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citizens can be named as enemy combatants
by Michael Cardenas 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/08/enemy.combatants/ -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer people.debian.org/~mbc | encrypted email preferred Listening to: warsaw pack track_02 "Hear the truth, believe it, practice it." - Zen Saying [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: Definitions, Proofs, Derivations
by Ken Hirsch 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

"Sarad AV" writes: > there will be no inconsistency in a formal axiomatic > systems Huh? >-but can any one point me to a contradicting > set of axioms in an axiomatic system? In general you have to consider the whole system, including derivation rules, not just the axioms, although you can certain start with a set of axioms like: { x=1, x=2} or, come to think of it, { 1=2 } Most famously, Frege's system was shown to be inconsistent by Russel. More recently, the first edition of Quine's Mathematical Logic (1940) was shown to be inconsistent by Rosser. For Frege, see "From Frege to Gvdel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931" by Jean van Heijenoort

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Re: Television
by AARG! Anonymous 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 10:01:22 -0500, you wrote: > > WOW! > > While I may agree that Tim May seems to like anarchy as long as he's in charge of it, he does come up with some truly destabilising and dangerous ideas every now and then. > > Like his alter ego Jim Choate, there's some real signal burried under that noise so at least token measures of respect every now and then are due. > I've never come across a Tim May post that I thought wasn't worth the time it took to read it. They are all either amusing, informative, or provocative, or some combination of those. I like that. I can't say that about many other posters.

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Security cameras are getting smart -- and scary
by Eugen Leitl 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4883623.htm Security cameras are getting smart -- and scary By Dean Takahashi Mercury News >From wealthy private homes to military installations, security cameras are going high tech. Prompted in part by new fears after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, camera makers, security specialists, hard-disk makers and chip designers are transforming the art of video surveillance, long known for its grainy, black-and-white images and reams of tape. With the new smart cameras, data is recorded in a digital format on hard disk drives so that reviewing hours of surveillance is much easier. Solar batteries let cameras run without the risk of failing because somebody cut the power. Data can be sent over the Internet -- often through wireless data networks -- directly to a company's hard drive archives. Processing chips inside the cameras make the images much easier to discern, and new software analyzes faces so that the cameras can send alerts to security guards when they spot known criminals or suspicious movements. ``On one level, this is taking analog camera technology and adding digital capabilities with new chips,'' said Bruce Flinchbaugh, a fellow at Texas Instruments in Dallas. ``On another level, it's adding new intelligence to redefine security.'' Geoff Beale, owner of The Alarm Company in Los Gatos, has installed a whole digital setup at the San Jose estate of one client. If someone moves past the light beams that line the home's perimeter, the movement will activate the estate's 15 security cameras, which work even at night and record their data onto hard disks. The motion detector will also trigger the garage door to let out the owner's German shepherds. A camera trained on the road leading to the house can discern a car's license plates and cameras trained on doors can capture faces. The cameras send alarms to the owners with varying degrees of urgency based on the nature of the security threat. ``If they have an incident, I can jump to the spot on the hard disk drive where the video is recorded and deliver the scene to them by e-mail,'' said Beale. Road patrol Concerned about homeland security, the California Department of Transportation is installing video cameras that will monitor the Bay Area's transportation infrastructure and transmit the data to Caltrans engineers and the California Highway Patrol. Hundreds of cameras will watch over