The technology, dubbed Triangle Boy (after a character in an episode of the sitcom "Seinfeld"), can fool an electronic filter into thinking Web content is coming from a benign computer server instead of a blocked site like Human Rights Watch.
Beginning in the late 20th century, the name "Trojan horse" was applied to deceptively benign computer codes that seem like legitimate applications but are written to damage or disrupt a computer's programming or to steal personal information.
Levine can be magnetic onstage, but his songs sound benign and computer-generated, smoothed to the point of incomprehensibility.
But as the benign hobby of computer hacking generated a small coterie of malicious hackers (or crackers, as they are known in the trade), so biological hacking risks generating biological crackers.
Appropriately chastened by Dr. Hark's dire predictions, the parents (a few of whom, though the show does not dwell on this, look like only slightly more benign versions of the computer models) immediately sign on for Dr. Hark's three-week boot camp, in which she lays down some draconian rules about diet and exercise and then drops by to check on observance.
It also confuses investigators who trace the source of cyber attacks to seemingly benign locations, including a church computer in Florida, according to Kevin Albano, a researcher at the computer security firm Mandiant.
For people who assume that a computer is a benign dictator, these were reminders that the slightest transgression could turn it into a deranged despot.
"One of the hazards of algorithmic, as opposed to human, detection, is that an attacker who can reverse-engineer a machine can almost certainly find a way to make dangerous objects appear benign," said Ari Juels, a computer science professor at the Jacobs Institute at Cornell Tech.
You may have experienced a similar, benign takeover of your work computer after suffering a problem.
These programs are known as Trojan horses since they enter the unknowing users' computers as something benign, such as a photo or document attached to an e-mail.
A benign example he gives is of computer players in video games programmed to be realistically stupid.
