Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 12:28 PM 6/27/2004, Jack Lloyd wrote: More recent phones from Sprint must support real GPS, since Qualcomm offers chipsets with GPS support, which they wouldn't do unless their only customers (Sprint phone manufacturers) wanted it. I was looking at getting a Sprint phone last week - every model I looked at had a GPS chip. Do any of them let _you_ see the GPS results (which would be useful), or are they only available to Big Brother and maybe advertisers?
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
At 01:13 PM 6/27/2004, Jack Lloyd wrote: On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 01:01:53PM -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: Do any of them let _you_ see the GPS results (which would be useful), or are they only available to Big Brother and maybe advertisers? Not as far as I know. The cheaper ones certainly don't, it's possible the more expensive ($300+) models do allow this but I have seen nothing advertising such a feature. Sigh. It probably doesn't even cost them anything - it's just another user interface menu item. (I suppose that's not strictly true - if I were trying to build a GPS Big Brother feature into cellphones for minimum cost, I guess I'd probably look at having the phone just take satellite readings and forward them to a central site for calculations, to avoid having to put any extra computing support into the machine. Don't know if that's a win or loss cost-wise.) I think the best bet for something like that is to get a Treo (which don't have GPS built in), then get a GPS card for it. I've already got a GPS, but I seldom carry it around unless I'm camping - it's old, so it's too clunky.
Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-27-Sun-2004/opinion/24127406.html Sunday, June 27, 2004 Las Vegas Review-Journal VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell In Atlanta over the May 29 weekend, former movie producer, Bette Midler manager/paramour and Nevada gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo -- who entered the Libertarian Party's national convention as the front-runner for the presidential nomination -- was doing himself no favors on the convention floor. The Libertarian Party has more than its share of dorks and dweebs, who given the chance will corner you and seek a debate on the most arcane details of anything from private space exploration to the Federal Reserve. I can understand Russo's reluctance to waste too much time on this stuff (though in fact, the Federal Reserve seems to have become one of his own favorite topics, of late). But eyewitnesses report Russo's response was to call such gadflies idiots, sometimes throwing in a few extra modifiers which I can't print in a family newspaper. On the floor, Russo had a style that some delegates from the South and Midwest fretted would not sell back home -- brash New York ethnic, comments Brian Doherty of Reason magazine (http://www.reason.com/links/links060304.shtml). Doherty observed Russo throwing around the word `baby,' cracking jokes, grabbing floating balloons and nuzzling them, then mock-complaining that one of his vocal opponents would probably call that sexual harassment ... segueing from a mention of orgasms to introducing his wife. If this is the degree of delicacy with which Aaron treated the 808 voting delegates at the very convention whose nomination he sought, who can guess what level of gravitas and aplomb he might bring to a set of tense diplomatic negotiations with, say, Jacques Chirac? I've met Aaron Russo. I believe he's sincerely concerned about the direction this country is headed. But when Aaron ran for governor of Nevada a few years back, he did so from a rented house with rented furniture. On the weekends he commuted back to visit his immediate family in Southern California -- in a fancy car with Vermont license plates. Even in a state where native-born residents are a rarity, Aaron Russo gave carpetbaggers a bad name. The majority of the LP's delegates in Atlanta concluded Aaron Russo might inject some money and some drama, but that he was a loose cannon. The delegates voted for the man who was the most like them, who presented in the most professional way the modal opinions and views and style of a Libertarian Party activist -- quiet, intense, no deviation from the catechism, more concerned with eternal ideological and philosophical verities than the political events of the day, summarizes Doherty. Michael Badnarik is no table-pounder. But the political maneuverings that landed Badnarik the LP nomination -- a tense, edge-of-your-seat process conducted in the light of day -- produced the best candidate. Michael Badnarik won the nomination, on the issues, because he won the candidates' debate. How close was it? On the first ballot, the delegates split Russo 258, Michael Badnarik 256, and 246 for syndicated radio host Gary Nolan. Then it started to get interesting. Properly covered and explained, it could have made great live television -- but of course no network but C-SPAN will cover such real political drama, any more. Too much chance the voting public might get exposed to some radical new common-sense ideas. Come November, I with perhaps 1 or 2 percent of the populace will cast my lonely vote for Michael Badnarik, an articulate, reasonable, personable freedom fighter of modest means, who lacks any discernible pathological need or expectation for brass bands, snapping flashbulbs or public adulation. I will vote for a candidate who -- if he had his way -- would end the insane war on drugs; end the income tax; restore my God-given and constitutionally guaranteed firearms rights; protect the rights of all Americans to medical privacy; end the noxious daily trampling of our Bill of Rights in the nation's airports; pull us out of the deadly, illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq; and put the U.S. military back to work tracking down the real culprits of Sept. 11. At which point, if we can find them, you think it would be OK to just kill them? I asked the candidate last week. Sure, Badnarik said. Sounds about right to me. I will cast that vote on Nov. 2, and get my ass whupped (politically speaking), and go to bed proud and justified. In contrast, 95 percent of you (if you bother going to the polls at all -- and who can blame you for your increasing sense of mortification? You must start to feel like the Eloi, shuffling in to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) will vote for a lying politician who you know to be a lying politician -- one of two interchangeable Skull Bonesmen without any discernible political
