Re: punkly current events

[James A. Donald]

--
James A. Donald:
> > The reason that taliban caught in Afghanistan, and people
> > with the wrong accent caught in Afghanistan, tend to wind
> > up in Guantanamo Bay is not because Afghan warlords are
> > taking orders from US overlords, it is because Afghan
> > warlords are fighting a holy war against the same people
> > who are our enemies.

Bill Stewart:
> But the Taliban were the US warlords' *friends*

Learn some history.

The current holy war was going at a slow burn even during the
war against the Soviet Union.  Once the Soviet Union fell back,
any pretense of alliance was dropped, and the flames were in
plain sight.

These terrorists have been bugging various muslims they deem
insufficiently muslim long before they were bugging the west. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 wUajaZLtoiBjJKFNy8BqbXfYOsgcNOgbhUPRDpeN
 4bqrDBnbVHsw8K/4rUF8UkC0k60jpoqzZoKNYpz03

Re: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[Steve Thompson]

 --- "J.A. Terranson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, Bill Stewart wrote:
> 
> > The more serious problem is what this means for computer evidence
> > search and seizure procedures - the US has some official rules about
> > "copy the disk and return the computer" that came out of the Steve
> Jackson
> > case, not that they're always followed;
> 
> Actually (at least here in the Midwest), it's copy ("image") the machine
> and provide a copy of that image.  The computer and original drive stay
> locked in the evidence locker till the case is over.

I can't say what the legal practice is in Canada.  I imagine it depends on
whether the legal proceedings are politically charged; whether the cops
are out to discover evidence, or if they are looking to destroy evidence;
or any of a number of motivating factors.

>From a purely technical perspective, there is no possible reason why the
police would ever need to keep the computers and all copies of data
related to an investigation.  It is possible to image everything on a hard
disk in an afternoon, including the extra bits available through, say,
the, READ LONG(10) command in the SCSI protocol, which are normally used
for ECC and CRC on each sector.  Depending on the device, it may also be
possible to access the spares tracks.  

In the rare event that a forensics firm is looking to scoop data that was
overwritten, the police should be able to provide a copy of the original
data back to the individual or business at a trivial cost in comparison to
the costs of the forensic proceedures.  Apart from data stored in flash
memory, or similar less common places, there is no good reason why the
actual computer hardware would need to be confiscated, except in the most
exceptional circumstances where in-situ testing might need to be done with
the original equipment.  But in that case, the police should be required
to acquire hardware that duplicates the original, so that they cannot be
said to have tampered or damaged the originals.

For correctness, the original computer equipment should be used once for
the acquisition of a read-only copy of the data residing on it.

However, it seems that the police will pretend that they are more
incompetent than they actually are in order to use confiscation as
extra-judicial punishment -- and that is just the common case where there
are only legitimate legal proceedings at issue.

In some cases, the police (in canada) are apparently willing to go to
great lengths to destroy evidence and impose extra-judicial sanction on
the subject of an `investigation', which may not exist at all in a legal
sense, by way of employing clandestine tactics.  In terms of my
experience, the near total loss of my computers and other materials was
carried out over a period of about three years, in an incrimental fashion
that did not have even the pretense of legitimacy, but which nevertheless
accompanied a subtle PR campaign that sought to suggest that there was
some sort of hush-hush investigation that as a result of so-called
exceptional circumstances, necessitated the particular methods that I
observed.

Total bullshit, actually, but we know that SpookWorld is exempt from the
normal rules of civilised behaviour because of the special nature of its
denizens.

Anyhow, my assessment of the needs of computer forensic proceedures is
probably quite accurate.  The reality of conflicting and extra-legal
agendas at work in some cases (such as the Steve Jackson incident) has
apparently dictated a deliberately 'stupid' approach on the part of law
enforcement personnel when it suits them.


