October 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

City Challenged on Fingerprinting Protesters
by R. A. Hettinga 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/nyregion/05prints.html?th=&oref=login&pag…> The New York Times October 5, 2004 City Challenged on Fingerprinting Protesters By DIANE CARDWELL ince coming under fire for their handling of protesters arrested during the Republican convention, Bloomberg administration officials have said that sluggish fingerprint processing in Albany was a major cause of the long delays in releasing detainees, although state officials have denied any tardiness. Now it looks as if much of the fingerprinting may not have been legal in the first place. According to lawyers at the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city may have violated state law by routinely fingerprinting arrested protesters. In a letter sent yesterday to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, officials of the organization wrote that although the law allowed the police to fingerprint people charged with minor offenses in certain circumstances, "this could not justify the routine fingerprinting of the nearly 1,500 people reportedly arrested during the convention for minor offenses." The officials, Donna Lieberman and Christopher Dunn, the group's executive director and associate legal director respectively, wrote that state criminal-procedure law defined narrow circumstances for fingerprinting when the offenses are minor. Those circumstances are when the police cannot establish the person's identity, when they suspect that the identification supplied is not accurate, or when they suspect that there is an outstanding warrant. Legal questions about the fingerprinting policy have come up before. At a hearing in September over the city's treatment of arrested protesters, Justice John Cataldo of State Supreme Court in Manhattan noted that the city could have dispensed with the fingerprinting entirely as most of the offenses were so minor that state law did not require it. Ms. Lieberman and Mr. Dunn also wrote that they found the "blanket fingerprinting" of people arrested at demonstrations troubling because "the entry of fingerprints into law enforcement databases can have lifelong consequences." Normally, when a person is arrested and fingerprinted in New York, the State Division of Criminal Justice Services checks the prints in its system and sends them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well, state officials said. Information about arrest records and outstanding warrants is then sent back to the city's Police Department. As a result, the lawyers wrote, they are "deeply troubled by the notion that the N.Y.P.D. may have forced hundreds of political activists," as well as "a number of innocent bystanders arrested during the convention, to surrender their fingerprints for entry into state and federal databases." Saying that they were prepared to sue the city if necessary, the lawyers asked that any illegally obtained fingerprints held by the police, the state or the F.B.I. be destroyed. John Feinblatt, criminal justice coordinator for the Bloomberg administration, defended the city's actions, saying the fingerprints were automatically destroyed and therefore could not pose a threat to those arrested in the future. "The normal procedure for violation arrests is to take fingerprints for one purpose and one purpose only: to definitively establish who the person is and whether he has a warrant or other law-enforcement hold," he said. "After that the prints are destroyed and not made part of any permanent record. That's exactly what was done with every violation during the R.N.C., no more, no less." Without commenting on whether the city had broken the law, he added, "In an age of identity theft and high-quality fake ID's, fingerprints are the only surefire way to establish who's in front of you." State and federal officials said they did keep fingerprints from violation arrests. In the view of Mr. Dunn of the civil liberties union, though, destroying the fingerprints would not remedy the fact that they were illegally taken. "The practice has to stop," he said. "It's an unlawful practice. And more importantly, we're skeptical that fingerprints that were sent to New York State or the F.B.I. have been destroyed." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> 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'

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Internet Porn Gets A New Banker
by R. A. Hettinga 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

