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Re: OT: Could you survive? advanced survival skills test
by auto301094＠hushmail.com 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Fri, 05 Oct 2001 17:01:37 -0700, David Honig <honig(a)sprynet.com> wrote: >At 09:20 PM 10/5/01 +0000, auto301094(a)hushmail.com wrote: >>FOOD >>1. List 12 edible USA plants. >>2. List 8 edible tropical plants. > >This is what happens when you make a survival test for the >whole planet ---who the fsck needs to know what tropical >plants to avoid *and* has to worry about the livers of >polar bears? For one, somebody who wants to boost their odds of not being found by deciding to opt for a 100% randomization of their "bug out" location. I got the idea from Thomas Schelling, actually: don't remember the piece but "Strategy of Conflict" ought to be a good place to start. ha. Work through the math of it and it makes fiendishly good sense. Not so practical for escaping a terrorist attack, but it could prove really useful in other circumstances I'm sure you can imagine. Anyway, wouldn't you enjoy knowing you had a better chance of making it no matter what kind of environment you found yourself in? If you had no money, no food--rock-bottom flat on your ass in the middle of nowhere--that you could still manage to have resources within yourself to pull through? I find that infinitely appealing. Diogenes had it right all along...you can quote Nietzsche and Ayn Rand as much as you please but the Stoics and Cynics still have a lot to offer. Even further off topic, here's a passage from www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/latergreeks.html you might find interesting: Cynicism After Plato and Aristotle, the concerns of the philosophers moved further and further from metaphysics, epistemology, and anything resembling modern science, to the issue that had always concerned the ancient Greeks the most -- ethics. What is it to be virtuous, to have character, to live the good life, to have "arete" (nobility)? Antisthenes (445-365) was the son of an Athenian citizen and a Thracian slave girl. After starting his own school, he came to recognize that Socrates was wiser than he. He went over, students and all, to learn from the master. Antisthenes is the founder of cynicism. Cynic comes from the Greek word for dog, originally because Antisthenes taught at the Cynosarges (Dogfish) gymnasium, which had been set up for the poor of Athens. Cynicism involves living the simple life in order that the soul can be set free. It is a back to nature type of philosophy, ala St. Francis of Assisi. By eliminating ones needs and possessions, one can better concentrate on the life of philosophy. Cynicism makes virtue the only good, the only true happiness. You cant control the world and lifes ups and downs, so control yourself! Inhibit your desires! become independent of the world!...Rejecting civilization, cynics tended to withdraw from society, even to live in the desert. In this, they may have influenced early Jewish and Christian monastics. Cynicism wasnt entirely negative (from todays values perspective): They strongly encouraged individualism, believed that all men were brothers, were against war and slavery, and believed in free speech. They also believed in free love and the legitimacy of suicide! The most famous of the cynics was Diogenes (412-323), a student of Antisthenes. He saw himself as a citizen of the world ("cosmopolitan"). There is a famous story that has Alexander the Great finding him sleeping in the sun and announcing "I am Alexander the great king!" Diogenes replied "I am Diogenes the dog!" Alexander asked if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes just asked him to move out of the sun. :) ~F. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Hush 2.0 wl8EARECAB8FAju/tnUYHGF1dG8zMDEwOTRAaHVzaG1haWwuY29tAAoJEKadvsVlUK4P 8s4AoJiBADVnm8pIgGQEWz73ksMFUX/bAJ99jr1oCqbetceY8mZiOT6OhCvmww== =WEhz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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gargoyling the police site
by Khoder bin Hakkin 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

http://policeabuse.org/how.html The PCC uses state-of-the-art technology to investigate and document acts of misconduct by law enforcement personnel. For example, we use digital video and miniature cameras to investigate and analyze incidents of police misconduct around the country. Using several PC's we are a capable of processing as many as five hundred complaints per day. We maintain a video log of police incidents captured on tape throughout the country.