the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. Proxim, which makes wireless networking gear in Sunnyvale, will provide wireless Internet networking technology for the project, saving on huge wiring costs. Nick Imearato, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, said he expects the federal government to require cameras be placed every 400 feet or so in airports to monitor all aspects of airport security, from cargo areas to boarding areas. Over time, as the technology gets cheaper, he said, ``This will migrate to millions of businesses and even homes.'' Such constant surveillance, even in the name of homeland security, scares civil libertarians, who feel it amounts to an illegal search of everyone who passes within view of a camera. ``Our position is this kind of continuous recording can be very dangerous, especially if coupled with technology to recognize faces,'' said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology watchdog group in San Francisco. ``You have to always ask what is the compelling justification for such surveillance.'' But the surveillance business continues to grow. Last year, the closed-circuit TV camera market generated about $1.5 billion in revenue, according to JP Freeman, a market researcher in Newtown, Conn. While sophisticated cameras that use technologies like Internet connectivity are only about 10 percent of the market today, they are growing at 30 percent a year, or twice the rate of standard security cameras, said Joe Freeman, president the firm. By 2005, the market could top $500 million in the U.S. alone. Specialized market The market for smart cameras is fragmented. Leaders include big companies like Panasonic, Sony, JVC and General Electric. But the niche is small enough for companies like Rvision of San Jose, supplier of cameras to CalTrans, to compete. At the heart of the smart cameras are video-processing chips from companies like Texas Instruments in Dallas, National Semiconductor in Santa Clara, Pixim in Mountain View, Equator Technologies in Campbell and Smal Camera Technologies in Cambridge, Mass. Equator designs media-processor chips that security companies use inside cameras that monitor entrances to buildings. The camera detects motion and determines whether two people walk through an open door when only one flashes a security badge over a card reader. If it finds a possible violation, like someone walking the wrong way in an airport corridor, it can flag guards with an alarm. Wide image range Avi Katz, chief executive of Equator, says that security application revenue are generating a substantial portion of the closely held company's revenue, with money coming in from customers like Siemens in Germany, which is installing cameras to monitor smoke, fires and accidents in car tunnels. John O'Donnell, chief technology officer of Equator, notes that cameras need good processing intelligence because cameras need to distinguish between truck exhaust and car fires before they send an alarm to those monitoring cameras. Cameras come with image-processing chips like Equator's as well as sensor chips, which capture the image in digital form. Pixim makes an image sensor that has the benefit of wide dynamic range, or the ability to capture an image whether there are bright or dark spots in the picture. ``Bad guys like to hide in the shadows,'' said Rob Siegel, executive vice president of marketing at Pixim. ``Dynamic range brings out the images in the shadows or those that are obscured by glare of the sun.'' Human error Pixim has deals with a number of camera makers and has a sample networked camera in its lobby. There, employees can log on to a Web site and view the images from the lobby camera so they can see who is visiting them. Capturing good images is one step in improving security. But another is recognizing known criminals based on surveillance photos. A variety of companies like Identix in Minnetonka, Minn., are creating software that can recognize faces and compare them to pictures in law enforcement databases. Ultimately, the problem with smart cameras is the same problem with normal cameras: human beings. Flinchbaugh at Texas Instruments visited Northampton, England, a town that installed cameras all over town to catch known criminals. ``They found that the guards watching the videos didn't do so well at spotting people because they just became hypnotized by watching so long,'' Flinchbaugh said. Contact Dean Takahashi at dtakahashi(a)sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5739

