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WEB: Child molester database
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Along with the arms trafficker page, now we have a "child molester database": http://www.greatworld.com/public Deadbeat Dads, Drug Dealers and more, coming soon according to blurb. -- http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~frogfarm ...for the best in unapproved information "We think people like seeing somebody in a uniform on the porch." -US Postal spokeswoman, quoted in AP, 1/27/96. I don't know about you, but most people I know who saw someone in uniform on their porch would pull out the shotgun...

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update.275 (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From physnews(a)aip.org Fri Jun 14 18:39:08 1996 Date: Fri, 14 Jun 96 16:45:16 EDT From: physnews(a)aip.org (AIP listserver) Message-Id: <9606142045.AA11832(a)aip.org> To: physnews-mailing(a)aip.org Subject: update.275 PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News Number 275 June 14, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE FIRST QUANTUM COMMUNICATION USES "TRITS" INSTEAD OF BITS. For the first time, physicists have exploited the laws of quantum mechanics to send data, and with their technique have conveyed information more efficiently than with traditional means. In contrast to a traditional computer, in which messages consist of tiny electric pulses encoded in binary form (i.e., streams of 0s and 1s), researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria send messages consisting of single photons which can be coded as 0s, 1s, and 2s, setting up a base three system called "trits." The Innsbruck group (Harald Weinfurter, harald.weinfurter(a)uibk.ac.at) converts a single ultraviolet photon into two photons whose properties are quantum mechanically interlinked, or "entangled." Devices then encode a 0, 1, or 2 onto one of the photons by performing an operation on it (such as flipping its spin or shifting its phase); since the devices are blind to the initial state of the photon, they change the overall properties of the entangled photon pair without determining its final state. The two photons are recombined and then the interlinked pair travels towards a network of detectors. Two-photon interference creates three different sets of detection possibilities in the Innsbruck setup that reveal the quantum state of the entangled pair and whether the photon was encoded with a 0, 1, or 2. The physics of entanglement has been exploited in numerous recent experiments, to build quantum logic gates (Update 250) and perform an atom-level demonstration of Schrodinger's cat (Update 273), but until now it has never been used for quantum communication---encoding a message at one location and receiving it at another. Furthermore, the same information contained in a typical ASCII character, normally requiring the use of 8 bits, can also be transmitted using only 5 trits. (K. Mattle et al, Physical Review Letters, 17 June 1996. More information and graphics can be found at http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/c7/c704/qo/photon/_qdc) THE CLOSEST EXTRA-SOLAR PLANET yet discovered orbits the star Lalande 21185, only 8.1 light years from Earth. George Gatewood of the University of Pittsburgh observed a telltale wobble in the light coming from the star, indicating the presence of a Jupiter-sized planet circling the star in a Saturn-sized orbit. Gatewood's data, presented at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, WI, even hinted at the possibility of other planets in the same solar system. (Washington Post, 12 June.) Also, another planet has been found by Geoff Marcy of San Francisco State and Paul Butler of Berkeley, who announced two new planets in January 1996. Their new find is a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the star Rho Cancri (40 light years from Earth) at a distance of only 0.1 astronomical units. It completes a "year" in only about two Earth weeks. (Sky & Telescope, July 1996) A MOVIE OF THE CRAB NEBULA provides new details about pulsar dynamics. At the heart of the nebula is a pulsar (the remnant of a 1000-year-old supernova) which casts powerful streams of particles into the surrounding debris-filled medium. The Hubble Space Telescope has recorded a sequence of pictures which show where much of the pulsar's energy goes. One surprise was how quickly the landscape alters: noticeable changes in the region around the pulsar sometimes occurred in a matter of days. A second surprise is that the outward flow of energy is confined largely to two zones: jets shooting out from the poles and wisps of material in the pulsar's equatorial plane. (Science News, 8 June; Science, 7 June.)

