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Re: [i2p] I2P vs. Tor (fwd from mpc@innographx.com)
by Eugen Leitl 08 Dec '04

08 Dec '04

----- Forwarded message from "Matthew P. Cashdollar" <mpc(a)innographx.com> -----

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Kein Thema
by MPajer＠aol.com 08 Dec '04

08 Dec '04

unsubscribe

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Where is TM when you need him?
by Major Variola (ret) 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

At 11:10 AM 12/7/04 +0100, Nomen Nescio wrote: >Peter Trei: > >> > Where is Tim May when when you need him? :-) >> > >> Try scruz.general. > >or misc.survivalism For some time after he left, he cruised a feline group, perhaps because one of his cats died. Perhaps this was the inspiration for Puss, an anonymous freelance purveyor of force, in _Shrek II_. Or not.

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metaforce
by Major Variola (ret) 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

At 09:41 AM 12/5/04 -0500, R.W. (Bob) Erickson wrote: >John would warn you about the organ cuts >Tim would rave about the sizzle stake >I'm just scoping out the meat-eye view through the grinder. > >--bob >of mad cow metephors Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream.. -Cows with guns == unintentional consequences

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malevolent randomness
by Major Variola (ret) 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

At 07:46 PM 12/4/04 -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: >Much evidence to the contrary. My life is sucking pretty bad lately, due >to either a long series of fairly unlikely and uniformly unpleasant >coincidences or else the machinations of a malevolent universe set up >specifically to piss me off. Please remember to watch a random stream. Random negatives will occur in surprisingly long to your finite-state simian mind sequences. Myself, I run a geiger counter, and it makes me happy. Some bins, no counts, others, a few times higher than average. Dig? ----- "The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance." -Robert R. Coveyou ORNL mathematician

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Klan's unmasked for city protests
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/v-pfriendly/story/259512p-222307c.html> New York Daily News Klan's unmasked for city protests BY DEREK ROSE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, December 7th, 2004 The hoods hiding under the white hoods of the Ku Klux Klan will have to show their faces if they want to protest in New York City, the Supreme Court decided yesterday. The high court put an end to a five-year legal battle yesterday by refusing to hear an appeal of the city's mask ordinance filed by a KKK offshoot group. The group had argued its rights were violated in 1999, when the city barred its members from a masked protest in Foley Square. Seventeen members demonstrated anyway - along with 6,000 counterprotesters. A federal appeals court ruled against the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in January, calling the city's 159-year-old ordinance constitutional. "While the First Amendment protects the rights of citizens to express their viewpoints, however unpopular, it does not guarantee ideal conditions for doing so," the appeals court said. The city ordinance forbids gatherings of three or more masked or hooded people - unless they are attending "a masquerade party or like entertainment." Since the law was dusted off to stop the KKK rally, it has been used generally against left-wing protesters at events like May Day protests, the Republican National Convention and the 2002 World Economic Forum. -- ----------------- 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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loozers are lucky
by R.W. (Bob) Erickson 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

What can society do about these people who think that they know something? Well, first we deny the possibility that they have anything novel to say, then we arrange to have them find fault with themselves for what they perceive as their own shortcomings. Then after they have injured themselves trying to correct this implied deficiency, we tell them that maybe their ideas had merit, but the only efficient way to assess any idea, is for the originator to take responsibility for making them happen. If they are unable to demonstrate the successful application of the idea, we take this as proof that the idea was no good to begin with. Such is the application of market theory to the systematic suppression of unsupported ideas. The attitudes of Winners and Losers alike, are taken to be the causative factor. We recognize the effect of the self fulfilling prophesy. In both cases what is going unmentioned is the structural context. Winners are those we give credit to, Losers face responsibility for not being creditable. Winners will credit their success to luck and hard work, but Losers are left to reach the conclusion that either it is all their personal fault, or they have been the victim of bad luck. What to do about the illusion of functional autonomy vs. the principle of independence? Self control: we must become sufficiently self aware to realize that this vital instrument of independence is exactly the force that imprisons so many of us within a personal hell. As a society we would be well advised to examine the structural realities that leave so many of us with broken dreams and a poverty of options. The merit principle is all very well, but is'nt it is a clear sign of a sick society, when we conflate winning the lottery, with demonstrating competence? ---------------------------- Tim would bake them John word salads While Bobrah sells tickets to a geodesic fantasyland Detweiler mourns with Vulis, Choate and Sunder trade insults While Art and CJ make licences in an authoritarian nightmare me, I'm just a lawn mower

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[ShmooCon-News] ShmooCon Reserve-a-Room Raffle
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

--- begin forwarded text

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Fingerprint, photo system at border runs smoothly
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