Regards,

Steve


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Re: Mixmaster is dead, long live wardriving

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 06:01 PM 12/11/04 +, Justin wrote:
>On 2004-12-11T06:48:41-0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>> Mixmaster is the most godawful complex thing to use, much less
>> administer, around.  Even Jack B Nymble is complex.  It needs a
simple
>> luser interface and something to piggyback servers on.
>
>Not necessarily.  Mixmaster is trivial to use with Mutt.
>
>1. Compile Mixmaster

You've already lost 90% of your possible hosts

>2. Put the binary in some directory somewhere.
>3. Configure Mutt with --with-mixmaster  (sadly not enabled by default)

>4. add the line 'set mixmaster="/location/to/bin/mixmaster"' to .muttrc

>5. mkdir ~user/Mix/
>6. Add a script to crontab that does:

You're obviously talking about some fringe unix-like OS...

>7. When sending email, at the summary page just before sending, hit
'M'.

And if you forget then your message is sent to the To: recipient.  Nice
easy-to-screw-up UI there :-(

Re: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[Florian Weimer]

* Adam Shostack:

> On Sat, Dec 11, 2004 at 10:24:09PM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> | * R. A. Hettinga quotes a news article:
> | 
> | >  There have been numerous media reports in recent years that terrorist
> | > groups, including al-Qaida, were using steganographic techniques.
> | 
> | As far as I know, these news stories can be tracked back to a
> | particular USA Today story.  There's also been a bunch of stories how
> | a covert channel in TCP could be used by terrorists to hide their
> | communication.
>
> There's very good evidence that Al Qaida does *not* use strong crypto.

However, they use some form of crypto.  From a recent press release of
our attorney general:

| Als mitgliedschaftliche Betätigung im Sinne der Strafvorschrift des §
| 129b StGB für die "Ansar al Islam" wird den Beschuldigten vor allem
| zur Last gelegt, einen Mordanschlag auf den irakischen
| Ministerpräsidenten während seines Staatsbesuches in Deutschland am
| 2. und 3. Dezember 2004 geplant zu haben. Dies ergibt sich aus dem
| Inhalt einer Vielzahl zwischen den Beschuldigten seit dem 28. November
| 2004 verschlüsselt geführter Telefongespräche



(Very rough translation: "The persons are accused of being members of
"Ansar al Islam" and planning the assassination of the Iraqi prime
minister during his visit to Germany on the 2nd and 3rd December,
2004.  This follows from the contents of a multitude of encrypted
telephone calls the accussed exchanged since November 28, 2004.")

Probably, they just used code words, and no "real" cryptography.  I'm
trying to obtain a confirmation, though.

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RE: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[J.A. Terranson]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

> Psyops ain't just for the (overt) military you know...


http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/10367781.htm

Truth be told, lies are part of Pentagon strategy

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - "The first casualty when war comes is truth." So said Sen.
Hiram Johnson, a California Republican, in the year 1917.

There is a struggle inside the Pentagon over where to draw the line in
conducting so-called information operations or propaganda in the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and who will be involved. On one side are the
information warfare activists, led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
and Assistant Secretary Douglas Feith. On the other are those who believe
that telling lies to the media is wrong and military public affairs
officers should never be involved in that.

The wrangling has been going on since soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001
when a Pentagon war planner, speaking anonymously, told a Washington Post
reporter, "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine.
We're going to lie about things."

Not long afterward the Pentagon opened its controversial Office of
Strategic Influence amid reports that its mission included planting false
news stories in the international media. A public outcry led to the hasty
shuttering of that office, but Rumsfeld served notice that while the
office may have been closed, its mission would be continued by other
entities.

The defense secretary told reporters on Nov. 18, 2002: "Fine, you want to
savage this thing, fine. I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You
can have the name, but I'm going to keep doing every single thing that
needs to be done, and I have."

This week the Los Angeles Times reported that CNN had been targeted in an
information war operation three weeks before the start of the attack
against Fallujah. On Oct. 14 Marine 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a public affairs
spokesman, went on camera to declare that "troops crossed the line of
departure" - that the Fallujah operation was under way.

It was not. The U.S. commanders obviously hoped that the false news
broadcast by CNN would trigger certain moves by the insurgents and foreign
terrorists holding the Sunni city - moves that then could be analyzed to
gain information on how they would defend Fallujah.

Marine sources in Iraq flatly deny that Lt. Gilbert's statement to CNN was
a deception operation or part of a larger psy-war operation. They say the
distinction between public affairs and information operations is very
clear and jealously guarded by the public affairs community.