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Re: PBS show
by wxfield＠shore.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Blake; I agree with you...(re:Apple II was a toy)... <smirk> Eniac, by comparison was also a toy...(I wonder how many lives it saved???) Heck, Eniac has it 'all over' the Abacus - Gosh, those darn Babylonians seem so primitive nowadays! >At 11:23 PM 6/13/96 EDT, Blake Wehlage wrote: >>At 09:35 AM 6/13/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: > >>>But the Apple II WAS a toy! Non-detached keyboard, poor placement of reset >>>key, upper-case only, 40-character wide display, odd microprocessor, VERY >>>SMALL capacity floppies (which were very slow as well), as well as a hostile >>>legal situation regarding the building of clones. Hell, they even objected >>>to other companies building boards which plugged into the bus! >> >> >>I was not a toy it was what started the PC revolution > >Grandly ignoring the Altair, the TRS-80 Model I, the IMSAI, et al. Even Jolt! > > >Jim Bell >jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Fuseable Links - no guarantees??
by wxfield＠shore.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have never paid much attention to the protection of firmware or the technical issues revolving around such schemes...was wondering: I recently saw an add for a UK based group that says they can take a PIC OTP micro and read the prom (for a fee, of course) - How the heck is this done?? I have my suspicion that they (somehow) magically peel off the ceramic coating (without destroying the chewy center), get a circuit mask and 'micro probe' the I/O of the IC...they then download the secret recipe to the afore mentioned 'chewy center'. Is this close to accurate?? How is it 'done' ??? -Just Curious

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Dead as a Dollar
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

6-15-96. NYP Mag: "Dead as a Dollar." For everyone who uses cash, everyone who stores it and everyone who regulates it, a challenge is nearing. The challenge will be to make choices. Some kinds of electronic currency will protect privacy, and some will violate privacy. Some will make crime easier, and some will make it extraordinarily difficult. Some will tax commerce parasitically, and some will catalyze it. The new minters of money will have enormous power to choose -- unless consumers, on the one hand, and Government officials, on the other, decide to make their own choices. In the "current climate," as those in Washington tend to say, anything that smacks of an expanded role for the Government is anathema. Policy makers at the Treasury are reluctant even to talk about electronic money on the record. "It's easy to go in and say, 'Oh, we're going to regulate everything,' without knowing what everything is," says a senior Treasury official. "We want to know what everything is." He adds: "There are very serious policy issues -- seigniorage, money laundering, financial- stability issues, consumer issues that are genuinely important that we must address and look hard at. It may be sensible for the Government to issue a card -- that's conceivable -- but what if you issue it and nobody uses it?" As money enters a new age, so does counterfeiting. The ultimate threat is the perfect copy -- the virtual coin that proves mathematically identical to the real thing. If money is a string of bits, then someone, some where, can make a perfect copy, and another and another. An arms race is already raging between those working to armor-plate digital cash with doubly and triply secure cryptography and those working to pierce the armor. Security experts assume that nefarious characters, in search of an unending stream of money, are already investing millions in the next stages of research and development. For every new idea in tamper resistance, there is a new idea in tampering.... "At least you can cause people to have to spend a lot of money," says Eric Hughes, a cryptography expert. "But doing the second chip is far, far less money than the first. And if you could make a master chip that spoke the right protocol, you could make a little money mint for yourself." "Information warfare is going to make people very worried downstream," says Crook at Citicorp. "We have an immense paranoia about how dangerous it's going to be. I think that the security requirements in our industry are going to be more severe than at the Department of Defense." Cryptography is as close as modern mathematics comes to magic. It's simply a design choice. Smart cards, or their on-line equivalents, could function as blindly as raw cash. They could be even less traceable than in Chaum's system. That is a frightening prospect to law- enforcement authorities. Having finally made life difficult for drug smugglers with heavy cash suitcases, they will not casually allow the manufacture of half- ounce chips that could make possible blind transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars, a money launderer's dream. Even if the Government takes no other action in the electronic-money arena, it will surely move to extend its restrictions on cash to cover digital equivalents. And so far, the large institutions entering the electronic-money arena are leaning toward less-anonymous, less-private approaches than Chaum's, betting that most of us will be willing to sacrifice more pieces of privacy for, say, convenience. Chaum could prove right, but only if the marketplace is willing to cast its votes for privacy. [With many remarks by Kawika Daguio.] http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/deaddoll.txt (48 kb) ----- Or, if http fails, DED_dol to <jya(a)pipeline.com> Thanks to JG and NYPaper.

