Squawk Box October 17 - Security and Mobility Conference call organized by Alec Saunders

This morning one of the hot stories is about cell phone botnets, and the cybercrime economy. The theory is that bots invading cell phone handsets could be used to perpetrate massive denial of service attacks. Should we be worried, or is just science fiction?

Another security story is about several state-level legislatures passing laws requiring businesses to encrypt consumer data before transmission. Presumably this is to prevent identity theft, en masse. To me, however, it seems like one more bandaid in the patchwork of bandages already in existence. We'll discuss it. I'm willing to be dissuaded by a cogent argument.

Lastly, there are a number of stories out this morning about Google's G-1, their new handset. Reviews are comparing it to the iPhone, Walt Mossberg has declared a new category of pocketable computers lumping iPhone, G-1 and others into the category, and none other than eWeek's venerable Microsoft Watch has declared Windows Mobile an "also-ran".