Also this week the Washington Post brought new attention on the
friendly-fire killing of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a former NFL football
star who gave up the spotlight to become a soldier. For days after the
death of Tillman, military commanders and spokesmen both in Afghanistan
and at Fort Bragg left out any mention of his having been killed by
American bullets as they spun the story of a hero killed in battle.

That incident brought to mind the false stories about the rescue and
heroism of Pvt. Jessica Lynch foisted on reporters during the opening days
of the attack into Iraq. The official picture painted initially was of a
young woman who fought to the last bullet before being wounded and
captured. The truth was that Pvt. Lynch was injured when the vehicle in
which she was riding crashed and she was knocked unconscious. She never
fired a shot.

An investigation of the Tillman death and the information given to the
media is presently under way, according to an Army spokesman. Defense
Department spokesman Larry DiRita says he has asked his staff for "more
information" on how the Oct. 14 Marine incident came to pass.

Critics point to one troubling recent development: the decision by
commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine information operations,
psychological operations and public affairs into a single strategic
communications office run by an Air Force brigadier general who reports
directly to Gen. George Casey, the American commander.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a
letter in late September warning American commanders of the problems of
lumping military public affairs in with information operations.

Myers warned that public affairs and information operations must remain
separate. But his warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears in Iraq
because civilian leaders in the Pentagon and the National Security Council
insisted on a blended effort of both public affairs and psy-ops to woo
Iraqi and Arab support for America's efforts in Iraq.

In the old days of the Cold War America's propaganda war was fought by the
U.S. Information Agency, which was strictly forbidden from distributing
any propaganda inside the United States. USIA was first gutted and then
folded into the State Department during the mid-1990s.

Everyone involved in this argument would do well to heed Gen.

Re: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[Ian Grigg]

> It seems consistent that Al Qaeda prefers being 'fish in the sea' to
> standing out by use of crypto. Also, given the depth and breadth of
> conspiracies they believe in, it seems that they might see all us
> cryptographers as a massive deception technique to get them to use bad
> crypto. (And hey, they're almost right! We love that they use bad
> crypto.)

Right.  Although only based on very limited experiences,
where I've come across those in "interesting lines of
business", the strong impression I get is that they would
not touch any new or geeky tool that had some claimed
benefits that couldn't be proven on examination.

This was most forcefully put to me by a dealer of narcotics
in Amsterdam (I wasn't buying, just trying to be polite at
a party ;) who said that he and his like would not use any
of the payment systems that had supposed privacy built in,
as they assumed that the makers were lying about the privacy
provisions.  As far as 3 systems that the guy was aware of,
he was dead right twice, and for the third, I'd say he was
approximately right.

So, if this is a valid use case and we can extend from small
time narcotics payments to big time terrorism chitchat, we
could suggest that they will be using standard people tools,
and trying hard to stay unobservable in the mass of traffic.
In this sense, one could say they were using steganography,
but I think it is more useful to say they are simply staying
out of sight.

Either way, the public policy implication is to challenge
any specious claims of how we need to control XXX because
terrorists use it.  In the case of crypto, it would appear
they don't use much, and what's more, they shouldn't.

> And see the link there to Ian Grigg's
> http://www.financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000246.html

I was hoping that the 'Terrorist Encyclopedia' had made its
way to somewhere like smoking gun or cryptome by now.

iang

Bull's Eye Investing

[Pat Molina]

Cote,

Vocalscape, Inc. (Pink Sheets: VCSC.PK)
Current Price: .10
Sector: Online Communications, Software

Major new at the close on Friday December 03, 2004! (Press Release 
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VocalScape Announces New Enhanced Turn-Key VoIP Platform for ISPs, 
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KATONAH, N.Y., Dec. 3. PRNewswire-FirstCall. Vocalscape, Inc. (Pink 
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Gentlemen don't read each others' mail.. bush no gman

[Major Variola (ret)]

Anyone surprised that the US spooks are admitting to wiretapping
UN people?  If they really had info they'd state it but refuse to answer

how they got it.

