Mr. Carl Gorman, one of the few remaining Navajo 'Code-Talkers' of WWII fame, died yesterday of cancer at the age of 90. Along with his fellow Navajo, he encrypted military voice communication by using his native language over the radio in the Great American Imperialist Struggle against the Great Japanese Imperialist Initative. Just a few thoughts: - when asked why he helped America after all the abuse he took growing up as a Navajo, he basically said (my interpretation here) he was fighting to protect the Navajo, not particularily America, from the Japanese. A geographical dilemma. - aside from the NSA sucking up everything in sight relating to languages, doesn't Chomsky's theoretical 'Universal Syntax' (all human languages have an identical fundamental syntax) negate the effectiveness of the Code-Talker approach in the long run? - on the other hand, the lovely ambiguities of natural language would seem to be capable of effectively obscuring the meaning of the message even if the plaintext were revealed. For example, President Clinton's reference to 'blowjobs' not actually being a sexual act. While the President is innocently asking a normal person to provide him with a urgently needed act of personal hygiene, that person mistakingly would be thinking he wants oral sex. An effective obscuration of the Prez's message. - now-a-days of course, if the shoe were on the other foot, the Navy's NOSS satellite constellations would trianglate on the radio signal and feed the coordinates to one of the TDRS sat- ellites to target the crusie missles we just launched, effectively ending the conversation prematurely without regard to syntax. [Sexy Hi-Tech Option]. Using radio for passing encrypted comm seems to require a few non-traditional approaches. For example, using a repeater system that would present the NOSS satellites and any RDF equipment in the neighborhood with 'a thousand points of...' RF energy - the 'needle-in-the-haystack' approach. The source would be difficult to find amongst its many (presumedly cheap) clones. Oh well. Good bye Carl. Thanks for the help. Sorry we were such jerks. On the bright side - we're such third-rate fuckups it's a sure thing the Navajo will out-live us if they just hang in there a little bit longer. Your living to 90 was a fine example. Survival is always the best revenge. ----------------------------------------------------------------- foggy@netisle.net lat:47d36'32" long:122d20'12" "Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared." -F. Nietzche- -----------------------------------------------------------------