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Re: WTC Collapse Alternative
by Optimizzin Al-gorithm 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

At 12:51 AM 10/7/01 +0000, Anonymous User wrote: >You are saying that 4 martyrs in strategically selected corner >offices on the top floor could bring the building down ? > >Come to think of it, no martyrs needed, just fedex packages addressed >to appropriate offices. Window cleaners with det cord and/or linear shaped charges. > >It's a fragile world. "For you; not me" -Devo

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Satellite of love
by Optimizzin Al-gorithm 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

Spy Satellite Launched From Calif. By Associated Press VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A secret satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office was launched into orbit Friday by a giant Titan 4B rocket. The Titan lifted off at 2:21 p.m. and the payload separated nine minutes later, the Air Force said. The mission was not disclosed. Technical problems had delayed the launch since Monday. Outside experts have said the satellite was likely equipped with a digital camera able to show objects as small as 4 inches diameter on the ground. The NRO builds and operates the nation's spy satellites. Prior to 1996, it did not publicly disclose the launches of its satellites. The launch was the 33rd of a Titan 4, the nation's largest unmanned launch vehicle. Four Titan 4 launches have failed, including three in 1998 and 1999. Built by Lockheed Martin, Titan 4s can put a 47,800-pound payload into low-Earth orbit or more than 12,700 pounds into geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth. http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-classified-launch100… I saw two shooting stars last night I wished on them but they were only satellites It's wrong to wish on space hardware I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care A new England Billy Bragg

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New encryption laws for e-mail unlikely
by Anonymous-Remailer＠lne.com 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

New encryption laws for e-mail unlikely Carrie Kirby, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, October 6, 2001 ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/0… As lawmakers re-examined the nation's security in the aftermath of Sept. 11th's terrorist attacks, the liberal encryption policy established by the Clinton administration appeared to be a likely target for change. After all, some reasoned, the policy makes it possible for anyone -- including possible terrorists -- to send secret e-mails cloaked by codes so strong the National Security Agency can't crack them. But now it appears that no crackdown on encryption programs is coming. The technology industry and others who fought for years for free encryption were alarmed when, shortly after the attacks, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., suggested giving the federal government the keys to unscramble everyone's encoded messages. In a Senate speech, Gregg called for a system known as "key escrow," in which all the keys are stored in a database that authorities could access with a court order. But the Department of Justice -- in the past the leading proponent of such limits -- did not mention encryption when it asked Congress for expanded surveillance powers for fighting terrorism. "It's not going to happen," said Stewart Baker, a Washington, D.C., technology lawyer and former general counsel to the NSA. "The Bush people, who watched the Clinton administration struggle with that unsuccessfully for years, aren't going to revisit this." Gregg has yet to put his idea into a bill, and staffers say he has no specific plans to do so soon. "I'm feeling more and more confident each day that it won't be (introduced), " said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who pushed for liberalized encryption laws the first time around. "I think that time is on our side on this. If it was on the table ready to go right after the attack, such legislation probably would have had a better chance of passing. But as time goes on, there's more time to contemplate its full effects," said Phil Zimmermann, a computer programmer who created Pretty Good Privacy, the most widely used e-mail encryption program. Encryption is used in all kinds of Internet programs. Web browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape use it to make secure online credit card transactions possible. Before January 2000, government regulations made it difficult or impossible to export programs containing strong encryption. The tech industry and civil liberties advocates battled lawmakers' concerns, eventually convincing the Clinton Administration to lift the restrictions -- without establishing any kind of "back door" through which law enforcement could spy. Zimmermann and legislators who fought this battle the first time around say that the key escrow plan Gregg has advocated would not only diminish the privacy of individual e-mail users, but that it wouldn't achieve its goal. Terrorists probably wouldn't use encryption to which U.S. officials had the keys, said Goodlatte, who co-chairs the Congressional Internet Caucus. U.S. authorities wouldn't get the keys to encryption products made in other countries, for example. "Anybody bent on misusing encryption could buy it from hundreds of foreign sources or create it themselves," said Goodlatte. "It's been revealed that (Osama bin Laden) has some very top-notch software engineers." The plan could also endanger the security of everyone who uses encryption, critics say. "The escrow or recovery mechanisms themselves may actually be compromised by criminals," warned members of the Association for Computing Machinery, a New York society for technology professionals. Hackers who broke into the database where the keys were held might use the keys to compromise millions of computers. While spokesman Brian Hart said Gregg has gotten some positive feedback from other lawmakers, no one has seconded his idea publicly. "Gregg seems to be an isolated case," said Bruce Heiman, a Washington attorney who serves as executive director of Americans for Computer Privacy, a technology industry group. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., has joined Goodlatte in speaking out against encryption limitations. Like Goodlatte, Burns pushed for liberalized encryption laws in the 1990s. Others who joined their fight are still in Congress, such as Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose and Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. But one of the major proponents, former Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft, is now the attorney general. "Ashcroft was on our side at that time. It could be that maybe that's why we're not seeing something from the Justice Department specifically about encryption," Zimmermann said. E-mail Carrie Kirby at ckirby(a)sfchronicle.com. ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page B - 1

