Re: CDR: RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
-- On 1 Apr 2003 at 11:48, Mike Rosing wrote: Which is why MAD works. But a regular bombing run on a few oil refineries would put the US in a world of hurt really quickly, enough for them to pull a lot of their troops out of places that happen to be too close to Russia and China. Mexico isn't entirely happy with US policy, I'm sure they could be bribed into letting the other powers use their air and land space for a limited attack. The US won't use nukes to retaliate, which was the origin of this line of argument. This US will not retaliate argument seems insane. Maybe the US would not use nukes, but whatever it did use, everyone in the political apparatus of Mexico would be dead, and and some impressive bits of China and or Russia would be in flames. The US, like every other organization and bunch of people, will respond if attacked. What do you expect?Its in our genes, since we were worms in the precambrian mud. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG h36DwI5e5vKElHg28/4q4kfgUVDbydGrPgeZEKTW 4yX4xozKZVtShKVVoYTUKqhgLxnvl1fTT1cTOFgzC
Re: CDR: RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
-- On 1 Apr 2003 at 11:48, Mike Rosing wrote: Which is why MAD works. But a regular bombing run on a few oil refineries would put the US in a world of hurt really quickly, enough for them to pull a lot of their troops out of places that happen to be too close to Russia and China. Mexico isn't entirely happy with US policy, I'm sure they could be bribed into letting the other powers use their air and land space for a limited attack. The US won't use nukes to retaliate, which was the origin of this line of argument. If Russia, Chaina and the EU really wanted to, they could use conventional weapons and force the US to at least retreat from trying to rule the world. This supposes the US is trying to rule the world, which is not apparent -- at least not to the US. An attack on the US to stop it from trying to rule the world would be perceived as a plain and simple attack, and would provoke a corresponding response. If Russia bombs a US oil refinery with Mexican cooperation, the existing government in Mexico would wind up dead real fast, and some Russian ports would be in flames. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG baElAcTaVUiywf1LQXHkD3jjIL8tQmV8kXdn5eLe 4rHHMsZMLVskeVboCdgyhZ3sBET3r8d2Yi8x1eHS6
Re: Logging of Web Usage
Bill Frantz writes: The http://cryptome.org/usage-logs.htm URL says: Low resolution data in most cases is intended to be sufficient for marketing analyses. It may take the form of IP addresses that have been subjected to a one way hash, to refer URLs that exclude information other than the high level domain, or temporary cookies. Note that since IPv4 addresses are 32 bits, anyone willing to dedicate a computer for a few hours can reverse a one way hash by exhaustive search. Truncating IPs seems a much more privacy friendly approach. This problem would be less acute with IPv6 addresses. I'm skeptical that it will even take a few hours; on a 1.5 GHz desktop machine, using openssl speed, I see about a million hash operations per second. (It depends slightly on which hash you choose.) This is without compiling OpenSSL with processor-specific optimizations. That would imply a mean time to reverse the hash of about 2100 seconds, which we could probably improve with processor-specific optimizations or by buying a more recent machine. What's more, we can exclude from our search parts of the IP address space which haven't been allocated, and optimize the search by beginning with IP networks which are more likely to be the source of hits based on prior statistical evidence. Even without _any_ of these improvements, it's just about 35 minutes on average. I used to advocate one-way hashing for logs, but a 35-minute search on an ordinary desktop PC is not much obstacle. It might still be helpful if you used a keyed hash and then threw away the key after a short time period (perhaps every 6 hours). Then you can't identify or link visitors across 6-hour periods. If the key is very long, reversing the hash could become very hard. The logging problem will depend on what server operators are trying to accomplish. Some people just want to try to count unique visitors; strangely enough, they might get more privacy-protective (and comparably precise) results by issuing short-lived cookies. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Very frankly, I am opposed to people http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | being programmed by others. http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/ | -- Fred Rogers (1928-2003), |464 U.S. 417, 445 (1984)
Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort
Harmon Seaver wrote: If you read the history, there were just as many christer theologists and ministers arguing *for* slavery as there were against. Their religion was not the cause of their support for slavery; self-interest was. On the other hand, many, many abolitionists became devoted to the cause of ending slavery because of a religious conviction that slavery was evil. A significant number of these, especially among the Quaker faith, exposed themselves to great personal risk in aiding slaves to escape. Granted, but the entire christer establishment is behind the War On Some Drugs. Christer establishment? Are you out of your mind? We're talking about a country where a big stink was raised just because someone found the word god on a spelling list, and a student was suspended for giving classmates candy canes with a short religious note attached. And I don't think you'll find any historical evidence that the churches led the drive to impose the WOSD; law enforcement agents in danger of losing their jobs or budgets after the repeal of prohibition had a lot to do with that war. By definition persecutorial is bullshit. How so? If there is only one god and one way, then all others are wrong, and need to be stamped out. You're getting hysterical here. Need to be stamped out does not follow from only one way. There is only one correct answer to any given arithmetic problem, but that does not obligate accountants or mathematicians to go hunting down innumerate idiots who might insist that such matters are culturally relative. And I know of several Christian denominations whose doctrines explicitly prohibit forceful imposition of religion. Christer proselytizing and missions are by definition persecution of others. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya from _The Princess Bride_: By definition -- you keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means. You're so steeped in hyperbole that you can't even have a rational discussion. According to my dictionary, proselytizing is, by definition, to try to persuade someone to change their religious or political beliefs or their way of living to your own. Nary a word about persecution there, which is rarely effective in causing someone to adopt your *beliefs* I was a fundamentalist for a good many years, member in good standing (probably still am, for that matter, AFAIK) of the Assembly of God church. What makes you think fundamentalists are typical of Christianity as a whole? I suspect that your experience has given you a skewed perspective of Christianity. One good thing that Christianity and other religions do is instill a sense of right and wrong in people and thereby promote adherence to basic standards of conduct. Baaahhhhhhaaa ROFL In other words, you can't formulate a cogent argument against this point. Ever heard of the Ten Commandments? Most of these deal with treating others well. I can't speak for how they do things in the A of G, but my own religious upbringing taught me to view it as a deeply shameful thing to lie, steal, strike a woman, etc. You simply couldn't do these things and still feel good about yourself. This kind of endogenous aversion to antisocial behavior is sorely lacking in post-Christian America. As Christianity (and religion in general) has waned in America, no adequate replacement for this function has emerged. Perhaps as a result, American culture no longer values honor and honesty. It never did. The ultra-religious christers who landed at Plymouth Rock had no compunction against robbing and murdering native americans, This is a problem endemic to humanity: a failure to apply moral laws to those outside of the tribe. It is not exclusive to Christians. The Yanamato Indians, for example, view anyone outside of their tribe as non-human, no better than animals, and killing such bipedal beasts is no more immoral than stepping on a cockroach. *** I will conclude by saying that you retain all the trappings of a True Believer. The specific beliefs may have changed, but the extremism, closing of one's mind to all contrary evidence, the zealotry, the need to evangelize, and the need to demonize contrary beliefs are all still there.
Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
Damian Gerow wrote: I can only see two reasons for bombing with nuclear weapons: hate and stupidity. That being said, you'd have to *really* hate someone (or an entire country) to actually /use/ a nuclear weapon. That's nonsense. I can think of several entirely ethical uses of nuclear weapons, with the usage not motivated by hate but simple utility: 1. You have a large invading fleet approaching your nation. A few nukes out in the middle of the ocean could handily take out the fleet without getting any innocent bystanders. (This scenario occurs in one of Poul Anderson's novels.) 2. You have a large invading army crossing an uninhabited wasteland. Again, tactical nukes would be useful and ethical here. Use airbursts, though, to avoid producing a lot of fallout. 3. Power generation. One scheme I once read about for a fusion reactor involved digging a deep cavern, exploding a nuke within it every once in a while, and having the resulting heat drive your electrical generators. 4. Interplanetary transportation of a massive payload. Project Orion, anyone?
Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort
On 2 Apr 2003 at 22:02, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Christer establishment? Are you out of your mind? We're talking about a country where a big stink was raised just because someone found the word god on a spelling list. This is irrelevant.You are looking at specifcs of court ordered behavior to fit the requirements of the 1A, which has very little to do with the behavior of the government in non-1A situations. Consider virtually the entire House (when was the last time you saw the entire House do anything) reciting the under God part of the pledge or singing God Bless America which was done specifically in response to people asking for a more secular display of patriotism, the countless 'in God we trust' LAWS being passed throughout the country, the very direct involvement of religious leaders (Graham, Robertson etc) in the White House, and the fact that EVERY move to suppress 'drugs' or 'pornography' or 'gambling' is associated with a flood of religious terminology. This country, despite the lines in the sand drawn by some of the courts, is obsessed with religion, and very superstitious, small minded religion at that. Jay
Re: Logging of Web Usage
John Young wrote: Ben, Would you care to comment for publication on web logging described in these two files: http://cryptome.org/no-logs.htm http://cryptome.org/usage-logs.htm Cryptome invites comments from others who know the capabilities of servers to log or not, and other means for protecting user privacy by users themselves rather than by reliance upon privacy policies of site operators and government regulation. This relates to the data retention debate and current initiatives of law enforcement to subpoena, surveil, steal and manipulate log data. I don't have time right now to comment in detail (I will try to later), but it seems to me that, as someone else commented, relying on operators to not keep logs is really not the way to go. If you want privacy or anonymity, then you have to create it for yourself, not expect others to provide it for you. Of course, it is possible to reduce your exposure to others whilst still taking advantage of privacy-enhancing services they offer. Two obvious examples of this are the mixmaster anonymous remailer network, and onion routing. It seems to me if you want to make serious inroads into privacy w.r.t. logging of traffic, then what you want to put your energy into is onion routing. There is _still_ no deployable free software to do it, and that is ridiculous[1]. It seems to me that this is the single biggest win we can have against all sorts of privacy invasions. Make log retention useless for any purpose other than statistics and maintenance. Don't try to make it only used for those purposes. Cheers, Ben. [1] FWIW, I'd be willing to work on that, but not on my own (unless someone wants to keep me in the style to which I am accustomed, that is). -- http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/ There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit. - Robert Woodruff
Re: Logging of Web Usage
At 01:05 AM 4/3/2003 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: Relying on httpd operators to protect those who access is plain silly, even if echelon (funny how that word dropped below radar lately) did not exist. Echelon could be grouped together with Carnivore and CALEA devices into the group of Generic Transport-level Eavesdroppers. No need to consider it separately, at least for technological purposes. (...am I right?) What doesn't exist is mixmaster-grade anon re-httpers. I guess that ones that would let just text through (no images/scripting etc.) would be repulsive enough for wide public and therefore useful. Could it be constructed as eg. a FreeNet extension? Piggybacking on an existing system is easier than rolling out a whole new thing. I've mentioned this before, but have you looked at the JAP Dresden Univ.? http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html steve
Foreign adventures and economic imperialism
On Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 07:05 PM, James A. Donald wrote: -- On 1 Apr 2003 at 11:48, Mike Rosing wrote: Which is why MAD works. But a regular bombing run on a few oil refineries would put the US in a world of hurt really quickly, enough for them to pull a lot of their troops out of places that happen to be too close to Russia and China. Mexico isn't entirely happy with US policy, I'm sure they could be bribed into letting the other powers use their air and land space for a limited attack. The US won't use nukes to retaliate, which was the origin of this line of argument. If Russia, Chaina and the EU really wanted to, they could use conventional weapons and force the US to at least retreat from trying to rule the world. This supposes the US is trying to rule the world, which is not apparent -- at least not to the US. What is to the US referring to? To the Bush Administration, to a majority of Congress, what? To _this_ American, namely, me, it is apparent that Pax Americana is the goal. By my definition of rule, then, yes, America wants to rule much of the world. No, they don't want to micromanage the details. But they certainly want pliable governments that will not be _too_ democratic (as we don't want Islamists elected) and that will be cooperative with oil interests, military basing requests, etc. And now that the U.S. is the world's only hyperpower and is willing to spend the money of its citizens in vastly expensive foreign wars, it has decided to launch pre-emptive wars to ensure cooperative governments. It is economic imperialism, pure and simple. Not the kind that the lefties used to complain about, the so-called economic imperialism of McDonald's and Hollywood and Nike. No, this is the real kind of economic imperialism, where gunboats and bombers are used to implement regime change when there has been no demonstrated clear and present danger from a foreign state. I see nothing in the United States Constitution that supports this interventionist, imperial policy. Certainly no libertarian should be supporting the use of national force to go and change the government of a distant country when its own people have failed to do so. --Tim May Getting to Tim May's house in Corralitos: 427 Allan Lane (MapQuest works well). 831-728-0152 From Santa Cruz, south on Highway 1. Take Freedom Boulevard exit in Aptos. Go inland, on Freedom Blvd. Travel about 5 miles, to first stop sign. Take a left on Corralitos Road. At the the next stop sign, the Corralitos Market (good sausages!) will be on your left. Just before the stop sign, bear right on Brown's Valley Road. Cross bridge and then bear left as Brown's Valley Road turns. Travel about one mile to Allan Lane, on the right. Allan Lane is at about the 360 mailbox point on Brown's Valley Road...if you go too far and enter the redwoods, turn back! Drive to top of hill on Allan Lane. At top, bear left, over a small rise, past a house on the left, then down my driveway. My house will be the white stucco semi-Spanish style, with a red Explorer and black Mercedes in the driveway. Note for parties: You can park either in my driveway or at the top of the hill and walk a few hundred feet. Don't block any driveways! From points south of Santa Cruz, take Green Valley Road exit off of Highway 1. Travel about 2 miles to Freedom Boulevard. Turn left. Then right at Corralitos Road.
Re: CDR: RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
If Russia, Chaina and the EU really wanted to, they could use conventional weapons and force the US to at least retreat from trying to rule the world. This supposes the US is trying to rule the world, which is not apparent -- at least not to the US. I am afraid it's more than just apparent. I personally am not exactly comfortable with the idea of a wannabe world ruler, especially with Bushites in charge. Forwarded message follows: - Subject: [gulfwar-2] FYI: the New American Century From: Ben McGinnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello, Some here may have already seen articles in various news papers and agencies about a U.S. think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Specifically regarding a report drafted by that group which promotes the benefit to the world of American military supremacy. Most of the news articles only cite the original article by the Irish Sunday Herald: http://www.sundayherald.com/print27735 This article is dated September 15th, last year and is somewhat sparse in details of the report. Those interested in seeing the report, which given its origin and the who members of PNAC are, can obtain the PDF from the PNAC website: http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf There is a HTML copy available here: http://cryptome.org/rad.htm It makes for very interesting reading, especially given the number of members of both the current and previous Bush Administrations involved with PNAC. Regards, Ben
Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort?
Harmon Seaver wrote: No, they weren't christian -- they were followers of Rabbi Yeshua ben Yoseph ha Natzri, later called Mesheach ha Israel. [...] Jesus and Christ and christianity were something invented by the europeans [...] [Marcion] took a scissors and cut out anything that was at all favorable to the jews and burned it [...] the council at nicea where they excommunicated all the Palistinian, etc. followers of the Rabbi [...] as soon as they were made the official church, they went about destroying the old religion's temples, sacred texts, etc and persecuting the followers. These are some interesting assertions; oddly enough, they sound similar to the Mormon doctrine of a Great Apostasy. Can you give some references? I like to dabble in history from time to time, and this sounds like something interesting, if true.
Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
4. Interplanetary transportation of a massive payload. Project Orion, anyone? Don't forget a more realistic scenario: an asteroid on a collision course. Another use can be quick construction of large underground storage tanks for gas or oil. Or extracting the rest of oil from almost empty oil bed. The heat and pressure wave will crush the porous rock, forcing the oil out. (I am not sure if I quote it right, WAY too many years ago I read it in some popular-science book.) Or large-scale planetary construction works. (The meek shall inherit the Earth - the others aim for the stars.) Or pumping of one-shot gamma lasers. (What you want to use them for is on you, though.) MANY more uses.