Florida to Tax Home Networks
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,63962,00.html Wired News Florida to Tax Home Networks By Michelle Delio? Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63962,00.html 02:00 AM Jun. 24, 2004 PT Florida state officials are considering taxing home networks that have more than one computer, under a modified 1985 state law that was intended to tax the few businesses that used internal communication networks instead of the local telephone company. Officials from Florida's Department of Revenue held a meeting on Tuesday to see whether the law would apply to wired households, and exactly who would be taxed. About 200 people attended, including community and business representatives. In 1985 the state passed a law to tax businesses using their own communications networks, because otherwise the state could not collect tax revenue on the businesses' local telephone service. In 2001, that law was expanded to make any system that is used for voice or data that connects multiple users with the use of switching or routing technology taxable up to 16 percent. The law is so broad that it would apply to networked computers, wireless services, two-way radios and even fax machines -- or substitute communications systems, as the state calls them. The tax would be applicable (PDF) to the costs of operating such a substitute communications system, not to the purchase of the system's components. In some cases, it appears the tax would be collected by the providers of communications services such as wireless companies or voice-over-IP firms. The tax would be added to the user's bill and then turned over to the Department of Revenue. But some substitute communications services don't require a service plan. For those, the state could take the tax from the amount deducted on business, and perhaps personal, tax filings. According to my accountant, the way the law is written, if my tax filing includes deductions for the repair or maintenance of my two computer and one printer network, those costs will be subject to state communication taxes, said graphic artist Linda Kellman, who works from home. Self-employed people get slammed with insane taxes everywhere, and I've sadly but grudgingly accepted that. But this tax, if they ever try to collect it, would be the last straw. Can I outsource my network to a more sensible state, do you think? Florida businesses and residents -- and even some officials in the Florida Department of Revenue -- agree that the wording of the law is too broad. In May, the Florida Senate unanimously passed a bill that would have prevented collection of the tax until 2006, during which time the law could be carefully reviewed. The bill was then sent to the House, but wasn't voted on before the summer break, clearing the way for officials to begin collecting the tax. As a result, the Florida Department of Revenue, which, according to local newspaper reports, was in favor of the bill to delay the collection of the tax, must now begin to address how the tax should be implemented. The tax language is so broad that virtually any communication technologies in your home or office could be subject to this tax, said Chris Hart, spokesman for ITFlorida, a not-for-profit industry organization for the state's technology professionals. It's difficult to imagine a more anti-technology, anti-business tax. It directly attacks the efficient use of information technology. Florida businesses aren't in favor of the tax. It also could tax almost any Florida resident who uses any sort of modern communications technology, something that Florida's battalions of retirees on fixed incomes have just begun to become aware of, according to Hart. Information on this issue is starting to reach the general public, and it probably isn't widely understood just yet, he said. However, once people do realize how this tax could impact them on a personal level, they wake up very fast. All my life, I've willingly paid my fair share of taxes in exchange for community services, said 73-year-old George Fedoro, a retired engineer who now lives in Boca Raton. But this tax is not fair and could turn senior citizens into criminals, because no one that I know can or will pay it. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would have to approve any rule the tax department suggests. Bush has said he isn't in favor of the tax, but many fear he may be swayed by city and county government officials. The tax would go, in part, toward school construction and other projects. Additional meetings on the proposed rules for the tax will be held in other locations around the state later in the year, Department of Revenue officials said. If the law is implemented, Florida would have the most wide-reaching state tax on technology. But it may not be the last -- state officials estimate enforcement of the tax could bring in more than $1 billion a year in revenue for the state. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
Jack Lloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was looking at getting a Sprint phone last week - every model I looked at had a GPS chip. Try the Sanyo SCP-8100. It does network-assisted location only. It also has a much more sensitive frontend than anything from Samsung, has a reasonably nice-looking screen, and isn't too big. It's old enough that it should be cheap, too. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