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jim bell well justified
by mattd 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

Leonard peltier,just down the hall from chris boyce,would tell you an extradition story or two.Or read "in the spirit of crazy horse' by peter matthiessen.Clintons capital offense must surely be the pardongate fiasco. Getting back to jim.WTF is the reward money doing unencrypted? I know THEY[tm] worry over their own scurvy hides but this is an emergency.(reward for usama BL reputed to be aprox 60 mill.)AP is required NOW,where are the dashing cypherpunks of yore?usama bin laden? Id buy that for a dollar!

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Gun show friggin loophole
by Steve Furlong 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

A Wired article by Jeffrey Benner ("No Smoking Gun in Terror Bill") (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47286,00.html) uses the phrase "gun show loophole" quite a few times, but doesn't mention the Second Amendment (nor even the Ninth and Tenth) even once. No mention of how "closing the loophole" would prevent any domestic terrorism. No quotes from gun rights people but plenty from gun grabbers. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity for Declan to emphasize that the opinions and obvious biases of some ill-informed, probably inbred, journalists are not necessarily the opinions of the publishers or other journalists. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel 617-670-3793 "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato

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Seven days
by mattd 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

>Envelope-to: mattd(a)useoz.com >X-Sender: mattd(a)pop.useoz.com >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0 >Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 06:40:56 +1000 >To: mattd(a)useoz.com >From: mattd <mattd(a)useoz.com> >Subject: inneresting tale > > >Liberty and safety in conflict >Tuesday 04 September, 2001 >By NATHAN COCHRANE >Between them, the views of engineer Dave Farber and columnist Dan Gillmor >reach into the homes, coding dens and boardrooms of the people who build >the technology that surrounds us. >The trends they see fill them with deep disquiet, tinged with some hope of >a better future. And by some cosmic coincidence, they were brought >together last week, holidaying at adjacent hotels just up the road from >the Opera House in Sydney. >"The enabling of retro-active ethics generated by these enormous files of >information are just dangerous, dangerous to a free society," Farber says >of the accumulation of private details in huge databases. "Because some >day you could run into a person who knew how to use them: a government, a >demagogue." >He says one way to protect our privacy would be the use of digital rights >management technology, which, under international copyright laws, makes it >a criminal offence for anyone to break. Despite this, the US Digital >Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), to which our own Digital Agenda Bill >strikes an uncanny resemblance, is "asinine" and "encourages sloppiness" >in crypto systems, he says. >"That (DMCA) law is incredibly damaging ... to just about every part of >the Bill of Rights," Farber says. " It's sufficiently asinine so it will >probably be struck down. >"If I were a country who isn't committed to it, I would start thinking, >well, what are you trying to protect? >"(You) will have the cost transferred from the company to law enforcement. >I would look very, very carefully at what you're buying for that and what >you're losing. I think you lose too much." >Gillmor, on a mission to "excise" Microsoft from his personal life, >recommends people wait until next year to buy a new PC. At home he runs a >Mac, mostly for his music, which he once played professionally, and Sun's >StarOffice on Linux to write his IT column. >"... (This) is not the news the industry wants, but ... I would wait until >probably March until I bought a new computer system ... with (Windows) XP >on it because I would not be very trusting of its reliability." >Farber is blunt: "Don't touch it". >"It's different to (Windows XP) Professional; fundamentally different," >Farber says. "Apparently, it's a bad scene ... and if you look in the >manual, you cannot upgrade from Home to Professional. And that's sort of >strange." >While others claim to be Father of the Internet, Farber, the Alfred Fitler >Moore Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania, >could