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No Subject
by Michael Camp 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just subscribed and what the hey is pgp. Pretty good privacy? -Think global, act local, recycle! Michael Camp a037716t(a)bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us

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Re: PBS show
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-06-15 00:22:48 EDT, jwilk(a)iglou.com (Blake Wehlage) writes: << Well I am now using a PC, I use a MAc for programming and both for networking& the internet. So as usual I am plastered as a 13 year old "computer illiterate" thanks real big confidence booster. I love my pc & my mac, I also love my Apple II it showed me the way of programming (first with basic), now I program in C and C++. Oh yea I guess I'm still computer illiterate. >> Id hate to say it.... But i KNOWW you read the part in my letter about it being a GENERAL statement.. i seem to recall I put general in all caps too. Or do those apple 2's only work in all caps... Didnt use those. I used my old atari 800xl to learn basic back in OOooooo 3rd grade. Damn.. Long time ago.......... Back to some encryption things.............I have something I need to look up a little. more..... but Im interested on starting a decryption of a string. It was encrypted using a password, and a randomly seeded number thats reseeded for every character in the string i beliveve... let me research it again... and Ill post some more....

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Re: PBS show
by Blake Wehlage 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:29 PM 6/13/96 -0800, jim bell wrote: > >I only watched a few minutes of the show. Did they mention that Microsoft >actually bought the MSDOS operating system from Seattle Computer products? > They mentioned it, also to be correct the original name was QDOS (quick & dirty Operating System). > >Literally! > > >Jim Bell >jimbell(a)pacifier.com > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Blake "Pokey" Wehlage Age-13 Gaa- 3.69 (for ice hockey goalie) <jwilk(a)iglou.com> My page- http://www.iglou.com/members/jwilk.html Quote- Does whiskey count as beer? -Homer Simpson

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Re: PBS show
by Blake Wehlage 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I used my old >atari 800xl to learn basic back in OOooooo 3rd grade. Damn.. Long time >ago.......... Well I learned BASIC in 3rd grade also but that was only 5 years ago for me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Blake "Pokey" Wehlage Age-13 Gaa- 3.69 (for ice hockey goalie) <jwilk(a)iglou.com> My page- http://www.iglou.com/members/jwilk.html Quote- Does whiskey count as beer? -Homer Simpson