<http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/27/cz_sl_0927ibill_print.html> Forbes Financial Internet Porn Gets A New Banker Seth Lubove, 09.27.04, 2:00 PM ET South Jordan, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City, is an otherwise forgettable suburb. Other than the fact that it's the home of the Jordan River Utah Temple, which boasts the largest capacity of any Mormon church in the world, there isn't much else going on. South Jordan has another claim to fame the Chamber of Commerce is probably less eager to boast about: It's the hometown of what has likely become the largest U.S. processor of credit cards used to purchase Internet porn. That dubious distinction comes courtesy of a little-noticed lawsuit filed Sept. 17 by Internet Billing against First Data (nyse: FDC - news - people ). IBill acts as a middleman between 4,000 small, mostly porn, sites and the banks that are critical to any credit card transaction. In iBill's case, the bank was an obscure unit of First Data, a financial services giant that expects 2004 sales of $10 billion. But apparently fed up with the connection to the controversial business, First Data finally got out of porn on Sept. 15 when its contract with iBill expired, leaving iBill in the lurch (but still holding $14.5 million of iBill's deposits). For now, at least. iBill has another bank lined up to process its $300 million or so in annual credit card purchases. But the name of the bank may raise eyebrows amongst the tee totaling, clean-cut Mormons of South Jordan, as well as the heathens on Wall Street: Merrick Bank, a $500 million-asset bank whose parent company, credit card-servicer CardWorks, is partly owned by a fund controlled by Lewis Ranieri, the bond trading legend immortalized by Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker who is now chairman of Computer Associates (nyse: CA - news - people ). It turns out Merrick, which says it "believes in bettering the community in which it operates," knows a thing or two about porn. The company is already processing credit cards for CCBill, a big aggregator like iBill of credit card purchases for Internet porn. CCBill handles sites that include Soundpunishment.com, GothicSluts.com, and Threepillows.com. Not surprisingly, the bankers who handle porn don't advertise the fact. First Data, for instance, managed to avoid any connection with porn until it was revealed in public filings as the company that owned the bank that handled iBill's porn processing. Merrick's name popped up for the first time in iBill's lawsuit against First Data, in which iBill blamed First Data for reneging on a deal to process its credit card accounts until it gets set up at Merrick in November. The court denied iBill's request for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, Sept. 22. "We have determined that processing payments of the adult entertainment marketplace is inconsistent with our core values," sniffs a First Data spokesman. He adds that the company warned iBill with "multiple notices" that its contract would not be extended after its expiration. In a written statement, Merrick would not comment on whether it also processes credit cards for CCBill, and claims it is "not now processing credit card transactions for iBill," and "has no signed agreement to process credit card transactions for iBill." But in iBill's lawsuit against First Data, iBill claims Merrick sent a "commitment letter" to First Data on Sept. 15 in which Merrick states that its board of directors has "approved" iBill as a "merchant" account. Christopher Steele, the attorney for Ranieri & Co., would only say that Merrick's affairs are "handled much more from CardWorks perspective. I can't give you a comment on that." iBill still managed to find other ways to handle its accounts in the interim. But news of the lawsuit, and the apocalyptic language of "catastrophic consequences" iBill used to argue for a temporary restraining order, has set the gossipy porn industry into a full lather. "Industry Watching iBill, Hoping For The Best," trumpeted industry trade Adult Video News. "This would be devastating," wailed a poster on a porn business bulletin board. Adding insult to injury, the closing of a deal for iBill to be sold to Care Concepts I (amex: IBD - news - people ) in exchange for 20% of Care's stock was rescinded Friday. The company said the American Stock Exchange threatened to delist its stock, in part because the acquisition of iBill "raises public interest concerns." The statement is a cryptic reference to a section of the exchange's policies that allows it to delist a company if it does anything that is "contrary to the public interest." Care said it will work with the Amex to resolve the exchange's issues and acquire iBill after that. But perhaps proving that the temptations of the flesh are hard to resist, Care said it will go ahead with the deal even if the Amex disapproves, and take its stock elsewhere. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> 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'

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Passengers refuse to fly with two women in black on board
by R. A. Hettinga 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