Nomen Nescio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no such thing as a GPS frequency. Well, clearly there's the frequency on which the satellites broadcast (~1500MHz). I think his point was that to jam the GPS you've got to put out RF energy on the appropriate frequency, which would then be traceable to you. Of course, you can do a bit better by using the external antenna jack and feeding the signal straight into the phone. Make sure in this case that you're using low enough power that you don't blow up the front end. -- Riad S. Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Harmon Seaver wrote: Bush has never won an election. Let's keep it that way. My feeling is that Kerry won't be really any different, Accepted. Kerry is possibly the single worst candidate the dems had to offer - and I don't think it's any accident that he made it through. Nevertheless, I'll take the evil untested over the evil well known and thoroughly despised at this point. BTW - I just got back from F9/11: good movie, regardless of your stance on shrub. I find it interesting that (a) Although it is raking in money like crazy (my performance was close to 100% full, no passes are being accepted, etc.), (b) only a single theater within 50 miles of St. Louis, yes, you saw that right, a major city, has booked this show, and, (c) the movie plays only through tonight - a three day run. You close a movie thats making money? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
RE: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
And the return on my investment of time for voting is ... what? The cost is exposure to compulsory jury duty. Sounds like a negative ROI to me. Bill Sitting it out on election day and proud of it. -Original Message- From: R. A. Hettinga [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 5:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-27-Sun-2004/opinion/241 27406.html Sunday, June 27, 2004 Las Vegas Review-Journal VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi
One phone I'd like to recommend against is the SideKick. I've no idea if it's got a GPS receiver or not - likely it doesn't need one since it's GPRS and can use tower timing as discussed before. I'm recommending against it, because while I love the phone and its features, it's too big brotherish. Example: if you write an email while it's out of range of a cell tower, and hit send, it will store the email into the Send folder. If you then try to delete that email from the Send folder it will give you an error saying I can't do this right now because I need to first synchronize with the server. Which means even emails you want to erase will be first sent to the server! It does have an ssh client, a web browser, and an AIM client, but I use these with caution, especially the SSH client. It's also got a USB 2.0 plug and an IR transceiver, but I've not been able to make any use of either, nor seen any options to enable/disable them. For all I know the IRDA could always on and will talk to anyone, etc. You don't own anything on this phone despite the appearance to the contrary. I was also considering Palm phones, but Palm OS is piss poor at memory protection so any application can clobber/read/spy on any other, so if there's spyware in the code that talks to cell towers, you're at its mercy, and it can read anything you've got in it.
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote: snip In contrast, 95 percent of you (if you bother going to the polls at all -- and who can blame you for your increasing sense of mortification? You must start to feel like the Eloi, shuffling in to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) will vote for a lying politician who you know to be a lying politician -- one of two interchangeable Skull Bonesmen without any discernible political principles, who (no matter which wins) will proceed to raise your taxes, take away more of your freedoms, and continue frittering away whatever remains of America's reputation for decency by continuing the violent military occupation of scores of foreign countries that have never attacked nor declared war upon us. All this in hopes of temporarily propping up the bottom lines of sundry well-heeled banks, oil companies and federally subsidized engineering and construction firms. All because you don't want to throw away your vote -- and register your disapproval with that state of affairs -- by voting for a guy who would make you feel decent and clean. In *any* election other than the one we face this November, I would agree with this 100%. But this time, I just can't. I fear the re-appointment of Bush more than any other political event. That the author of this is willing to overlook that he is knowingly helping to keep Bush in office, trampling those rights he claims to so cherish, totally negates his argument. Bush has never won an election. Let's keep it that way. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
Bush is so evil I'll have to vote for the lesser evil I felt that way about Reagan in 1984, and the Libertarians were too disorganized to convince me otherwise. Too bad the Democrats couldn't find a better candidate than Mondale. My vote didn't change that landslide any, but it seems to have helped the Democrats come up with a strategy for 1988, which was to find the lamest available candidate and run against someone other than Reagan, but voting for Dukakis seemed to be throwing away my vote compared to voting for Ron Paul. Fortunately, California will presumably be voting solidly Democrat, though they'll probably still be using untrustable computerized voting machines which only Republicans know how to steal instead of the traditional Democrat-friendly versions. At 05:38 PM 6/27/2004, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, Harmon Seaver wrote: My feeling is that Kerry won't be really any different, Accepted. Kerry is possibly the single worst candidate the dems had to offer - and I don't think it's any accident that he made it through. Nevertheless, I'll take the evil untested over the evil well known and thoroughly despised at this point. I'd say Jonathan Edwards was marginally worse, but he'll probably be the VP candidate. Howard Dean threatened to turn the Democrats back into an actual political party again, so the Democrats, Republicans, and so-called liberal pro-establishment press made sure to stomp on him (and if that didn't look well-coordinated, you weren't paying attention.) Joe Lieberman was the best Republican running, but he's out too. But yeah, Kerry's best feature is that he's mostly evil on his own, rather than Bush who had his father's old cronies pushing him, who are frankly a lot more creatively evil than Kerry or Bush. Also, while I don't understand the reality distortion effect that makes Republicans and conservatives believe everything Bush says deep down in their reptile brains even when their eyes are telling them something different, I don't think Kerry has it, and that's a Good Thing.