Re: CDR: RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Damian Gerow wrote: The list can go on and on. The US is *not* a popular country right now. Not only could I see Mexico turning a blind eye, but I can see a large part of the world taking the same stance. I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying. The US, I'd like to believe, isn't dumb enough to actually use its nuclear weapons, especially on its own continent. Move across the ocean, and I'm less sure of this, though. Like Harmon said, the world is already boycotting US production of food, it wouldn't take much to boycott everything. But if a few attacks here and there take place, I don't think anyone in the world is going to cry for the US. I'd rather see the Green party (and Russian) attempts at having George W. Bush indicted as a War Criminal for this attack on Iraq. Much more peaceful, delivers a much stronger message, and rids the guy of his power trip. I was just daydreaming about this whild doging cars on my bicycle this morning. It would be cool to see Bush in the Hague! Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
cooperative evil bit
ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3514.txt excerpt: 1. Introduction Firewalls [CBR03], packet filters, intrusion detection systems, and the like often have difficulty distinguishing between packets that have malicious intent and those that are merely unusual. The problem is that making such determinations is hard. To solve this problem, we define a security flag, known as the evil bit, in the IPv4 [RFC791] header. Benign packets have this bit set to 0; those that are used for an attack will have the bit set to 1. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com
Re: cooperative evil bit
Dumbass! - Have you ever heard of April fools? --Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--- + ^ + :NSA got $20Bil/year |Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :and didn't stop 9-11|share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ --*--:Instead of rewarding|monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :their failures, we |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :should get refunds! |site, and you must change them very often. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Morlock Elloi wrote: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3514.txt excerpt: 1. Introduction Firewalls [CBR03], packet filters, intrusion detection systems, and the like often have difficulty distinguishing between packets that have malicious intent and those that are merely unusual. The problem is that making such determinations is hard. To solve this problem, we define a security flag, known as the evil bit, in the IPv4 [RFC791] header. Benign packets have this bit set to 0; those that are used for an attack will have the bit set to 1. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com
Re: Nuking kasmir (Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV)
helo, Hilarious, dude. Who got nukes first? India. Nope US did. India got after US and before pakistan.Pak claims to have nukes since 1983,though they were tested only in 1999-his report comes frm pakistan. See your own propoganda site, US is not the only counrty who can do that :-) We are tired of watching CNN and BBC.Even local news papers do carry more truth of whats happening around the world. http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper451.html THE MAY 1998 POKHRAN TESTS: Scientific Aspects by R. Chidambaram for a nice tech description of your past and recent gizmos. And your blackmailing agitprop is taken straight from http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper482.html PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR BLACKMAILING: Spreading fear of nuclear terror by Dr. Rajesh Kumar Mishra (which is a typical paper topic by South Asia Analysis Group, which seems to be an Indian 1960's RAND). More than propaganda-they pubicly claimed that nukes are not made to be kept on the shelves.Any way there is nothing much any body can do about it-be it india or pak or US or Russia.India also has a self imposed moretarium of no first use of nukes. US conducted nearly a thousand nuclear tests over the years and imposed sanctions on india and pak for testing nukes.Every one does have a propaganda whether the US likes it or not and US is not the only country who can do what they like :-). Regards Sarath. Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com
RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
The suicide bombers will come here entirely on their own for the most part, or perhaps with the help of Al-queda type groups. There will be no country to retaliate against. That alone could easily send us into a But that wouldn't be a good escape for a govt: mind your pawns (er, citizens) or we'll whack you. The US (and a lot of countries I'm sure) would see this as a good opportunity to target countries where bombers come from, whether or not they are govt approved or govt created. If they are, the reaction would be military. If they are not, the reaction would be more covert, with a part of political pressure for laws which follow what the US do at home, and more, due to the absence of the constitution and US negative public opinion. Or do you mean that the CIA will seek to undermine the governments of countries that boycott the US? It might not even be a gov't Undermine, and more. The CIA has a lot of practice with that, changing govts for one more palatable to the US foreign policy. Even without getting there, appropriate pressure on an existing govt can go a long way to make a country's policy more helpful. And, if done well, without the backlash provoked by military intervention. -- Vincent Penquerc'h
RE: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
Right, we won't use nukes, we'll just use 'depleted' uranium core artillery, thermobaric bunker busters (aka mini-nukes), daisy cutters and MOABS; After all, those aren't weapons of mass destruction. --Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--- + ^ + :NSA got $20Bil/year |Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :and didn't stop 9-11|share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ --*--:Instead of rewarding|monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :their failures, we |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :should get refunds! |site, and you must change them very often. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sunder.net On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, James A. Donald wrote: This US will not retaliate argument seems insane. Maybe the US would not use nukes, but whatever it did use, everyone in the political apparatus of Mexico would be dead, and and some impressive bits of China and or Russia would be in flames.
Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
Kevin S. Van Horn [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I can think of several entirely ethical uses of nuclear weapons, with the usage not motivated by hate but simple utility: 1. You have a large invading fleet approaching your nation. A few nukes out in the middle of the ocean could handily take out the fleet without getting any innocent bystanders. (This scenario occurs in one of Poul Anderson's novels.) 2. You have a large invading army crossing an uninhabited wasteland. Again, tactical nukes would be useful and ethical here. Use airbursts, though, to avoid producing a lot of fallout. The Wall of Stalin: Detonate a string of dirty nukes along the Iraqi border with Kuwait/Saudi Arabia. Suddenly Dubya decides there are much better places to play soldiers, he'll look at the Iraqi thing again in 6,000 years or so. Peter.
Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort?
Harmon Seaver wrote: You don't translate names. Especially you don't change the name of the god. Read the Old Testament, see how incredibly many times you find phrases like the holy name of the lord, blessed be the name, the wonderful name, etc. You don't even know the difference between translation and transliteration.
Regime Change in Washington
Operation American Freedom has gained a powerful new ally, as Senator John Kerry of Massachussets is now calling for regime change in Washington, D.C. Dug-in on the other side of the river, the criminal Bush regime is protected by the elite Republican Guard. And they are known to possess weapons of mass destruction and to be in contravention of many U.N. resolutions. Neutral analysts point to the fact that Arab-Americans and libertarians who have been far milder in their calls for regime change have had their houses raided and themselves threatened with military tribunals. The soldiers in Operation American Freedom will treat any failure to raid Kerry's house as ipso facto evidence of his collusion with the criminal regime in Washington.