Somehow I doubt that UN officials and the people they might
chat with will get the secure phones they need.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57928-2004Dec11.html?nav=rss_nation

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  Acquires Controlling Interest of Pokerbook Gaming Corp. Monday December
  6, 9:30 pm ET
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  in real estate, timber, sports entertainment, and gaming, announced today that
  it has executed the definitive Stock Purchase Agreement and closed the transaction
  to acquire a controlling interest in Pokerbook Gaming Corporation (POKG.OTC)
  of Orlando, Fla.
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  to poker website operators worldwide as well as utilizing the software for the
  "World Poker Charity Tour," which is set to kick off in 2005.
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Re: Foxnews coverage

[Sheldon Carney]

<<%ATTNAME.gif>>

Steve Thompson

[A.Melon]

Out of nowhere cometh Steve Thompson, and sayeth he all manner of things. 
But, while his mouth moveth one way, he seemeth to move the other.

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22steve+thompson%22&start=0&hl=en&safe=off&;

What hath suddenly attracted our AUK creep?

Gary Webb dies - reported on CIA Cocaine Connections

[Bill Stewart]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/peninsula/10399522.htm
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/11745531p-12630606c.html (AP Storty)
Gary Webb, 49, former Mercury News reporter, author
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST WROTE CONTROVERSIAL SERIES
By Jessica Portner
Mercury News
Gary Webb, a former Mercury News investigative reporter, author and 
legislative staffer who ignited a firestorm with his controversial stories, 
died Friday in an apparent suicide in his suburban Sacramento home. He was 49.

The Sacramento County coroner's office said that when A Better Moving 
Company arrived at Mr. Webb's Carmichael home at about 8:20 a.m. Friday, a 
worker discovered a note posted to the front door which read: ``Please do 
not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance.''

Mr. Webb, an award-winning journalist, was found dead of a gunshot wound to 
the head, Sacramento County Deputy Coroner Bill Guillot said Saturday.

Mr. Webb's friends and colleagues described him as a devoted father and a 
funny, dogged reporter who was passionate about investigative journalism.

As a staff writer for the Mercury News from 1989 to 1997, he exposed 
freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and wrote 
stories about the Department of Motor Vehicles' computer software fiascos.

Mr. Webb was perhaps best known for sparking a national controversy with a 
1996 story that contended supporters of a CIA-backed guerrilla army in 
Nicaragua helped trigger America's crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. The 
``Dark Alliance'' series in the Mercury News came under fire by other news 
organizations, and the paper's own investigation concluded the series did 
not meet its standards.

Mr. Webb resigned a year and a half after the series appeared in the paper. 
He then published his book, ``Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the 
Crack Cocaine Explosion.''

In the past few years, Mr. Webb worked in the California Assembly Speaker's 
Office of Member Services and for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. 
The committee investigated charges that Oracle received a no-bid contract 
from Gov. Gray Davis. After being laid off from his legislative post last 
year, Mr. Webb was hired by the Sacramento News and Review, a weekly 
publication.

Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer who has 
known Mr. Webb for more than a decade, was distraught Saturday when he 
heard that his friend may have taken his own life.

``He had a fierce commitment to justice, truth and cared a lot about people 
who are forgotten and society tries to shove into the dark corners,'' 
Dresslar said. ``It's a big loss for me personally and a great loss for the 
journalism community.''

Services for Mr. Webb are pending.

Bill Stewart  [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Re: Mixmaster is dead, long live wardriving

[James A. Donald]

--
On 10 Dec 2004 at 21:47, Joseph Ashwood wrote:
> Wardriving is also basically dead. Sure there are a handful 
> of people that do it, but the number is so small as to be 
> irrelevant.