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On Sun, 2004-06-27 at 20:38, J.A. Terranson wrote: BTW - I just got back from F9/11: good movie, regardless of your stance on shrub. I just saw it, as well, and I have to agree with you. I find it interesting that (a) Although it is raking in money like crazy (my performance was close to 100% full, no passes are being accepted, etc.), (b) only a single theater within 50 miles of St. Louis, yes, you saw that right, a major city, has booked this show, and, (c) the movie plays only through tonight - a three day run. You close a movie thats making money? There are three theaters around Cincinnati running it, which considering the Republican slant of the state I found interesting. Don't know how long it's scheduled to play, though. I didn't see any final performance posters (and of course. moviefone.com doesn't show closing dates). -- Roy M. Silvernail is [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you're not Progress, like reality, is not optional. - R. A. Hettinga SpamAssassin-procmail-/dev/null-bliss http://www.rant-central.com
Re: My name is Jyyneh Do'ughh
On Sat, Jun 26, 2004 at 10:13:00PM -0700, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Gaelic looks like 7-ASCII-bit line noise to me. A Gaelic name could be created which clueless fascists would assume the spelling of, but the correct spelling would be fairly far (in some linguistic Hamming metric) from the assumed spelling. How do you spell John Smith in Gaelic? Just a thought. In Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) it'd be at least starting as 'Iain' (which is the Gaelized John). -- Pàdraig MacIain.
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 06:26:05PM -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote: snip In contrast, 95 percent of you (if you bother going to the polls at all -- and who can blame you for your increasing sense of mortification? You must start to feel like the Eloi, shuffling in to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) will vote for a lying politician who you know to be a lying politician -- one of two interchangeable Skull Bonesmen without any discernible political principles, who (no matter which wins) will proceed to raise your taxes, take away more of your freedoms, and continue frittering away whatever remains of America's reputation for decency by continuing the violent military occupation of scores of foreign countries that have never attacked nor declared war upon us. All this in hopes of temporarily propping up the bottom lines of sundry well-heeled banks, oil companies and federally subsidized engineering and construction firms. All because you don't want to throw away your vote -- and register your disapproval with that state of affairs -- by voting for a guy who would make you feel decent and clean. In *any* election other than the one we face this November, I would agree with this 100%. But this time, I just can't. I fear the re-appointment of Bush more than any other political event. That the author of this is willing to overlook that he is knowingly helping to keep Bush in office, trampling those rights he claims to so cherish, totally negates his argument. Bush has never won an election. Let's keep it that way. My feeling is that Kerry won't be really any different, except possibly in the areas of environment and education. He'll be about like Klinton, maybe worse. And like Klinton, he's a lot smarter, so a lot more people will be fooled. One thing about Dubbya, et al, is they make a lot of really dumb mistakes. Look at Cheney telling Sen. Leahy to fuck himself -- these morons even turn off a lot of Republicans. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com Hoka hey!