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Re: Cryptome Log...A nice opportunity!
by Bill Stewart 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

At 01:14 PM 01/07/2003 -0600, Some troublemaker Anonymously wrote: >So if someone generated a nice-looking fake log this >would be legally binding in court? Please don't. John has to put up with enough hassles as a result of running a valuable and controversial web site. He doesn't need your, ummm, help.

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Re: Television
by Mike Rosing 08 Jan '03

08 Jan '03

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Nomen Nescio wrote: > It's amusing that Mr. May thinks that anyone gives a fuck if he (Mr. May) filters him/her out for whatever reason and considers worthwhile/effective effort to explain that reason at length every time, and yet doesn't consider that similar and far more intensive efforts by the state-directed mass media are as well effective. > > (more at the bottom) [...] That was rude and impolite. But I couldn't stop laughing for quite a while :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike

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Re: The Microsoft Xbox Key/dvd issues
by Peter Fairbrother 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28749.html The entertainment lobby has failed to persuade a Norwegian court to convict a teenager for creating a utility for playing back DVDs on his own computer. Jon Lech Johansen has been acquitted of all charges in a trial that tested the legality of the DeCSS DVD decryption utility he produced, Norwegian paper Aftenposten reports. Norwegian prosecutors, acting largely on the behest of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), argued in court that Johansen acted illegally in sharing his DeCSS tool with others and distributing it via the Internet. They claimed the DeCSS utility made it easier to pirate DVDs. The court rejected these arguments, ruling that Johansen did nothing wrong in bypassing DVD scrambling codes that stopped him using his Linux PC to play back DVDs he'd bought. (They go on to say that it's not illegal to use DeCSS to play dvd's. So if you haven't already got a copy, you can get one now, in Sweden at least.) ............. There is a product called DVD region x for the xbox that allows you to play dvd's from any region coming out soon. As it probably has to be signed by Microsoft (as all xbox programs must be), can we assume that the regionalisation of DVD's silliness is effectively over? And apart from that, what was the point of CSS? You can do a "dd" on a DVD and play the image from a hard drive. I don't have a DVD burner, but I'd imagine you could burn a DVD from such an image, so direct copying is probably easy enough. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't tried it, but the pirates don't seem to have any technical trouble. The regionalisation issue was another monopoly grab. The DVD format is as much a monopoly as Microsoft or Intel (probably more...) -- Peter Fairbrother

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Re: The Microsoft Xbox Key
by Tyler Durden 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

"I think you're drifting here from my original point, which that it is in no way illegal, or even immoral, to run free software on hardware that you own, and to pick any locks on the hardware you own, which would preclude you from doing so." Amen, brudda. So will the cops eventually bust down my door if I accidentally drop and break an Xbox open? Also, some would argue that microsoft does use forms of coercion to get ultimately use their products. Whether one agrees with this or not, a nice little "byproduct" of hacking an Xbox and turning it into a PC is that there will be some slight pressure on 'Soft to get the prices back up to at least breakeven for the box. >From: Eric Cordian <emc(a)artifact.psychedelic.net> >To: tcmay(a)got.net (Tim May) >CC: cypherpunks(a)minder.net >Subject: Re: The Microsoft Xbox Key >Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:58:56 -0800 (PST) > >Tim writes: > > > Given that x86 boxes without Windows installed can now be had for about > > the price of an XBox, and given that the graphics chip in the Xbox is > > not used by any of the Linux server uses (so far as I know), the main > > value of hacking the Xbox is for cuteness, to show that it can be done. > >Linux is now available for download for modchipped Xboxes. Ergo, I would >infer that issues of Linux supporting the hardware are behind us, and the >sole remaining problem is getting an unaltered Xbox to run arbitrary code. > >There is a non-Microsoft-approved Xbox media player out, so I would also >infer someone has figured out how to use the graphics chip, which is a >custom nVidia Geforce 3, a known device for which good drivers exist. > > > (The approximately $200-300 Linux box comes with a 600 MHz VIA x86, and > > may come with more than the 10 GB disk the Xbox comes from. I don't > > track this closely. I'd expect that the drive is faster in the PC, as > > XBox doesn't need a speedy drive for game play. All in all, I'd rather > > have the PC for Linux than a hacked Xbox.) > >My impression is that at the $200 price point, the Xbox is a better built >fuller-featured box than similarly priced boxes from places like Wal-Mart. > > > Those who don't wish to use MS products should not do so. I use Macs. > > Many use Linux. And so on. > >I think you're drifting here from my original point, which that it is in >no way illegal, or even immoral, to run free software on hardware that you >own, and to pick any locks on the hardware you own, which would preclude >you from doing so. > >The public is getting the notion that there are things that it should be >illegal for you to do to devices that you own, for purposes of accessing >their functionality. This is something that needs to be strongly >discouraged. > >Right now, such endeavors are being muddied by being lumped in with such >things as cracking commerical software and breaking into corporate and >military systems in the public mindset. > >A widely publicized legal opinion by someone like the EFF, stating that >running anything you want on your own Xbox is a perfectly legitimate >thing to do, would put the ball in Microsoft's court to either say that >they disagreed, or to say nothing and let it slide, which would greatly >reduce their ability to legally harrass people in the future. > >It costs nothing to issue a press release. > >-- >Eric Michael Cordian 0+ >O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division >"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Re: Singularity ( was Re: Policing Bioterror Research )
by David Howe 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

at Tuesday, January 07, 2003 1:14 AM, Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> was seen to say: > financial resources, > other than those that pass through verified identity > gatekeepers; That's an odd way to spell "Campaign Fund Contributing Corporations"

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Tarzan swings
by Steve Schear 07 Jan '03

07 Jan '03

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