I regularly use the internet through other people's unprotected 
wireless networks, simply for convenience while travelling, not 
for any stego or anonymity purpose.   So do lots of other 
people.  I only target places convenient to tourists and likely 
to be rich in unprotected networks.   Maybe your network is 
located someplace where it is not worth the trouble to find it.
Sometimes I go down the street and steal some bandwidth just
because I find it a change to work in the open air. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 hOnTAnMFC4mbjwvyxYfLSmvpUXtw2xutPOvdyU0k
 4Jx3r8szirxwjD/2L68Q0/BDk3jSlebytG9a9+2IQ

Re: Mixmaster is dead, long live wardriving

[James A. Donald]

--
On 11 Dec 2004 at 8:29, J.A. Terranson wrote:
> Looking out of my fifth floor window I can connect to ~20
> 802.x nets *without* directional antennas or high powered
> cards.  With extra gear, I can hit almost 50, and in both
> cases, roughly a third are completely open, another third are
> trivially "protected", and the remaining third have done the
> best they can under the circumstances

This may explain the lack of wardriving.  Why bother to drive? 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 GZxQHl5Ys94JIEGFGqHzFIw0CwTw+cJrG2kcpVuC
 4om0VpAEKeFBIkSSAJXTDq0ocurOXkmRwScqZa3fV

To the Computer, You're Still Beautiful

[R.A. Hettinga]

The New York Times

December 12, 2004

To the Computer, You're Still Beautiful
 By MATTHEW L. WALD


UNATTRACTIVE passport photos, once merely traditional, may become
mandatory. The reason is that computers do not like smiles.

A United Nations agency that sets standards for passports wants all
countries to switch to a document that includes a "biometric feature," a
digital representation of the bearer's face recorded on an embedded
computer chip. In airports and at border crossings, a machine will read the
chip to see if the information there matches the bearer's face. But the
machine can be flummoxed by smiles, which introduce teeth, wrinkles, seams
and other distortions.

The State Department issued instructions that passport photos "should be
neutral (non-smiling) with both eyes open, and mouth closed." In a grudging
sop to the irrepressible, a "smile with closed jaw is allowed, but is not
preferred."

A State Department spokeswoman pointed to another page of the Web site
where "neutral" had been changed to "natural." But it, too, said that the
mouth should be closed. Canada and Britain have issued similar instructions.

In the end, some critics say, the joke may be on the government, because
the face recognition system may deal poorly with aging, and a passport is
good for 10 years.

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
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'

Re: Mixmaster is dead, long live wardriving

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 12:01 AM 12/13/04 -0600, J.A. Terranson wrote:
 Interestingly, I don't
>know of anyone who still actively wardrives at random (as opposed to
>against specific targets) for this same reason.

I've met some people this year who war-fly SoCal: a cessna, laptop, and
regular dipole
suffices, and a GPS helps with the mapping, but it was only for
curiosity's sake,
esp given the short time you're in a given net.

commitment trust

[R.W. (Bob) Erickson]

from R. H Frank's "Passion within reason"
to gain trust we show our commitment by doing hard work.
In web's of trust, one way to add to new reputation would be to require 
each new node to perform an asymmetrically difficult task for more than 
one pre-existing node, on top of existing anti-faking provisions.

hash-cash buys a chance to earn trust, it functions as a hard to fake 
gesture of sincerity

--bob

RE: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 02:47 PM 12/9/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:
>Oh, general cluelessness doesn't suprise me. What suprises me is that
the
>writer of the original article seemed to believe that Stego was a new
>development.

The high-level pigs try to introduce this hysteria-generator
periodically.
The dumb typists eat what they're fed.

Eventually it reaches critical mass in Joe Sixpacks and Tipper Gore
comes out whining about the chiiildren.  This is the intent of the high
level pigs.

Psyops ain't just for the (overt) military you know...


Stego rules for a safer tomorrow:
1. Always use original carrier image/sounds/whatever
2. Generally broadcasting (eg eBay) is best, recipients should
download lots of similar carriers
3. Keep S/N low so detection is problematic
4. Wardrive injection/download is best
5. Keep your tools on your flash drive not your HD

Are you sick of over priced Meds??,

[Herman Robison]

Generic is what you're looking for.
Half the cost of name brands.
Over night delivery w/o needing a prescription.
Get what you need discreetly and securely.

http://tnbjk.packjjaj.com/index.php?ID=affil04

__
Noreen canberra. 
Edwardo artificial hamal contaminate. 
Stephan classic almanac surge.

Re: punkly current events

[James A. Donald]

--
On 9 Dec 2004 at 19:47, Joseph Ashwood wrote:
> In short, except for those few people who have some use for
> MixMaster, MixMaster was stillborn.

