nothing wrong with that."

• It could be that Microsoft has been a little too careful in its monitoring of Xbox Live profiles. Josh Moore was booted off the service because Microsoft thought his hometown, listed as "fort gay WV", was a homophobic slur. Apparently Mr Moore, of the very real Fort Gay, West Virginia, had to eventually enlist the help of the town's mayor and even a local television station to draw attention to his plight.

Mike Sharkey of GameSpy observed that what Microsoft called a "very, very specific case" is the trailing edge of a long-standing don't-ask-don't-tell sexuality issue on Xbox Live:

"Microsoft's response goes against the very Code of Conduct rules it updated in March, which allow gamers to use the words lesbian, gay, bi and transgender to express relationship orientation in their profile or Gamertag. The company updated the rules after engaging in talks with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad) for nearly a year."

If you want to suggest links or stories for Tech Brief, you can send them to @bbctechbrief on Twitter, tag them bbctechbrief on Delicious or e-mail them to techbrief@bbc.co.uk.