August 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Superpowers distribute 750,000 shoulder-fired missiles, cook their own gooses
by Tyler Durden 19 Aug '03

19 Aug '03

"Having sat on Pacific Coast Highway below the takeoff path of LAX jumbo jets, I can attest to the fact that they are literally just a few hundred feet above. Any van with a moonroof could trivially be set up to allow a pop shot at one of these 747s or 767s, leaving every couple of minutes.)" Most people in this neck of the woods continue to believe that that flight that went down over Long Island a few years ago was actually shot down...many witnesses saw a rocket go up and hit the plane. The government, of course, denies it. God forbid the airlines collapse. Meanwhile, that flight that went down over the Rockaways on 10/11/01 was obviously sabotaged...nobody wanted to question the paper-thin myth of both engines and the tail all falling off simultaneously..."that was a mean headwind!" The chickens have been coming home to roost for a while now. -TD >From: Tim May <timcmay(a)got.net> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Superpowers distribute 750,000 shoulder-fired missiles, cook >their own gooses >Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 17:52:44 -0700 > >Reports today that commercial aviation is in dire danger of being grounded >as freedom fighters deploy even a small fraction of the (estimated) 750,000 >shoulder-fired missiles to down commercial airliners. > >(Having sat on Pacific Coast Highway below the takeoff path of LAX jumbo >jets, I can attest to the fact that they are literally just a few hundred >feet above. Any van with a moonroof could trivially be set up to allow a >pop shot at one of these 747s or 767s, leaving every couple of minutes.) > >The U.S. and U.S.S.R. were handing these SFMs to any freedom fighter group >that would temporarily swear allegiance to the CIA or KGB. > >Now the chickens are coming home to roost. > >I stopped flying in 2000. > > >--Tim May >"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress >to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or >to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from >keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Re: US soldiers in Iraq held against their will
by Major Variola (ret) 19 Aug '03

19 Aug '03

At 02:33 PM 8/17/03 -0500, Harmon Seaver wrote: > Just heard about this local guy who reluctantly went to Iraq because >he was in the reserves, now his contract is up (as of 7/31) and they >won't let him out. Did he reluctantly take the $$$ to be in the reserves, too? > my >enlistment contract ended and the I have been involuntarily extended. SOP. Happened during the Yugo thang too. >I >am now a prisoner of the US army. Pity the volunteer moral zombie! Sucks to give up control to .mil, no? I find it very troubling that the USA >would force people against their free will to be in >the military, It hasn't, it only requires males to register. So far. Maybe Faust should be required reading for potential warriors?

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Re: Superpowers distribute 750,000 shoulder-fired missiles, cook their own gooses
by BillyGOTO 19 Aug '03

19 Aug '03

On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 03:04:53PM -0400, Trei, Peter wrote: > Both of these these stories lack plausibility as far as I'm concerned. > 2. WTC: If you have the ability to insert tower-busting bombs into > the WTC towers, why the hell would you go to the trouble of doing the > plane thing? It tooks extra months/years, with high training costs, many > extra people, and a substantial chance of failure or detection. > For that matter, why the hell would you wait the better part of > an hour before blowing the charge? Rather than a terrorist bomb, could it have been a damage control function by the good guys? The objective in such a case being a controlled collapse. I imagine it could take far longer than an hour to place such charges. My ignorance is probably obvious from the question, but I've heard this idea bandied about before. I'd imagine that if this were the case, expert engineers studying the collapse would recognize it instantly, so it doesn't seem too probable. Just throwing it out there.

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RE: Superpowers distribute 750,000 shoulder-fired missiles, cook their own gooses
by Trei, Peter 19 Aug '03

19 Aug '03

> > Tyler Durden said: > > > > >Most people in this neck of the woods continue to believe that that > flight > > >that went down over Long Island a few years ago was actually shot > > >down...many witnesses saw a rocket go up and hit the plane. > > >The government, of course, denies it. God forbid the airlines collapse. > > > > The CIA's official explanation of the event, even to this layman, is > > aerodynamically impossible. Let me say that the TWA 800 coverup has a > lot to do > > with my cynicism about what really happened on 9/11. (I have a copy of > the > > Howard Stern show from that day, and chopper reporter that Howard fed in > clearly > > reports a second, massive explosion just before the south tower > collapsed. > > Speaking with an ironworker who worked on the cleanup only brought more > > questions as to the "real" cause of the collapses.) > > > > -Tim > Both of these these stories lack plausibility as far as I'm concerned. 1. For Flight 800: Why would a terrorist wait so long, and shoot at a plane at such an extreme altitude and range? It would have made a lot more sense to fire just after it got off the ground. Far less chance of a miss. 2. WTC: If you have the ability to insert tower-busting bombs into the WTC towers, why the hell would you go to the trouble of doing the plane thing? It tooks extra months/years, with high training costs, many extra people, and a substantial chance of failure or detection. For that matter, why the hell would you wait the better part of an hour before blowing the charge? Sometimes you just have to remember Occam's Razor. Terrorists may do evil things, but they are not usually that stupid. Peter Trei

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Re: Blackout in NYC
by Tyler Durden 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