Senate Passes Two Measures To Combat Piracy on the Web
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108820092814147912,00.html The Wall Street Journal June 28, 2004 E-COMMERCE/MEDIA Senate Passes Two Measures To Combat Piracy on the Web By NICK WINGFIELD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL June 28, 2004; Page B3 The Senate passed two pieces of legislation designed to help crack down on individuals who trade pirated music and other material over the Internet. But another Senate proposal is causing a growing uproar among technology companies, which are afraid it could stifle innovation and make devices such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod a possible target of entertainment-industry lawsuits. The Senate on Friday passed the Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation, or Pirate, Act, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch, under which the Department of Justice will be able to bring civil copyright-infringement cases against people who download unauthorized copies of music, movies and other works using Internet file-sharing programs such as Kazaa. Under current law, the Justice Department can bring only criminal prosecutions, making copyright-infringement cases more difficult to prove in court. The Senate on Friday also passed a bill introduced by Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) that would increase penalties for distributing pre-release copyrighted works and create a federal law against use of camcorders in movie theaters. Comparable bills still need to be passed by the House of Representatives. While the bills were praised by the entertainment industry and criticized by technology-advocacy groups, the greatest controversy stemmed from a proposal introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by Sen. Hatch (R., Utah), called the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act. The bill, co-sponsored by a powerful bipartisan group including Senators Bill Frist (R., Tenn.), Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), would allow entertainment companies to bring lawsuits against any company that intentionally induces individuals to violate copyrights by making unauthorized copies of songs, movies and other works. High-tech companies have often been at loggerheads with legislation backed by the entertainment industry, but the latest proposal seems to have struck an especially sensitive nerve in the tech world. The fear: that the proposal could effectively invalidate a key 1984 Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuit between Sony Corp. and the movie industry over the video cassette recorder. The ruling protected the VCR, which allowed users to make bootleg copies of movies, because it also had substantial noninfringing uses. Critics of the Hatch proposal say it could go far beyond penalizing the file-sharing programs that allow users to swap music and movies. Indeed, they said, it could make targets of manufacturers of DVD and CD recorders, personal computers and other hardware. We are concerned it will have an immediate chilling effect on the introduction of new technologies, says Jeff Joseph, a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association. Cindy Cohn, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil-liberties group, said that under the Hatch proposal it could be argued, for instance, that the huge song storage capacity of Apple's iPod audio player induces copyright violations since it enhances the appeal of file-sharing programs and the piracy therein. Similarly, Toshiba Corp., maker of the iPod's hard drive, and CNET Networks Inc., which has explained how to use music on the iPod, might be considered inducers, the EFF said. Supporters of the bill insisted that such examples are unrealistic and that the proposal is aimed at a more a narrow group of companies, such as makers of file-sharing programs. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
And now, USA Today Presents a Word from Horseman #2
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-27-terrorweb-usat_x.htm USA Today Internet's many layers give terrorists room to post, then hide Terrorists are increasingly using the Internet to spread shocking images and state their demands. In the past month, video and photos of the beheadings of American Paul Johnson Jr. and South Korean Kim Sun Il were posted on Web sites sympathetic to Islamic terrorists. Last week, a Saudi Web site posted a statement from alleged terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claiming responsibility for attacks across Iraq. Weimann says the Web offers terrorists anonymity, easy access ... and the ability to disappear. By Stephen J. Boitano, AP The sites are often shut down by the governments of the countries in which they're based, but new ones quickly appear. USA TODAY's Mark Memmott talked with an expert on terrorists' use of the Internet, Gabriel Weimann, a senior fellow at the federally funded U.S. Institute of Peace. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: Can't terrorists be caught by tracing who posts their messages? A: You can track it. ... The question is, how deep can you go and how far can you go? Let me explain the layers. ... The first layer will be to look at the Web site and see the address. With the address, you can track the server (host computer) that is used - you can see where the Web site is based. That can be done in seconds. It's not a problem. ... That is being done by security agencies and counterterrorism forces all over the world. Q: What's the next layer? A: To know where the message or the video or the announcement or the picture or whatever was sent from. ... If I try to post something on a Web site, I'm using a server, too. There are two servers connected: the server that I'm using and the server that posts it on your Web site. Q: Sounds simple to trace. A: But there are many options. You can access different servers from different domains, which are public. It can be a university library. You go to a public library or a university library or an Internet cafe. Q: So, physically, there's little evidence to find if investigators get to that library or cafe? A: Now we're getting to the third level: the user. Let's say that I find