Language and name changes
On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 11:43 AM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Harmon Seaver wrote: Ever hear of King Ferdinand of Spain? His real name was, of course, Fernando -- Ferdinand is merely the English equivalent. Likewise, English and Spanish speakers use different names for the same explorer -- Christopher Columbus vs. Cristobal Colon. Yes, the americans and brits are infamous for their total ignorance and disregard for the sensetivities of others. This phenomenon is not limited to the English-speaking world. The Spanish use the name Londres for London, for example. Arguing with Harmon is pointless, of course. Having lived in Europe and having a bunch of atlases in French, German, Spanish, and other languages, it's obvious that name-changing of country names and city names is common to others besides the insensitive Americans and Brits. --Tim May
RE: Trials for those undermining the war effort?
Harmon Seaver[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 10:12:53AM -0600, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Harmon Seaver wrote: Translate/transliterate is irrelevant -- you don't change people's names, Ever hear of King Ferdinand of Spain? His real name was, of course, Fernando -- Ferdinand is merely the English equivalent. Likewise, English and Spanish speakers use different names for the same explorer -- Christopher Columbus vs. Cristobal Colon. Yes, the americans and brits are infamous for their total ignorance and disregard for the sensetivities of others. It's called the Ugly American/Ugly Brit syndrome. And it's part and parcel of why the rest of the world hates us. It's a wonder they haven't changed the name of the Prophet Mohammed to Mumbo or something equally inane. And Allah to asshole. And then of course there were those moron christer monks who in the 13th century decided to create a new name for god himself, and stuck Jehovah into the text. Harmon Seaver Don't lets beat up on ourselves too much here. After all, the French call Deutschland Allemagne, just as we call it Germany. They also call England Angleterre, and Scotland Ecosse (at least the latter two are derivative). OTOH, the utter ignorance of many Americans of things overseas was brought home to me just a few minutes ago. I went to the local PO to send an express letter to Estonia. There were two clerks at the counter (small town). Me: What's the fastest way I can send this to Estonia? C1: Where's that? Me: Europe. C1: Err - is that a country? Me: Yes. It's south of Finland. C1: You'll have to spell it. I do so, and she starts to punch it into the computer. C1: Ah! there it is. Fill out these Express Mail forms. I do so and come back to the counter. Now dealing with clerk 2. Me: I need to send this to Estonia. C2: Where's that? C1: I checked. It's for real. Me: It's north of Latvia. C2: I don't know that one either. Peter Trei
Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism
-- If Russia, Chaina and the EU really wanted to, they could use conventional weapons and force the US to at least retreat from trying to rule the world. James A. Donald: This supposes the US is trying to rule the world, which is not apparent -- at least not to the US. Tim May What is to the US referring to? To the Bush Administration, to a majority of Congress, what? To _this_ American, namely, me, it is apparent that Pax Americana is the goal. They believe their aim, Pax Americana, is a world of independent, moderately capitalist, democratic countries -- to do to the whole world what was done to Germany, Japan, and Napoleonic France. Now I suspect, and doubtless many of the reluctant recipients of this generosity suspect, that this good intention will not lead to a good outcome -- that a bourgeois democracy cannot be created merely by force, that the actual outcome will merely be the imposition of a tyrant supposedly less dangerous to US interests -- imperialism. Of course, the US ability to pick tyrants less dangerous to US interests is none too good. However because the administration is certain in its own righteousness, a certainty not entirly implausible, mere outside force is unlikely to change the administration's program. If the outside world should apply sterner measures, this is more likely to convince the administration, and a majority of Americans, that regime change in Paris is advisable, than to convince them that regime change in Baghdad is inadvisable. But they certainly want pliable governments that will not be _too_ democratic (as we don't want Islamists elected) and that will be cooperative with oil interests, military basing requests, etc. It seems probable that the majority of each Iraqi religious and racial group wil vote for the expulsion or liquidation of all the other groups, unless of course they all unite on the issue of war with Israel, in which case the US will wind up turning a blind eye to the suppression of democracy, as it has done in Kurdish areas. But again, it is not obvious that genuine democracy will produce an outcome unacceptable to the US. The Islamicist Iranian government could not win a fair and free election. The US government and people's faith in the righteousness and feasibility of their program is not provably misplaced. They do not think they are imperialists, and their sincerity is not obviously delusive. It is economic imperialism, pure and simple. Not the kind that the lefties used to complain about, the so-called economic imperialism of McDonald's and Hollywood and Nike. No, this is the real kind of economic imperialism, where gunboats and bombers are used to implement regime change when there has been no demonstrated clear and present danger from a foreign state. Indeed its imperialism -- but I doubt it is economic. This war is ideological. The Baathist program is a combination of communism and nazism. The racial element of their program is to unite all arabic speaking people by force under a single supposedly charismatic leadership, so as to restore the rightful place of arabs in the world, subduing its non arab neighbors under arab rule -- a secular and socialist version of Bin Laden's program. I suspect that had the US let nature take its course, the true horror of this program would have became apparent, and the united arab regime would eventually collapse in flames, after several decades of inflicting enormous horror on arabs and their immediate neighbors, and that during this period they would pump oil like mad to finance enormous war expenditure. The flaw in the administration's program is not that it is driven by evil oil companies seeking to steal oil, or evil Jews seeking to steal land, but that it is driven by a dangerously great faith in democracy, a failure to realise that democracy does not work in general, that it has worked in some countries, some of the time, by a fortunate historical accident that arguably no longer applies even in those countries. Now it may well turn out, probably will turn out, that when these idealistic ideas do not work out, the US government all too easily proceed to give the Israeli lobby what it wants, contrary to US interests, but they do not think of themselves as tools of the Zionist occupation forces. I see nothing in the United States Constitution that supports this interventionist, imperial policy. Everything the Federal government does except the post office, the patent office, and defence against imminent foreign threats is unconstitutional, and the post office and the patent office are bad ideas also. Why should its activites in Iraq be different? --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG EgpO9WrR9/RWinkTF6JBYeh+W2fhmDrOdLqTtIU7 4m9PM+4Fj9hF/SinIE8Hkns1d7Cqrk/tg31MB3T+x
Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism
On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 11:37 AM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Tyler Durden wrote: As far as I can tell, we've been actively meddling in foreign governments since the early 1950s. I haven't been; have you? If not, then you shouldn't use the term we. One of the mind games that state worshippers play on the populace is to get them to identify with the state -- and so emotionally defend its foreign adventures -- through the misuse of we when they really mean the government. Exactly. (I don't claim to be perfect--there are times when I have used the words we and our in connection with the United States. But I've also used we and our in terms of what the Founders very obviously meant, in contrast to what later rulers like Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the rulers of the past 50 years have claimed to represent.) One of the clearest statements of what libertarians usually support came from P.J. O'Rourke when he put it this way: Would you kill your grandmother for this? Meaning, anytime a law or a foreign involvement is contemplated, ask oneself whether the law is just enough to warrant killing someone close to you for it. The implications for the vast number of bullshit laws we have in the U.S. (and worse in most parts of Europe) are clear, I think. As for foreign wars, I don't support having tax collectors take my money (substantial amounts of it, but that's another topic) and use it to protect oil company interests or to engage in humanitarian efforts. If my neighbor wishes to contribute to the Ruwandans or the Iraqi Liberation Front, he is welcome to. (Modulo the fact that Americans are no longer to fund the charities of their choosing, as a few hundred citizens in indefininate detention can attest to, were they able to speak to lawyers or others.) --Tim May
RE: Nuking kasmir (Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV)
Sarad AV[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: helo, Hilarious, dude. Who got nukes first? India. Nope US did. India got after US and before pakistan.Pak claims to have nukes since 1983,though they were tested only in 1999-his report comes frm pakistan. For those to young to remember, India detonated it's first nuclear device way back in May 1974. Check out http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/India/IndiaFirstBomb.html which has a remarkably detailed description of the gadget. Peter Trei
Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism
At 11:54 AM -0800 4/3/03, Tim May wrote: If my neighbor wishes to contribute to the Ruwandans or the Iraqi Liberation Front, he is welcome to. Operation Iraqi Liberation has a better acronym. Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
Re: Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee
On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 05:06 AM, Sunder wrote: http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,58326,00.html Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee By Leander Kahney 02:00 AM Apr. 03, 2003 PT Friends of an Intel programmer who is being held in a federal prison can't help but shake their heads in disbelief. They've also launched a website pushing for his release and collecting donations for his defense. The most salient explanation for the arrest seems to be a link between the programmer, Maher Mike Hawash, and a charitable organization to which he donated a fairly large sum three years ago. The U.S. government has subsequently tagged the charity as having ties to terrorism. SNIP So far they haven't been able to get this guy released, but what about the thousands of others who are being held in the USA PATRIOT version of concentration camps who aren't programmers and don't work for intel? Thanks for posting this. I hadn't heard about it. I know the Intel VP (former, actually) involved in his defense: Steve McGeady. Actually, defense is the wrong word, as this Intel engineer is being held incommunicado, with no charges, no lawyers, nothing. Reading the blogs devoted to this (best found by entering search strings like hawash and intel into Google), I found a Wall Street Journal article on the case of those Buffalo men who pleaded guilty. Why? Well, they were threatened with being charged as enemy combatants in a military tribunal, with even fewer legal rights, mush harsher sentences (including an extra 30 years each for treason and weapons). It's obvious that we are deeply into police state status. Thousands held without charges, without trial. Threats to take citizens inside our country and subject them to military courts. Libraries ordered to turn over names of patrons reading thoughtcrime books. Private companies like Google and credit card companies willingly bending over for Big Brother. Now the latest is that FBI is combing the country searching for those who have done Web searches on ricin, castor beans, etc. Wait until they realize the links between members of this list and Jim Bell, and his alleged production of ricin. (And his Intel connection...maybe he was Hawash's secret handler) Perilous times. I doubt the U.S. is salvageable at this point. --Tim May
Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism
This is an important point, and begs the obvious question: Are we responsible for what our government does? (Let me push Tyler away from the keyboard...fortunately he seems to be most active when I am asleep...) If I pay my taxes, aren't I to some extent funding the war effort? Of course, one could make the argument If I don't pay I'll go to jail...well the easy reply is you should go to jail or move to another country rather than pay your taxes to fuck over other countries and their people. Clearly, the September 11th 'Pilots' (are you still called a pilot if you never felt the need to learn how to land a plane?) believed rather firmly that regular US citizens -are- responsible for the actions of their government. And indeed, it might be argued that our duty as moral humans is to overthrow or attempt to undermine a regime from which we (well, some of us) clearly benefit, but which does so at the expense of others. Indeed, don't we Americans often flippantly say They should overthrow their government...? (Tyler clearly believes this...somehow, when he gets talking like this he seems ever more 'real', and that's when he starts yammering about being the 'real' Tyler Durden, whatever the hell that means.) Is peaceful change, etc... possible? I'd like to think so. However, there may come a point where peaceful solution is really just a lazy dream designed to permit us to ignore our responsibility... There may be a third option, of which crypto is a part. This is more re-evolutionary in that it represents slow steps towards change that can possibly be resisted for a short while but in the long