<http://english.pravda.ru/printed.html?news_id=14300> - PRAVDA.Ru Passengers refuse to fly with two women in black on board - 09/23/2004 13:51 Incidents when Russian passengers refuse to fly due to suspicious-looking females of Middle Eastern descent are becoming a norm these days. On September 1, the day of the Beslan tragedy, passengers of a Moscow-bound flight from Sharm el Sheih (Egypt) refused to fly with two Muslim women in traditional clothes onboard. This time, another flight from Moscow to Khurgada has been delayed. ?Two Egyptian women were set to fly aboard a TU-154 airplane ofKrasAir? departing for Khurgada,? stated RIANovosti?s? spokesman. A group of five students from Dagestan were the last ones to board the aircraft. Among them were two Egyptian women dressed in black. ?Considering the recent events, security services searched them thoroughly. Their documents were fine; nothing was wrong with the luggage either. However, due to such time-consuming security check, they were the last ones to board the plane. This in turn caused major uproar among the passengers. People demanded them to be taken off the flight,? added he. ?A young man accompanied by a woman and two children was the last one to step aboard due to a long security check. They were on their way to Egypt, where they?ve been living for five years. As soon as the rest of the passengers saw them aboard, people simply refused to fly perhaps, they were fearful of a possible terrorist act,? noted the airline company?s spokesman. In the course of the following two hours, airport and airline spokespeople were trying to persuade the passengers to fly along with the Egyptians. People however remained steadfast. All the passengers were then escorted back to the airport where each one of them had to undergo additional security check. The two Egyptian women have been examined publicly. There were 120 people aboard the Tu-154 airplane. As a result of this little incident, the flight Moscow-Khurgada had eventually departed for Egypt with a four-and-a-half-hour delay. Similar incident took place in Egypt on 1 September, 2004. Passengers along with crew members of a Moscow-bound airplane (KrasAir) from Sharm el Sheih refused to continue the flight after Egyptian personnel had allowed 2 Middle Eastern women to board the plane. According to the crew, both of the females behaved rather suspiciously: they locked themselves up in the lavatory right after boarding. In the end, due to the crew?s and the passenger?s protest, they were asked to leave the plane. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> 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'

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Re: Foreign Travelers Face Fingerprints and Jet Lag
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

At 08:30 PM 10/3/04 +0000, Justin wrote: >On 2004-10-03T13:32:36-0500, J.A. Terranson wrote: >> >> The US *is* the Fourth Reich. > >Personally, I will take what comes. You will make fine soap.

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RE: Spotting the Airline Terror Threat
by Tyler Durden 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

"DiDomenica has first-hand experience of the effectiveness of the system. He was using his own observation techniques - called BASS (Behavior Assessment Screening System) - last year when he saw man acting oddly near the checkpoint and stopped him. The suspect passenger turned out to be an agent from the Department of Homeland Security who had been trying to test the system by sneaking a prohibited device onto a plane." Come on. Variola or May or somebody wrote this shit, I'm no fool. Actually, it's quite hilarious. I couldn't have done any better myself. -TD >From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Spotting the Airline Terror Threat >Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 11:37:57 -0400 > >Wherein the TSA thinks they can observe a lot by watching... > >Cheers, >RAH >------- > ><http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,708924,00.html> > > Saturday, Oct. 02, 2004 >Spotting the Airline Terror Threat >TIME exclusive: A new airport security system soon to be tested will rely >on human judgment >By SALLY B. DONNELLY/WASHINGTON > > TIME exclusive: A new airport security system soon to be tested will rely >on human judgment The most dangerous threat to commercial aviation is not >so much the things bad people may be carrying, but the bad people >themselves. That refrain heard constantly from airline security experts >over the past three years appears to have finally been heeded by the >Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Aviation sources tell TIME >that the TSA plans to address the problem by launching its own passenger >profiling system. The system known as SPOT (Screening of Passengers by >Observation Techniques) relies more on the human dimension in detecting >threats, and is to be tested at two northeastern airports starting later >this month. > > "This is a radical change to aviation security," says Sgt. Peter >DiDomenica, the Massachusetts State Police officer who developed the >racially-neutral profiling program in place at Boston's Logan Airport, on >which SPOT is based. "This is a very subtle but very effective program." > > Unlike the TSA's recently announced program to use computer databases to >scan for suspicious individuals whose names occur on passenger lists, SPOT >is instead based squarely on the human element: the ability of TSA >employees to identify suspicious individuals by using the principles of >surveillance and detection. Passengers who flag concerns by exhibiting >unusual or anxious behavior will be pointed out to local police, who will >then conduct face-to-face interviews to determine whether any threat >exists. If such inquiries turn up other issues of concern, such as travel >to countries like Afghanistan, Iraq or Sudan, for example, police officers >will know to pursue the questioning or alert Federal counter-terrorism >agents. > > DiDomenica has first-hand experience of the effectiveness of the system. >He was using his own observation techniques - called BASS (Behavior >Assessment Screening System) - last year when he saw man acting oddly near >the checkpoint and stopped him. The suspect passenger turned out to be an >agent from the Department of Homeland Security who had been trying to test >the system by sneaking a prohibited device onto a plane. > > Although the profiling programs are aimed primarily at stopping >terrorists, they have had other benefits. The Massachusetts State Police >have arrested about 20 people for infractions ranging from being in the >country illegally to failing to answer outstanding warrants for various >offenses. > > The TSA plans to test SPOT for 60 days before committing to taking it >nationwide, eventually to all of the country's 429 commercial airports. > > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> >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' _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/