the server that you used. I still didn't get to the individual user. I can say, 'This was sent from a computer in Jakarta' ... or from wherever. It was in a library or a computer network. ... But the user may disappear seconds after posting the message. Usually they do. So the deeper you go, the harder it is to find the user. This is one of the most important advantages of the Internet for terrorists. Anonymity, easy access, free access and the ability to disappear. Q: And if the person who sat at the computer and sent the video out is ever found, who is he likely to be? A: The guy who's posting the messages for the terrorists, or doing the downloading, is like the smallest of actors in the theater. You won't find the scriptwriters. I'm sure modern terrorists are quite aware of the possibility to track them down. So the chains (in their organizations) will be very long, and probably nobody knows who's the third link from him. Q: How do you, and investigators, monitor terrorists' use of the Web? A: It takes time. ... Al-Qaeda right now is moving among 50 different Web addresses. ... You have to follow the psychology of terrorists, the publicity-seeking mind of terrorists. They want you to find (information they put on the Web). They want people who are supporters or potential supporters, and journalists, to find them. To do so they have to publicize the new (Web addresses). They will go into Internet chat rooms and notify people. Q: So you monitor the chat rooms, watching for messages? A: We call it lurking. You sit quietly in a chat room. You do nothing. Just join it and sit quietly in the dark. This is what I do and what my research assistants are doing. You find very important information. (Relevant chat rooms can be found, for example, by performing a Google groups search using key words such as al-Qaeda or jihad.) Q: What are the messages like? A: Someone might ask, Where can I find video of a Chechen slitting the throat of a Russian? A few lines later, someone will answer, Go to this Web site, and you'll see it. Q: People are looking for such things, then? A: Yes, and now we're coming to the speed at which things move. Once (terrorists' messages or video) appears somewhere, especially after an execution or dramatic event, within seconds it will be diffused and posted on other Web sites. You can find it within seconds all over the Internet. Even the beheading of Mr. Johnson. It was posted first on an Arab (Web) forum in England. But within seconds, it was also posted on American servers and American Web sites and then worldwide. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar
SciAm: The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=E3AA-70E1-10CF-AD1983414B7F Scientific American: June 21, 2004 The Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript New analysis of a famously cryptic medieval document suggests that it contains nothing but gibberish By Gordon Rugg In 1912 Wilfrid Voynich, an American rare-book dealer, made the find of a lifetime in the library of a Jesuit college near Rome: a manuscript some 230 pages long, written in an unusual script and richly illustrated with bizarre images of plants, heavenly spheres and bathing women. Voynich immediately recognized the importance of his new acquisition. Although it superficially resembled the handbook of a medieval alchemist or herbalist, the manuscript appeared to be written entirely in code. Features in the illustrations, such as hairstyles, suggested that the book was produced sometime between 1470 and 1500, and a 17th-century letter accompanying the manuscript stated that it had been purchased by Rudolph II, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1586. During the 1600s, at least two scholars apparently tried to decipher the manuscript, and then it disappeared for nearly 250 years until Voynich unearthed it. Voynich asked the leading cryptographers of his day to decode the odd script, which did not match that of any known language. But despite 90 years of effort by some of the world's best code breakers, no one has been able to decipher Voynichese, as the script has become known. The nature and origin of the manuscript remain a mystery. The failure of the code-breaking attempts has raised the suspicion that there may not be any cipher to crack. Voynichese may contain no message at all, and the manuscript may simply be an elaborate hoax. Critics of this hypothesis have argued that Voynichese is too complex to be nonsense. How could a medieval hoaxer produce 230 pages of script with so many subtle regularities in the structure and distribution of the words? But I have recently discovered that one can replicate many of the remarkable features of Voynichese using a simple coding tool that was available in the 16th century. The text generated by this technique looks much like Voynichese, but it is merely gibberish, with no hidden message. This finding does not prove that the Voynich manuscript is a hoax, but it does bolster the long-held theory that an English adventurer named Edward Kelley may have concocted the document to defraud Rudolph II. (The emperor reportedly paid a sum of 600 ducats--equivalent to about $50,000 today--for the manuscript.) Perhaps more important, I believe that the methods used in this analysis of the Voynich mystery can be applied to difficult questions in other areas. Tackling this hoary puzzle requires expertise in several fields, including cryptography, linguistics and medieval history. As a researcher into expert reasoning--the study of the processes used to solve complex problems--I saw my work on the Voynich manuscript as an informal test of an approach that could be used to identify new ways of tackling long-standing scientific questions. The key step is determining the strengths and weaknesses of the expertise in the relevant fields. Baby God's Eye? The first purported decryption of the Voynich manuscript came in 1921. William R. Newbold, a professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed that each character in the Voynich script contained tiny pen strokes that could be seen only under magnification and that these strokes formed an ancient Greek shorthand. Based on his reading of the code, Newbold declared that the Voynich manuscript had been written