As one of those few people who have had some use for Mixmaster,
it does not seem stillborn to me. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 Ro+kP9M7vm+5D5reA+LsRnc0ZS0gmtCx5gMXfF1C
 4b44ZbduosEwPf20ABp+i55nWmvT0qNthPt1OryTC

Re: Insurrectionist covers

[Steve Thompson]

 --- Justin Guyett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> On 2004-12-11T08:10:27-0500, Steve Thompson wrote:
> > [snip]
> > This is what happens when one picks up ideas from people who present
> them
> > second-hand (or at even greater distances from their origin) and who
> do
> > not make proper footnotes.
> 
> That's just a symptom of the problem that there's no clear line past
> which ideas must be cited.  How infrequently do you have to see an idea
> in print, and how novel must it be, before a citation is appropriate?

Depends, I suppose, on a number of factors.

> Ideas are a continuum.  Plagiarism is an artificial notion constructed
> as a result of the need to measure individuals' progress in higher
> education, as well as to protect intellectual property (which didn't
> really exist before the invention of the printing press).  People used
> to have scribes copy books.  They were treated as tomes of knowledge,
> not as property.  Now that they are property, people have more books
> than ever before, and are reading them less carefully than ever before.

Well, previously there was more importance put towards knowledge, and less
on making money with same.  Today the emphasis is somewhat different.

> Even Dawkins and Hobbes picked up ideas and used them without explicit
> citation.  Hobbes didn't arrive at his conception of the State of Nature
> in a void.  He got those ideas in reaction against Greek history,
> Descartes, and several other people.

Everybody does that, or at least those who create knowledge either as a
process of study and synthesis, or as a result of original research.  Some
ideas are prevalent to the extent that it is obvious as to their origin. 
Ideally, someone who presents an idea as his or her own will take some
pains to indicate the fact, and will distinguish their sources by way of
appropriate references.
 
> Which brings up an interesting thought relating to entropy.  Does it
> matter whether a prior author breaks up a subject into N pieces, proving
> N-1 pieces unworkable but leaving the "last" unaddressed?  Someone who

Now you're talking about SLAC.

> takes those ideas and writes a defense of the "last" piece might be
> copying the prior author's ideas, even though they were not written
> anywhere.  Intellectual property and ideas are often traceable directly,
> but sometimes they are not.  Requiring citations for ideas often results
> in incorrect citations or citations to secondary or tertiary (or worse)
> sources.

Theft of IP is a complicated endeavour these days.
 
> Hijacking that thought a bit, lack of citations is one of my pet peeves.

Me too.

> Nobody makes proper footnotes or citations these days; it's particularly
> noticeable in quote collections.  There are fake quotes from the
> founders floating around, as well as fake quotes from Marcus Aurelius
> ("Times are bad; children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is
> writing a book.") as well as from all sorts of other historical figures.
 
Opinion:  It seems there is a new trend towards guild-like protection of
scientific and scientific-like diciplines.  People who like the idea of
guilds are working towards making participation contingent upon
membership.

Membership may eventually only be granted to individuals who submit to
arbitrary rules.  And note that I am not referring to ethical restrictions
in this instance.  Ethics -- good ones that dicate a minimum of racism and
like discrimination, for instance -- are becoming somehwat rare.


Regards,

Steve


__ 
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

Gary Webb, 49; Wrote Series Linking CIA, Drugs

[R.A. Hettinga]

The Los Angeles Times


OBITUARIES

Gary Webb, 49; Wrote Series Linking CIA, Drugs
 By Nita Lelyveld and Steve Hymon
 Times Staff Writers

 December 12, 2004

 Gary Webb, an investigative reporter who wrote a widely criticized series
linking the CIA to the explosion of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found
dead in his Sacramento-area home Friday. He apparently killed himself,
authorities said.

 Webb had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento
County coroner's office. He was 49.

 His 1996 San Jose Mercury News series contended that Nicaraguan drug
traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine from Colombian cartels in Los
Angeles' black neighborhoods and then funneled millions in profits back to
the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras.

 Three months after the series was published, the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department said it conducted an exhaustive investigation but
found no evidence of a connection between the CIA and Southern California
drug traffickers.