at least claim to be its eccentric uncle. This elder statesman of >the digital age was the primary thesis adviser to Jon Postel, who died in >1998, who authored the first handbooks for driving the Internet: the RFC >or Requests for Comment series. He has been labelled "powerful" and >"visionary" by industry sources. But when Farber talks in his broad New >Jersey accent, geeks, suits and silks do listen, as happened when he >witnessed in the Microsoft anti-trust trial and when he was the US Federal >Communications Commission chief technologist. Moderated postings to his >Interesting People e-mail list go to more than 25,000 subscribers several >times a day. >Gillmor's column in Silicon Valley's local newspaper, San Jose's Mercury >News, and his online weblog at siliconvalley.com, poke fun and a dose of >serious inquiry at the heart of the IT industry. "Desktop computing has >been emptied of innovation because people realised there's no way to make >money out of it, so it's all moved to the new platforms, which is the >Internet, which is the one thing so far Microsoft doesn't control," he says. >Farber greets with a homemade business card, printed on a budget inkjet >printer, which bears his caricature. He answers his mobile phone with a >snapped "Dave", and delights in unique turns of phrase that one day should >be gathered into a FAQ for posterity. >His favorite quote is from US revolutionary, inventor and Declaration of >Independence signatory Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential >liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor >safety." >"I put myself now in the future and I say if you had a rational >(anti-communist US Senator) Joe McCarthy who wasn't drunk all the time, >what could he do in the current world? Phenomenal," Farber says. >"He wouldn't have to say with a haze: `Did you ever meet ...?' He could >now say: `You traded electronic mail; you visited this website', which is >now 20 years later declared subversive." >He fears the technology being invented at the world's research institutes >will be turned on its creators and the rest of us. >"At a certain company in Redmond, I said a good idea was to read two >books," Farber says. "One is one of my favorites (Neal Stephenson's), >Snowcrash. The other is re-read (George Orwell's) 1984 and make sure >you're not putting in everything necessary to make that happen." >Gillmor has concerns about Microsoft's push to control the Internet >through its .NET initiative, and believes recent attempts by the Linux >GNOME user interface founder, Miguel de Icaza, to support it are "naive". >"My chief concern on .NET right now is the authentication structure that >requires the use of Passport, which is completely undocumented technology >and completely proprietary and the only allowed authentication system," >Gillmor says. >He says individuals should "triangulate" to subvert the influence of big >companies. His personal computer is a Mac, he uses the services of the US >number-three ISP, and gets his pay-TV from satellite rather than the >dominant cable operator. >"It would be helpful for everybody if lots of people made decisions not >solely based on what's the easiest thing to do today," Gillmor says. >"My deepest worry is citizens have actually concluded they're willing to >sacrifice their liberty for this illusion of safety." >Farber: "Someone sent me a note saying, `You know, Australia was very >lucky; they sent you (the US) the Puritans and us the criminals'. >"Sounds like you've got a lot of Puritans also." >LINKS Dave Farber - www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber/ >Dan's column - www.siliconvalley.com/opinion/dgillmor/

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Taking advantage of diversions
by Meyer Wolfsheim 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

A colleague in San Francisco just sent this to me after seeing it on the evening news. http://kxtv.com/news-story/October2001/100401/MARIJUANA-DECISION.htm Federal agents seized all patient and client records from a doctor and a lawyer who gave out medical marijuana licenses and legal advice, respectively. I wonder if this stunt would have been pulled in more peaceful times. Public outcry will not be nearly as great as it would have been, simply because we're distracted by other news. Lovely. -MW-

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Stop Getting Ripped OFF By Your Long Distance Company 20136
by o30o3tto30o3＠yahoo.com 06 Oct '01

06 Oct '01

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