first up, a conversation with award winning author mark bowden. he has come up with a new book about cyber terrorism. his book is called "worm." somerandall's book tackle of the most basic questions of science. her book is called "knocking on heaven's door." >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> brought to you by the aarp and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. it thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: mark bowden is an award winning author. his newest book is called "worm: the first digital war." good to have you back on the program. the first digita

join me next time for a conversation with mark bowden and lisa randall. that is next time.we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy att aemove obstacles tt rmencono empowet enone conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] >> be more. pbs.

the author is journalist mark bowden. he also wrote the bestseller "black hawk down," about the 1994 u.s. raid in somalia that went awry. welcome back. >> thank you, margaret. >> warner: every day we're hearing about a new virus or worm. what made conficker so special that you wrote an entire book about snit. >> well, it demonstrated a very high level of sophistication in a number of different areas. but what really intrigued me bass the gamesmanship that went on. the people who were trying to defeat it would make a move to shut it down. whoever the mysterious creators were of this bot-net would make a countermove to stay alive. it got, you know, it really became a chess mass at the cutting edge of software technology. >> warner: you have to explain what a bot-net is. >> before i started i didn't know what a bot-net was either. a bot-net is an illicit network of computers that are all under the control of a remote operator. so you as the computer user are like captain kirk sitting in the control tower of your enterprise s

first up, a conversation with award winning author mark bowden. he has come up with a new book about cyber terrorism. his book is called "worm." somerandall's book tackle of the most basic questions of science. her book is called "knocking on heaven's door." >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to conversation at a nt.ne conversation at a time. nationwide is on your de.sa >> brought to you by the aarp and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. it thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: mark bowden is an award winning author. his newest book is called "worm: the first digital war." good to have you back on the program. the first digital