by 13th-century philosopher-scientist Roger Bacon and described discoveries such as the invention of the microscope. Within a decade, however, critics debunked Newbold's solution by showing that the alleged microscopic features of the letters were actually natural cracks in the ink. The Voynich manuscript appeared to be either an unusual code, an unknown language or a sophisticated hoax. Newbold's attempt was just the start of a string of failures. In the 1940s amateur code breakers Joseph M. Feely and Leonell C. Strong used substitution ciphers that assigned Roman letters to the characters in Voynichese, but the purported translations made little sense. At the end of World War II the U.S. military cryptographers who cracked the Japanese Imperial Navy's codes passed some spare time tackling ciphertexts--encrypted texts--from antiquity. The team deciphered every one except the Voynich manuscript. In 1978 amateur philologist John Stojko claimed that the text was written in Ukrainian with the vowels removed, but his translation--which included sentences such as Emptiness is that what Baby God's Eye is fighting for--did not jibe with the manuscript's illustrations nor with Ukrainian history. In 1987 a physician named Leo Levitov asserted that the document had been produced by the Cathars, a heretical sect that flourished in medieval
Cryptography Research's Nate Lawson to Speak at USENIX '04
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040628/sfm086_1.html Yahoo! Finance Press Release Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research's Nate Lawson to Speak at USENIX '04 Monday June 28, 9:05 am ET Presents Lessons Learned in Secure Storage for Digital Cinema SAN FRANCISCO, June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital cinema transforms the protection and physical transport of film cans into an outsourced storage security problem, but security expert Nate Lawson believes that conventional IT solutions are not up to the task. Lawson, senior security engineer at Cryptography Research, Inc., has used open source software to rapidly prototype digital cinema storage solutions and will offer advice on how to maintain security throughout the entire cinema life cycle, from filming and production to projection, at the USENIX '04 Annual Technical Conference. ADVERTISEMENT Lawson's presentation, Building a Secure Digital Cinema Server Using FreeBSD, is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 29 in the Boston Marriott Copley Place Hotel. Traditional storage security solutions are designed to operate within a data center under the data owner's physical management and control, but in digital cinema, the data representing the film passes through multiple parties with different incentives and levels of security, said Lawson. While encryption is important, it is not sufficient to ensure data integrity or provide the evidence needed to ensure accountability and mitigate leaks at critical junctures in film production and distribution. According to Lawson, the projection booth at the local cinema is rapidly taking on many of the aspects of a traditional IT data center, with racks of computers and storage devices, high-bandwidth LANs and SANs, and other equipment. Digital cinema is still in an embryonic stage, with about 90 digital cinema-ready theaters across the U.S. Lawson's talk will present new criteria for evaluating storage security solutions, from disk encryption or file system encryption to other storage security products, and show how open source software supported the rapid development of a prototype digital cinema server in a proprietary environment. Lawson will also discuss the importance of standardization efforts, including the Digital Cinema Initiative. Nate Lawson, senior security engineer at Cryptography Research, is focused on the design and analysis of platform and network security. Previously, he was the original developer of ISS RealSecure and various products for digital cinema, storage security, network mapping, and IPSEC. Nate has evaluated cryptographic systems for FIPS 140 and other secure standards. He is a FreeBSD developer in his spare time, contributing a SCSI target driver and working on ACPI and CAM. Nate holds a B.S. computer science degree from Cal Poly and is a member of USENIX and SMPTE. USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association, supports and disseminates practical research, provides a neutral forum for discussion of technical issues and encourages computing outreach into the community at large. USENIX conferences have become essential meeting grounds for the presentation and discussion of advanced developments in all aspects of computing systems. About Cryptography Research, Inc. Cryptography Research, Inc. provides consulting services and technology to solve complex security problems. In addition to security evaluation and applied engineering work, CRI is actively involved in long-term research in areas including tamper resistance, content protection, network security, and financial services. This year, security systems designed by Cryptography Research engineers will protect more than $60 billion of commerce for wireless, telecommunications, financial, digital television, and Internet industries. For additional information or to arrange a consultation with a member of our technical staff, please contact Jennifer Craft at 415-397-0329 or visit www.cryptography.com. Source: Cryptography Research, Inc. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Type III Anonymous message
-BEGIN TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE- Message-type: plaintext From: a.melon@ To: Major Variola (ret) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Bcc: Subject: Re: For Liars and Loafers, Cellphones Offer an Alibi Reply-To: In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, Major Variola (ret) ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote on 2004-06-27: At 11:53 PM 6/26/04 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: not to overpower the wanted signals on something like this. Even if this is doable, it is out of reach of Jane Citizen. Any signal you put out is trackable to you geographically, whether its a cell or GPS frequency. A GPS receiver doesn't broadcast its location. GPS works purely by analyzing the signals received from satellites. This is probably a design goal for military use, as well as a consequence of power requirements. There is no such thing as a GPS frequency. It seems that for CDMA or WCDMA phones the location service is defined in terms of messages on the normal network layer, see a Google search for position determination service order. -END TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE-