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[TSCM-L] Technology boosts use of wiretaps
by Dave Emery 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/263737.asp Technology boosts use of wiretaps By DERRICK NUNNALLY dnunnally(a)journalsentinel.com Posted: Oct. 2, 2004 Madison - In an unassuming office building on a leafy street near Dane County Regional Airport, a couple rooms of computer equipment are quietly changing the nature of law enforcement in Wisconsin. When they're clicking into action, most people won't even know they're there. And that's the point. They are wiretap machines, meant to allow police to listen in on the private phone conversations of suspected criminals. For years, police here rarely resorted to wiretaps, which require a court order, and that was mostly limited to cases involving severe violence or the threat of it. On average, it happened less than twice a year. Now it happens more than once a month, due in large part to new computer technology that has streamlined much of what officials describe as a cumbersome, painstaking process. It included tracking down the phone company's switching equipment, setting up huge recorders and manually starting them with each call, and amassing half a room's worth of tapes, then methodically indexing them all. "You'd have to have three reel-to-reel recorders for every line you'd want to wiretap," said Edward Wall, a special agent for covert surveillance in the state Department of Justice. Wall held up a disk drive from the new system he said could hold 900 hours of recorded conversations, indexed at least half a dozen different ways. It was a little bigger than two CD cases held together, and, he said, held the power to make Wisconsin investigators much more willing to ask for wiretaps to investigate crime. "When they find these are not as hard as they used to be, that mind-set is changing," Wall said. Since the state acquired the new wiretap setup from the Office of National Drug Control Policy in summer 2003, the system has been used in the completed taps of 13 separate phone numbers, Wall said. That's a marked increase from recent years. Federal records indicate that from 1999-2002, while the nation averaged 1,200 wiretaps yearly, Wisconsin police had only run five. While the system has not been discussed much outside of police circles, law enforcement agencies already have used it in at least a couple of high-profile operations, including the kidnapping of Heddy Braun in Walworth County in 2003 and a Milwaukee investigation this spring that led to the arrests of more than 30 people charged with being part of a cocaine-selling ring. The role of the new wiretap machines has been kept hush-hush in part because of the state law restricting their use. Because phone surveillance intrudes so seriously on someone's right to privacy, information gleaned from wiretaps only becomes public well into the court process, which can take months. Milwaukee police announced the dozens of arrests in the big drug case in a May news release, but much of the information about them remains under wraps and only has a chance of becoming public this month, long after the defendants have been formally charged and begun working their way through the judicial system. Another reason for the new system's low profile until now was that police believed no good could come of advertising their new capability, Wall said. Both the Milwaukee Police Department and the Milwaukee County sheriff's office, through spokespeople, declined to discuss the new technology. Wall agreed to talk about it after the Department of Justice was asked specifically about its acquisition. He said he wanted to de-mystify a subject that, while not officially a secret, has inspired fears among some that the government, enabled by the USA Patriot Act of 2001, is tapping phones excessively. "Those of us who do wiretaps just sit there and roll our eyes," Wall said of those concerns. "God, if you only knew what we had to go through for a wiretap. It's the most cumbersome thing in the world." Police must get a judge's authorization for each phone number they want to monitor. To get that, investigators must put together a detailed affidavit explaining the kind of conversation they expect to hear, and why such evidence can't be obtained some other way. Few of those affidavits have become public. Wall and other officials described them as onerous, but justly so. Now that the taps themselves are simpler to run and yield better data, authorities are exploring a wider range of reasons to ask for them. "There was a time that I was much more reluctant to use wiretaps," said Milwaukee District Attorney E. Michael McCann, "but the violence attendant to various activities has persuaded me to the contrary." Now cases such as the alleged drug ring - in which no violence or threat is evident in the small part of the allegations that have been made public - are coming into courts. More are likely, and in more disparate parts of the state, as word of the new system's capabilities filters out, Wall said. Where formerly police in any part of the state had to seek out switching equipment - mostly in Madison or Milwaukee - to set up a wiretap, the new computer system can be run from Madison on "a phone from anywhere in the world" and piped out to any part of the state. "When they give it to us, they're essentially giving it to 72 county sheriffs and 700 police departments," Wall said. "When you call me and you're from the Podunk Police Department, we're there." Ray Dall'Osto, a Milwaukee defense attorney and former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said he is interested in examining the kinds of new wiretap cases and whether Wisconsin authorities use a wider range of justifications for listening in on citizens' conversations. The right to privacy in certain situations, he said, is very fragile, like an egg. "Once it's gone, it's very hard, if not impossible, to put back together," Dall'Osto said. He also expects the uptick in wiretap usage to continue. "They've got this stuff, and they've got to use it," Dall'Osto said. -- Dave Emery N1PRE, die(a)dieconsulting.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493