run demands that resistors step out of the way or get squashed. In this sense, Crypto is 'peaceful' as long as its not resisted too strongly. It itself (as opposed to what it carries) becomes some form of armament only by the power of the resistors. Perhaps, then, working on the proliferation of such tools is partly enough to exonerate one from responsibility for what 'we' are doing overseas. -Jack From: Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Foreign adventures and economic imperialism Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:54:55 -0800 On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 11:37 AM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Tyler Durden wrote: As far as I can tell, we've been actively meddling in foreign governments since the early 1950s. I haven't been; have you? If not, then you shouldn't use the term we. One of the mind games that state worshippers play on the populace is to get them to identify with the state -- and so emotionally defend its foreign adventures -- through the misuse of we when they really mean the government. Exactly. (I don't claim to be perfect--there are times when I have used the words we and our in connection with the United States. But I've also used we and our in terms of what the Founders very obviously meant, in contrast to what later rulers like Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the rulers of the past 50 years have claimed to represent.) One of the clearest statements of what libertarians usually support came from P.J. O'Rourke when he put it this way: Would you kill your grandmother for this? Meaning, anytime a law or a foreign involvement is contemplated, ask oneself whether the law is just enough to warrant killing someone close to you for it. The implications for the vast number of bullshit laws we have in the U.S. (and worse in most parts of Europe) are clear, I think. As for foreign wars, I don't support having tax collectors take my money (substantial amounts of it, but that's another topic) and use it to protect oil company interests or to engage in humanitarian efforts. If my neighbor wishes to contribute to the Ruwandans or the Iraqi Liberation Front, he is welcome to. (Modulo the fact that Americans are no longer to fund the charities of their choosing, as a few hundred citizens in indefininate detention can attest to, were they able to speak to lawyers or others.) --Tim May _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
hi, yes-thats probabaly why they nuked hirsoshima and nagasaki. Dont undermine the hate.There was no logic either.There was no logic in nuking thousand of people in hirsohma saying their existance is less important to thousands of people who might live,if the city was nuked. Sarath.
Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV
hi, Why are the suicide bombers after US troops-its the hate.It does work .Yesterday at najaf(iraq)-a family of 8 women and atleast 2 children were killed by allied troops.They claimed that the vehicle sped towards an allied check post.So they fired warning shots to *stop* the vehicle. When it didn't stop-they opened fire at the passenger compartment.Then they figured out they were a family(iraqi civilains fleeing).One of the women was still hodling the bodies of 2 children and she refused to step out.The allied troops maintained that they had the right defend themself at check posts and any where. They said that they would have to be careful of suicide bombers. When a vehicle tries to flee at high speed-how can they be suicide bombers.A suicide bomber will go slow,stop at the check post and see that he can kill as many people as possible. where was the logic in killing these civilians-and this report was confirmed by allied soldiers. For those who read this-the hate is growing,all over the world. Silly PC language about how when the hate grows logic doesn't work is pointless, Ghandian nonsense. If India does not withdraw from Kashmir, Pakistan will nuke Delhi, Calcutta, Hyderabad, and the aptly-named Mumbai. Thats part of the hate-you are condradicting. Jibberish about hate and love and violence never solves anything needs to be introduced to Mr. Atom. --Tim May As long as the US thinks it can flex its muscles-the going gets bad.The sooner it realises the better it is for its citizens. Sarath. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com
Re: S-Tools Stego makes an appearance in Law and Order-SVU
At 07:15 AM 3/31/03 +0200, Thomas Shaddack wrote: For very-low-bandwidth data transfers hidden in wideband streams, we could maybe use timing of packets. Wouldn't work with more congested networks, and would need some kind of REALLY heavy-duty error correction, but could be rather difficult to spot. Do some reasonable error-correction on it, and then implement IP over it. Hey, we *said* it was an unreliable transport protocol :) The signal could be transported in the intervals between the IP packets sent, or by dropping selected packets and requesting retransmissions, or by swapping the order of some packets. The constraint here is that an outsider mustn't be able to distinguish the performance of a stego-enabled system from a non-stego system. So I think you'd have to be really careful about dropping very many packets, swapping packets, etc. As a first cut, suppose I have a sort of encoding mask for two different bits, e.g. 0 == 01010101 1 == 10101010 Then I decide whether to delay packets by some very small amount based on which mask I'm using, adding a really small delay whenever there's a 1. The receiver tries both masks, and chooses the more probable one. (For the nine packets he receives, he does some statistics on the delays between packets, and assigns probabilities of 1 symbols in each location, throws out obvious outliers, etc., and then chooses the most probable decoding.) The goal here would be to get down to delays that were small enough that an attacker who didn't know the two candidate masks would have a very low probability of being able to distinguish the behavior of a stego-enabled system from a non-stego system. Sort of like having a timing attack which is impractical because the attacker must guess too much internal information before he can test his guess Has anyone done this kind of scheme in the open literature before? This seems like the sort of thing someone would have investigated as a covert channel for leaking information from a compromised system. The world is crammed full with unused communication channels. Yep. Mostly unused because they're not all that reliable, or because they offer too little bandwidth to be worthwhile, alas. ... --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chomsky: Iraq is a trial run