<http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/print/printer_13544.php> Yuma Sun Local News Fingerprint, photo system at border runs smoothly BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, STAFF WRITER Dec 7, 2004 SAN LUIS, Ariz. - While it was initially feared that new digital fingerprint and photograph technology might slow visa issuance at United States ports of entry, the first day at San Luis showed exactly the opposite. Acting port director William Brooks, of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the new screening technology went live at 6 a.m. Monday and ran smoothly throughout the morning. "One of the best things about it is that it's transparent," Brooks said. "It's been a savings of three minutes per person. It's actually sped it up when there was fear it would be slow." The U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, or US-VISIT, began Nov. 15 with pilot programs in Douglas; Laredo, Texas; and Port Huron, Mich. According to the Department of Homeland Security Web site, US-VISIT tightens border security by recording the entry and exit of people who are not U.S. citizens, making sure that visas are used only by the people to whom they were issued, and checking visitors against government watch lists. San Luis, Lukeville and Nogales in Arizona, and Calexico and Andrade in California began using US-VISIT for the first time on Monday. Brooks said the new system was scheduled to be in operation in the 50 busiest ports by the end of this month. He said the San Luis port was in the "upper portion" of that top 50. Most Mexican visitors to the United States who use a border-crossing card to enter the border zone will not be screened by the system. Brooks said Customs will process an average of 50 applications per day, and each will take about five to eight minutes. While the technology has improved, the requirements and fees to get a visa remain the same. The fee is $6, and visitors must establish sovereignty and residency in their home country, Brooks said. Visas issued from different ports of entry entitle the bearer to different opportunities within the U.S. Temporary visas issued from the San Luis port allow visitors to travel within 25 miles of the border and stay no longer than 72 hours. Visas for longer stays with more travel freedom are also available. According to DHS, US-VISIT applies to all visitors (with limited exemptions) holding nonimmigrant visas, regardless of country of origin. Visas are required for most students, business travelers - depending on their length of stay - and millions of other visitors, regardless of where they live. For now, US-VISIT is focused only on those entering the country. However, Brooks said similar technology is being developed for people who are exiting the country. This equipment is scheduled for testing in 2005 and 2006. Brooks said Customs employees had no trouble getting used to the new "user friendly" system. Four sets of digital cameras and fingerprint scanners are placed right on the counter, so pictures and scans can be taken right there, rather than having applicants have to go through a single line. Visas can be swiped through a card reader, so all of the information about its holder comes up on the computer instantly. Brooks said this is why the system can work more quickly than the old process, which relied heavily on writing by hand. Brooks declined to identify what kinds of databases are searched when people have their fingerprints scanned. "It checks various databases that are available to us for derogatory information," he said. The digital cameras, fingerprint scanners and printers are all brand-new. Brooks said the computer workstations had recently been upgraded, and there are plans to redesign the counter area. After 21 years with Customs, Brooks said the US-VISIT technology was another improvement on a long list of amazing changes. "The technology has grown by leaps and bounds," he said. "And now it goes even faster." Jeffrey Gautreaux can be reached at jgautreaux(a)yumasun.com or 539-6858. The Associated Press contributed to this story. -- ----------------- 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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Florida E-Vote Study Debunked
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

<http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65896,00.html> Wired News Florida E-Vote Study Debunked By Kim Zetter? Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65896,00.html 02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2004 PT A study by Berkeley grad students and a professor showing anomalies with electronic-voting machines in Florida has been debunked by numerous academics who say the students used a faulty equation to reach their results and should never have released the study before getting it peer-reviewed. The study, released three weeks ago by seven graduate students from the University of California, Berkeley's Quantitative Methods Research Team and sociology professor Michael Hout, presented analysis showing a discrepancy in the number of votes Bush received in counties that used touch-screen voting machines versus counties that used other types of voting equipment. But Bruce McCullough, a decisions science professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and Binghamton University economics professor Florenz Plassmann released an analysis (.pdf) of the Berkeley report criticizing the results. According to the Berkeley study, the number of votes granted to Bush in touch-screen counties far exceeded expectation, given a number of variables -- including the number of votes those counties gave Bush in 2000 -- while counties using other types of voting equipment gave Bush a predictable number of votes. The analysis was not peer-reviewed, although Hout and the students said that seven professors examined their numbers. They would not speculate about what occurred with the voting machines, but voting activists on internet forums seized the study as proof of faulty voting machines or election fraud. Drexel University's McCullough, however, found fault with the study. "What they did with their model is wrong, and their results are flawed," McCullough said. "They claim those results have some meaning, but I don't know how they can do that." McCullough said they focused on one statistical model to conduct their analysis while ignoring other statistical models that would have produced opposite results. "They either overlooked or did not bother to find a much better-fitting (statistical) regression model that showed that e-voting didn't account (for the voting anomalies)," McCullough said. Charles Stewart, an MIT political science professor, called the study "the type of exercise that you do in a graduate data-analysis class" rather than as an academic paper. "If I were to get this article as (an academic) reviewer, I would turn it around and say they were fishing to find a result," Stewart said. "I know of no theory or no prior set of intuitions that would have led me to run the analysis they ran." He pointed out that only two of the 15 counties using touch-screen machines in Florida exhibited anomalous results. "There was something unusual that went on in two counties, but there are many other things that could give rise to this anomaly," Stewart said. "Most of them are things that we're pretty sure affected this presidential election -- such as get-out-the-vote efforts by Republicans and special efforts at mobilizing Jewish voters over the issue of Israel and terrorism." Hout defended his study, saying that he and the students tested several alternative hypotheses, but none eliminated the machines as a possible cause. "The point that there might be something else that these counties have in common besides the technology is always a possibility in any statistical analysis," he said. He acknowledged that he and the students were unable to look at other data that might alter their conclusion, such as a breakdown of votes for Bush per voting machine or an analysis of votes cast by absentee paper ballots in the touch-screen counties. Regardless of the merits of the Berkeley study, Stewart said valid questions about the election results in Florida and elsewhere remain unanswered. To that end, a number of groups will be investigating and releasing reports in coming months. On Tuesday, Common Cause, the Century Foundation and the Leadership Council on Civil Rights are holding a day-long conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the election. And the nonpartisan Social Science Research Council has launched a National Research Commission on Elections and Voting to examine systemic issues with elections and voting as well as specific issues from this year's elections, such as the disparity between exit polls and final election results. The Government Accountability Office is also looking into issues related to the election. -- ----------------- 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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