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Foreign Travelers Face Fingerprints and Jet Lag
by R. A. Hettinga 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

<http://nytimes.com/2004/10/01/politics/01airports.html?pagewanted=print&pos…> The New York Times October 1, 2004 Foreign Travelers Face Fingerprints and Jet Lag By RACHEL L. SWARNS EWARK, Sept. 30 - Laetitia Bohn walked into Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday, dazed and sleepy after an eight-hour flight from Paris, and was jolted from her reverie when an immigration officer asked for her photograph and fingerprints along with her passport. The officer took a digital scan of her left index finger, then her right, and then snapped her picture with a tiny camera. The entire process took only a few seconds, but for Ms. Bohn, a 29-year-old tourist from France, it was an unnerving symbol of how much the United States had changed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It made me feel kind of guilty, like a prisoner," Ms. Bohn said. "You can feel the difference since 9/11. I was in New York seven years ago and people were happy to have visitors. I don't think it's the case anymore." And so the day went - with a click of a camera and sharply conflicting emotions as foreign visitors across the country arrived at American airports, where officials for the first time began photographing and electronically fingerprinting travelers from 27 industrialized nations, including longtime allies like England, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and Australia. The policy shift, which was announced in April and took effect on Thursday, will affect about 13 million visitors each year from 22 European countries as well as Brunei, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, who can currently travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. The change was made after intelligence reports indicated that terrorists might take advantage of that provision, which allows travelers from Europe and other industrialized countries to travel to the United States with little scrutiny. Until now, only travelers who needed visas to visit the United States were fingerprinted and photographed at American airports in a program started in January to ensure that suspected terrorists, criminals and violators of immigration law do not enter the country. The program, which is now expected to screen about 20 million foreign visitors at 115 airports and 14 seaports annually, is the latest security measure to affect foreign visitors since the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, American embassies and consulates around the world began collecting digital fingerprints from foreigners applying for visas. And beginning this fall, officials will require overseas visitors at some airports and seaports to be fingerprinted and photographed before they leave the United States to monitor whether visitors are in fact returning to their home countries. "America has been a welcoming country and it continues to be one, but in the post-9/11 era it has been necessary to make sure we know who is traveling to our country," said Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, who directs the customs and border protection unit at the Department of Homeland Security. Reaction from foreign governments was mostly muted. But some officials said the policy raised privacy concerns. Japanese officials said they had asked that the fingerprints and photographs be deleted when their citizens leave this country. "We understand the necessity of the U.S.'s new measures," Motohisa Suzuki, who coordinates antiterrorism programs for Japan's Cabinet Office, said on Thursday. But Mr. Suzuki added, "We need to be fully discreet about the handling of the private information." Airline and airport officials were bracing for longer lines on Thursday. But customs officials, who surveyed about 20 airports on Thursday afternoon, said that only 40 of the 1,500 flights reported slower than normal waiting times attributed to the new procedures. Officials noted, however, that September was typically a slow month for overseas arrivals and that Thursday was typically a quiet travel day. "So far, so good," said Joseph A. Cardinale, acting port director for passport control at the Newark airport. "We've had the experience of doing the fingerprints and the photographs for several months now, so it's not new to the officers. That's a tremendous help.'' Tourists greeted the system with a mixture of nonchalance and irritation. Bruce Reid, a 59-year-old doctor from Australia, said he did not object. "I haven't got a criminal record, so it doesn't worry me much," said Dr. Reid, who flew into Los Angeles. Marleen Maas, 43, a homemaker from Frankfurt, disagreed. "What's next? Are they going to take pieces of my hair, too?" asked Ms. Maas, who flew into Miami to visit her daughter. "It didn't take long, but it made me feel like a criminal." In Newark, Marc Eisenchteter of Paris said the process moved efficiently. Ms. Bohn agreed and said that despite her misgivings she would still return to the United States. "It was more easy to visit before," she said. "But I will still come back." -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> 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'