What Chomsky says below is no suprise to most of those on this list, left/right/other. What IS of interest is that fact that a universal consensus seems to be emerging about the US's role in the world, and Chomsky articulates this sentiment. -TD (from www.zmag.org) IRAQ Noam Chomsky , University Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founder of the modern science of linguistics and political activist, is a powerhouse of anti-imperialist activism in the United States today. On March 21, a crowded and typical - and uniquely Chomskyan - day of political protest and scientific academic research, he spoke from his office for half an hour to V. K. Ramachandran on the current attack on Iraq. V. K. Ramachandran :Does the present aggression on Iraq represent a continuation of United States' international policy in recent years or a qualitatively new stage in that policy? Noam Chomsky : It represents a significantly new phase. It is not without precedent, but significantly new nevertheless. This should be seen as a trial run. Iraq is seen as an extremely easy and totally defenceless target. It is assumed, probably correctly, that the society will collapse, that the soldiers will go in and that the U.S. will be in control, and will establish the regime of its choice and military bases. They will then go on to the harder cases that will follow. The next case could be the Andean region, it could be Iran, it could be others. The trial run is to try and establish what the U.S. calls a new norm in international relations. The new norm is preventive war (notice that new norms are established only by the United States). So, for example, when India invaded East Pakistan to terminate horrendous massacres, it did not establish a new norm of humanitarian intervention, because India is the wrong country, and besides, the U.S. was strenuously opposed to that action. This is not pre-emptive war; there is a crucial difference. Pre-emptive war has a meaning, it means that, for example, if planes are flying across the Atlantic to bomb the United States, the United States is permitted to shoot them down even before they bomb and may be permitted to attack the air bases from which they came. Pre-emptive war is a response to ongoing or imminent attack. The doctrine of preventive war is totally different; it holds that the United States - alone, since nobody else has this right - has the right to attack any country that it claims to be a potential challenge to it. So if the United States claims, on whatever grounds, that someone may sometime threaten it, then it can attack them. The doctrine of preventive war was announced explicitly in the National Strategy Report last September. It sent shudders around the world, including through the U.S. establishment, where, I might say, opposition to the war is unusually high. The National Strategy Report said, in effect, that the U.S. will rule the world by force, which is the dimension - the only dimension - in which it is supreme. Furthermore, it will do so for the indefinite future, because if any potential challenge arises to U.S. domination, the U.S. will destroy it before it becomes a challenge. This is the first exercise of that doctrine. If it succeeds on these terms, as it presumably will, because the target is so defenceless, then international lawyers and Western intellectuals and others will begin to talk about a new norm in international affairs. It is important to establish such a norm if you expect to rule the world by force for the foreseeable future. This is not without precedent, but it is extremely unusual. I shall mention one precedent, just to show how narrow the spectrum is. In 1963, Dean Acheson, who was a much respected elder statesman and senior Adviser of the Kennedy Administration, gave an important talk to the American Society of International Law, in which he justified the U. S. attacks against Cuba. The attack by the Kennedy Administration on Cuba was large-scale international terrorism and economic warfare. The timing was interesting - it was right after the Missile Crisis, when the world was very close to a terminal nuclear war. In his speech, Acheson said that no legal issue arises when the United States responds to challenges to its position, prestige or authority, or words approximating that. That is also a statement of the Bush doctrine. Although Acheson was an important figure, what he said had not been official government policy in the post-War period. It now stands as official policy and this is the first illustration of it. It is intended to provide a precedent for the future. Such norms are established only when a Western power does something, not when others do. That is part of the deep racism of Western culture, going back through centuries of imperialism and so deep that it is unconscious. So I think this war is an important new step, and is
Re: cooperative evil bit
It was so simple! They should have done this years ago... Reminds me of a friend that was on a standards commmittee. The committee generated a time requirement for some kind of satellite signal to be sent, and the requirement meant that light speed would be broken. In response, my friend wrote a related journal article--which got published--that described a faster-then-light detector. At the end of the article he said that they should build one and wait for him to send the plans for the faster-than-light transmitter, which he would send from the future. No one ever raised an issue about the article. -TD From: Morlock Elloi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: cooperative evil bit Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 23:30:10 -0800 (PST) ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3514.txt excerpt: 1. Introduction Firewalls [CBR03], packet filters, intrusion detection systems, and the like often have difficulty distinguishing between packets that have malicious intent and those that are merely unusual. The problem is that making such determinations is hard. To solve this problem, we define a security flag, known as the evil bit, in the IPv4 [RFC791] header. Benign packets have this bit set to 0; those that are used for an attack will have the bit set to 1. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com _ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
'Peking' vs 'Beijing'
The other was an actual change in the name of the city, from Northern Plains to Northern Capitol. This analysis doesn't explain everything. Modern Mandarin (which into its current form early in the 20th century), along with its linguistic northern predecessor has no sound such as king, though Cantonese may (and Canton is so far away from Beijing on many levels that it might as well be a different country). And of course, Beijing is no harder to say that Peking, so its not a matter of creating a name that Anglos were able to pronounce. So in any event we're dealing with either a deliberate or else somewhat unconscious desire by the Brits to smother or cover-over local culture in some way or another. This of course is not suprising in that the Brits had many imperial enclaves up and down the China cost in the 19th and 20th centuries (until Mao, of course).* -TD * I guess its also not too suprising that the same country that launched the Opium Wars is the US's main supporter in Iraq. From: Bill Frantz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Kevin S. Van Horn [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort? Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:43:41 -0800 At 8:12 AM -0800 4/3/03, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: Peking became Beijing Actually, there were two changes here. One was the general change from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. The other was an actual change in the name of the city, from Northern Plains to Northern Capitol. Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