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On 2004-06-27T18:26:05-0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: On Sun, 27 Jun 2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote: snip All because you don't want to throw away your vote -- and register your disapproval with that state of affairs -- by voting for a guy who would make you feel decent and clean. In *any* election other than the one we face this November, I would agree with this 100%. But this time, I just can't. I fear the re-appointment of Bush more than any other political event. That the author of this is willing to overlook that he is knowingly helping to keep Bush in office, trampling those rights he claims to so cherish, totally negates his argument. But your vote will never make a difference in a presidential election. No such election has ever turned on one vote in any state, and it's not likely to. Trying to convince everyone to vote for Kerry is your prerogative, but if _you_ vote for Kerry in November while believing Badnarik is the best choice, you are wasting your vote. When it comes down to you and the ballot, vote your conscience. There's no quantum entanglement between your ballot and anyone else's. Obviously you may already believe all that and you may be agitating for Kerry precisely for those reasons. However, I don't like either Kerry or Bush so I have no problem explaining why you're stated position is wrong. -- Once you knew, you'd claim her, and I didn't want that. Not your decision to make. Yes, but it's the right decision, and I made it for my daughter. She deserved to be born with a clean slate. - Beatrix; Bill; Kill Bill V.2
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On 2004-06-27T17:53:05-0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-27-Sun-2004/opinion/24127406.html I will vote for a candidate who -- if he had his way -- would [...] pull us out of the deadly, illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq; and put the U.S. military back to work tracking down the real culprits of Sept. 11. Just because it's a deadly (what war isn't?) and illegal (Bush's lawyers would take issue with that) doesn't mean the proper course of action is to leave. Right or wrong, we created this mess. We now bear some responsibility for cleaning it up. Once everything is cleaned up, he's right: we should leave immediately. Have we yet fixed the pipelines that terrorists have blown up because of our presence in Iraq? At which point, if we can find them, you think it would be OK to just kill them? I asked the candidate last week. Sure, Badnarik said. Sounds about right to me. For some strange value of real culprits, perhaps. 19 of the real culprits are already dead, and who knows how many with some knowledge of the attacks are already in prison. From what I've heard about the way the cells operated, Atta had primary control over the details of the plan. Osama just had to approve it. Osama probably deserves to die for his role in various attacks, but is he a real culprit of 9/11? -- Once you knew, you'd claim her, and I didn't want that. Not your decision to make. Yes, but it's the right decision, and I made it for my daughter. - Beatrix; Bill ...Kill Bill Vol. 2
Re: Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
On Mon, Jun 28, 2004 at 12:25:02AM -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: (snip) Howard Dean threatened to turn the Democrats back into an actual political party again, so the Democrats, Republicans, and so-called liberal pro-establishment press made sure to stomp on him (and if that didn't look well-coordinated, you weren't paying attention.) John Stauber spoke at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair this last Solstice weekend, and talked a good bit about the myth of liberal media -- there is none. At least not in the corporate media world, and not even at NPR. He had a pretty good rant. http://www.prwatch.org/ So did Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. http://democracynow.org/ -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com Hoka hey!
Re: And now, USA Today Presents a Word from Horseman #2
On Mon, 28 Jun 2004, R. A. Hettinga wrote: Q: Can't terrorists be caught by tracing who posts their messages? A: You can track it. ... The question is, how deep can you go and how far can you go? Let me explain the layers. ... The first layer will be to look at the Web site and see the address. With the address, you can track the server (host computer) that is used - you can see where the Web site is based. Hr... Never heard of anycast I see... A: Someone might ask, Where can I find video of a Chechen slitting the throat of a Russian? A few lines later, someone will answer, Go to this Web site, and you'll see it. Q: People are looking for such things, then? Yeah. Even though this damn video is 4 years old, has made it through Stile Project, Ogrish, etc., there are still newbies who can't find their internet shoelaces. This, of course, makes them potential terrorists (for asking in the wrong place at the wrong time). A: Yes, and now we're coming to the speed at which things move. Once (terrorists' messages or video) appears somewhere, especially after an execution or dramatic event, within seconds it will be diffused and posted on other Web sites. You can find it within seconds all over the Internet. Even the beheading of Mr. Johnson. It was posted first on an Arab (Web) forum in England. But within seconds, it was also posted on American servers and American Web sites and then worldwide. Survivability baby! Lock, load, and jack in!! -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ...justice is a duty towards those whom you love and those whom you do not. And people's rights will not be harmed if the opponent speaks out about them. Osama Bin Laden