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comfortably numb
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

t 11:22 PM 10/1/04 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >Questions were going through my mind. Would it hurt? What are the risks? >What if I want to get it out? > >I ordered another drink. In the US its generally illegal to tattoo someone who is drunk. >Comfortably numb In many ways this fellow is. ------------ I recently read that DoCoMo is moving towards using cellphones as wallets for all kinds of value. Though they could have the phone be an anonymous bearer token like cash or a prepaid token (which, like cash, limits the loss to the stored value if the phone is lost or stolen), they "thought customers would prefer transaction records". Japs don't care for privacy, it seems. If they lose the phone, its just one call to DoCoMo instead of several to credit companies, which is touted as a plus. Makes analyzing behavior easier if its centralized. Insects.

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A Proposed Nomenclature for the Four Horseman of The Infocalypse
by R. A. Hettinga 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I've been talking about this for the last decade, and never found a reference on the web whenever I was thinking about it. Thanks to Google, it was well within my prodigiously diminished attention span this morning. Given the events on the net over the past few years, I figure we might as well have fun with the idea. Humor is good leverage, and these days we need *lots* of leverage. In arbitrary order (in other words, *I* chose it. :-)), and with apologies to Toru Iwatani, by way of Michael Thomasson at <http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Pac-Man%20Ghosts.html>, here it is: A Proposed Nomenclature for the Four Horseman of The Infocalypse Horseman Color Character Nickname 1 Terrorism Red Shadow "Blinky" 2 Narcotics Pink Speedy "Pinky" 3 Money Laundering Aqua Bashful "Inky" 4 Paedophilia Yellow Pokey "Clyde" It is acceptable to refer to a horseman by any of the above, i.e., "Horseman No. 1", "The Red Horseman", "Shadow", or "Blinky". Apparently there was a, um, pre-deceased, dark-blue ghost, used in Japanese tournament play, named "Kinky", I leave that particular horseman for quibblers. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQWBN/MPxH8jf3ohaEQKfBwCfYAtDGjP6jjsUHfhWcddqDYTEWfEAoOTU I056iw3tAhHohzkh1ptzJ8Es =/tt7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> 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'

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Re: Spotting the Airline Terror Threat
by Major Variola (ret) 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

At 11:37 AM 10/3/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: > Unlike the TSA's recently announced program to use computer databases to >scan for suspicious individuals whose names occur on passenger lists, SPOT >is instead based squarely on the human element: the ability of TSA >employees to identify suspicious individuals by using the principles of >surveillance and detection. Passengers who flag concerns by exhibiting >unusual or anxious behavior will be pointed out to local police, who will >then conduct face-to-face interviews to determine whether any threat >exists. Nice to see another euphemism for cultural prejudgice: "the human element", mein fuhrer (insert Dr Strangelove image) Reminds me of how you can't use race in eg loan application processing, but you *can* use neural nets whose behaviors are hidden in the nodes. (As a lib, I know its wrong to tell folks they can't use predicate-X; but for the state to use eg race disguised as "the human element" is criminal.) PS: do cargo planes have kevlar doors yet?

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