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Re: [noise] (was Re: PBS show)
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:38 AM 6/14/96 -0700, anonymous-remailer(a)shell.portal.com wrote: >at Thu, 13 Jun 1996 11:30:44 -0800 jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> may have written... > >>Brain-dead segmented architecture, 64k per segment limitation >code segments, ever hear of code segments? Data segments maybe? There is nothing wrong, conceptually, with _software_ segments... In fact, even hardware segmentation is okay _IF_ the maximum size of those segments will NEVER (in the computer architecture's entire lifetime, and that includes later compatible CPU's) be challenged by the largest program and data to be run on that machine. But a 64K byte segment size is truly and astoundingly bad design, even for 1976. Even a 2**24 byte (16 megabytes) segment size would have turned into a wall a few years ago. A 2**32 byte (4 gigabyte) limit would not be a problem for at least 10 more years. > Ever actually do any 8086 assembler? A minimal amount, fortunately. Liked 8080 and Z-80 far better. (Not that I think their limited address space is "better," merely that their design matched their intended uses far better.) > You would have liked them. In fact, >even the MAC's O/S had them built in as I recall, just not a hardware >limitation with the 68000. A good programmer was not limited by these. > >>1-megabyte memory limitation. The only thing that made it >OK, I concede here... But if you actually write code instead >of pasting code together, 1MB is plenty of RAM with this >processor. It's still a problem. I just ran Microsoft Windows Anti-virus a few days ago, on a 1.6 gigabyte hard drive, and it said I was "out of conventional RAM." (Not because of "too much code," but because of too much data.) With 16 megabytes of DRAM, total, that's a laugh! Try explaining this problem to a person who doesn't understand the distinction between "conventional" and extended memory. They will have no idea that a stupid design decision made in 1976 caused a problem in 1996. Most people don't understand the WHY behind that idiotic 1 megabyte limitation, and how it could so easily have been fixed. As I understand it, when they were designing the 8086 the maximum-size package that Intel dealt with was a 40-pin ceramic package. Well, look at the pinout of an 8086 and you'll see the problem: Even with address/data multiplexing, you simply can't get more than 20 address bits out of a 40-pin package and keep the necessary control and power lines. That's a limitation, and that's bad, but it turns out they made a bad design worse. The best fix would have been to get a 44 or 48 pin package,(as, for example, the Z-8000 did) and dedicate at least 4 more bits to the address, which would have been a limitation of 16 megabytes, or 8 more, which would have been 256 megabytes. But the Intel packaging people were apparently given a veto on the whole thing, and they stayed with a 40-pin package. But here's how they made it worse: In the 8086 architecture, there are two 16-bit registers added together (with a 4-bit offset) to form a 20-bit address. Even if the designers were forced to accept that the initial implementation of the 8086 would only have a 40-pin package, at the very least they could have changed the segment offset to 8 bits or even 12 bits, which would have formed a 24 or 28-bit address internal to the 8086, of which only the lower 20 bits could be available. Any computers built with this specific chip would be limited to a physical 1-megabyte memory space, HOWEVER future implementations of this architecture (for instance, the equivalent of the 80286) would have more address lines. More RAM could be installed in them. So far, that sounds just like the 80286, right? Wrong. (The '286 can only access memory space above 1 megabyte by shifting to "protected mode," which is incompatible with DOS.) Unlike the way it actually was with the 8086 vs. the 80286, the software would be compatible, because the segment addressing would have been identical, and their would no longer be any sort of physical 1-meg limitation remaining. In other words, there would be no residual conventional memory limitation, and "we'd all live happily ever after." (True, programmers would eventually write programs which exceed the memory capacity of the 8086, but that would not have affected newer computers.) Somehow, I think if you could corner one of the 8086 designers, ideally with a 12-gauge shotgun, he'd say, "Doh! We didn't think of that!" That's right, they didn't think of that, because they _JUST_DIDN'T_THINK!_ And over 200 _BILLION_ dollars of money has been spent on computers limited by a brain-damaged architecture, when they could just as easily have avoided the problem back in 1976 with a trivial fix. The one conceivable defense that Intel could muster would be, "We didn't anticipate this. We didn't intend for the 8086 to be used as a general-purpose computer." True or not in 1976, that defense was not available to IBM in 1980: They were fully aware of the problem, and they knew about the 68000, and yet they chose the 8088 anyway. The same short-sighted pig-headedness that would later be demonstrated by Bill Gates when he said something like "Nobody will ever need more than 640 kilobytes of RAM" was shown by Intel people in the middle 1970's. > What was brain dead was the fact that IBM in it's >infinite wisdom "stole" near half of that for it's poor hardware >designs (640k-1MB range). IBM did add to the problem, true, but they "only" cut down the address space to 640 from 1 megabyte. Even 1 megabytes would have been an intolerable limitation. Had Intel allowed a logical address space of 256 megabytes or even 16 megabytes, the loss of 380 kilobytes would not have been particularly limiting. Believe me, I'm not defending IBM, they're both guilty of gross stupidity. >Joseph L. (Joe) Moll, Greenville, SC USA mailto:oolid@acqic.org Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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