Sarad wrote... >For a moment think of all the iraqi's with power >grids taken out now enjoying the 120+ farenhiet sun. A >few hours of luxury was gone and it was breaking news >in bbc. Although I appreciate the sentiment, your not really getting this. The timing was such that long-term impact was minimal. But if the blackout had come earlier in the day, and lasted for a few days, that outsourcing operation you work for might have been affected (ie, closed). Wall Street is here, for one, and Wall Street these days needs power. Also, NYC now just assumes that power will be there. In 1975 the riots were fairly interesting...the wrong set of conditions could have made this MUCH more interesting (I was on a plane that landed a few hours after the blackouts began. I made my way to my residence as quickly as I could just in case things were going to get interesting again...) As for the racist undertones in BBC and Amercian newfocus, I totally agree. -TD >From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> >To: "cypherpunks(a)lne.com" <cypherpunks(a)lne.com> >Subject: Re: Blackout in NYC >Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 10:46:59 -0700 > >At 07:49 AM 8/15/03 -0700, Sarad AV wrote: > >There wasn't much of traffic congestion on the > >manhatten roads when they showed the images on bbc. > >The manhatten road network is used in examples of > >deflection routing. Also roads every where should be > >like that :-) > >Mutually perpendicular, you mean? Or congested? > > >In India during summer-we have around 8 hours of > >power cut daily. > >Think of the market for UPSes, man! > >Or for a thermoelectric generator that runs on cowdung! > > >For a moment think of all the iraqi's with power > >grids taken out now enjoying the 120+ farenhiet sun. A > >few hours of luxury was gone and it was breaking news > >in bbc. > >Yeah but the traditional Arab dress deals with the sun, whereas >the traditional Victorian/American attire doesn't. > >The *real story* is how this is a symptom of the Empire Declining. > >For Californians, its more of a "its your turn now" feeling... > >IIRC New Zealand had a city w/out watts for a few days, a few years ago. > >.... >"Flex your power" Flush Davis _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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CAPPS II is back - DontSpyOn.US
by Bill Stewart 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

Bill Scannell, who did the Boycott Delta project about CAPPS II, reports that they're back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CAPPS II testing has been restarted. The Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration continues in its attempts to set up defacto internal border controls at our nation's airports. In response to the collaboration of Galileo, a subsidiary of Cendant, Inc. in this test of the CAPPS II system, a disinvestment campaign has been launched at: http://www.dontspyon.us The idea of citizens having to undergo a background investigation simply to travel in his or her own country is invasive and un-American. The CAPPS II system goes far beyond what any thinking citizen of this country should consider reasonable. That citizens will be required to provide detailed personal information to private companies that can be used for tracking and marketing purposes is repugnant. If enough people refuse to conduct business with Galileo or any of its sister companies, then it is likely that other Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS) will refuse to implement this sadly misguided and anti-democratic program. The boycott will remain in full effect until Galileo publicly withdraws from any involvement with the testing of CAPPS II. 777 --- 777 777 --- 777 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

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RE: *** GMX Spamverdacht *** Re: paradoxes of randomness
by Vincent Penquerc'h 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

> If the output is random,then it will have no > mathametical structure,so I shouldn't be able to > compress it at all. You could very well end up with all tails. That's a sequence that has the same probability of happening that any other sequence. A compressor will look for redundancy in the input you give it, not in the algorithm you used to generate that input (conceptually, a compressor could deduce the (determinist) algorithm from the output, but if you bring it true randomness, chances are it will not). Thus, a compressor will compress very well a sequence made of all tails, but badly another which exhibits no detectable redundancy. Once you have the sequence, you lost a lot of info about whatever algorithm was used to generate it. A sequence of all tails could have been generated by a simple algorithm which generates all tails. That's an emergement description of this one particular sequence, but one that would not apply to *all* sequences your algorithm can ever produce. That's lost information, and that's why it can be compressed. -- Vincent Penquerc'h

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Re: paradoxes of randomness
by Sarad AV 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

hi, --- martin f krafft <madduck(a)madduck.net> wrote: > > Okay- I need 5 bits to represent 32 coins.I count > as > > coin 0,coin 1,... coin 31. > > No, you can't count coin 0. Or how will you > represent no coins? I thought i could use the null set to point to the first coin,simply as a one to one mapping but then i can't represent no coins. Thanks for the clarification. Regards Sarath. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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Re: [cta@hcsin.net: Re: CNN: 'Explores Possibility that Power Outage is Related to Internet Worm']
by Major Variola (ret) 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

At 01:50 PM 8/17/03 -0400, Sunder wrote: >Techie: "It's outdated, it will collapse." Sometimes its easier to ask forgiveness after than to ask for permission before. Sometimes you have to let the system crash so others see its weakness. Ca often runs within a few percent of available juice during the summer too. A fire under a transmission line, an unscheduled downage, we can play dominoes too.

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Re: Faith-based Drug Wars
by Major Variola (ret) 18 Aug '03

18 Aug '03

At 04:26 PM 8/17/03 -0400, Tim Meehan wrote: >Faith-based drug wars >The new anti-drug project is built around three premises which are spelled out >in a fact sheet titled "Marijuana and Kids: Faith": Hey, wait a minute, the government is not supposed to be supporting any religion, and promoting the Rastafarians seems out of character.. >2) "Religion and religiosity repeatedly correlate with lower teen and adult >marijuana and substance use rates Not if you smoke the right shit The Taliban -a Faith Based Organization.

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