 Major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and
Washington Post, wrote reports discrediting elements of Webb's reporting.
The Los Angeles Times report looked into Webb's charges "that a CIA-related
drug ring sent 'millions' of dollars to the Contras; that it launched an
epidemic of cocaine use in South-Central Los Angeles and America's other
inner cities; and that the agency either approved the scheme or
deliberately turned a blind eye."

 "But the available evidence, based on an extensive review of court
documents and more than 100 interviews in San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Washington and Managua, fails to support any of those allegations," The
Times reported.

 Months later, the Mercury News also backed away from the series,
publishing an open letter to its readers, admitting to flaws.

 "We oversimplified the complex issue of how the crack epidemic in America
grew," wrote the paper's executive editor, Jerry Ceppos, adding, "I believe
that we fell short at every step of our process - in the writing, editing
and production of our work."

 The paper reassigned Webb to a suburban bureau. In December 1997, he quit.

 "All he ever wanted to do was write," said Webb's ex-wife, Susan Bell, who
met him when they were both high school students in Indiana. "He never
really recovered from it."

 Webb was born in Corona to a military family and moved around the country
throughout his youth. He dropped out of journalism school just shy of
graduating to accept his first newspaper job at the Kentucky Post, then
went to the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Mercury News.

 Within two years of arriving at the paper, Webb was part of a team that
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

 Webb continued to defend his reporting, most notably in a 548-page book,
"Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion,"
which was published in 1999.

 After leaving the Mercury News, Webb worked in state government, including
the Joint Legislative Audit Committee's investigation into then-Gov. Gray
Davis' controversial award of a $95-million, no-bid contract to Oracle in
2001.

 "The guy had a fierce commitment to justice and truth. He cared deeply
about the people who are forgotten, that we try to shove into the dark
recesses of our minds and world," said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the
California attorney general's office who worked with Webb on the Oracle
investigation.

 But Webb's career remained troubled. While working for another legislative
committee in Sacramento, Webb wrote a report accusing the California
Highway Patrol of unofficially condoning and even encouraging racial
profiling in its drug interdiction program.

 Legislative officials released the report in 1999 but cautioned that it
was based mainly on assumptions and anecdotes. Earlier this year, Webb was
one of a group of employees fired from the Assembly speaker's Office of
Member Services for failing to show up for work.

 Webb, who lived in Carmichael, continued to write occasionally for a
variety of publications. Last summer, the weekly Sacramento News & Review
hired Webb to cover government and politics. He had recently written two
cover stories, including one on how much money Sacramento County was making
off the use of red-light cameras.

 "He's obviously a skilled reporter and writer and he was doing good work
for us and the evidence was on the page," said News & Review Editor Tom
Walsh.

 Webb is survived by two sons, Ian and Eric; and a daughter, Chr
-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
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 Ro

RE: Blinky Rides Again: RCMP suspect al-Qaida messages

[James A. Donald]

--
On 9 Dec 2004 at 16:15, J.A. Terranson wrote:
> (3) The other camp believes that stego is a lab-only toy, 
> unsuitable for much of anything besides scaring the shit out 
> of the people in the Satan camp.

I have used stego for practical purposes.  The great advantage
of stego is that it conceals your threat model. 

--digsig
 James A. Donald
 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
 aV25L9tGoz00uU3bzcY+rbFDV5nX9BCkK67CRwcd
 4mBXnVakFBPiPRCdugeDolUdtnd8iueWgYFwR3Pch

Re: To the Computer, You're Still Beautiful

[J.A. Terranson]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, R.A. Hettinga wrote:


> computer chip. In airports and at border crossings, a machine will read the
> chip to see if the information there matches the bearer's face. But the
> machine can be flummoxed by smiles, which introduce teeth, wrinkles, seams
> and other distortions.



> In the end, some critics say, the joke may be on the government, because
> the face recognition system may deal poorly with aging, and a passport is
> good for 10 years.

On the other hand, this provides a "reason" for passports to be reduced to
5 years.

-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
0xBD4A95BF

 Civilization is in a tailspin - everything is backwards, everything is
upside down- doctors destroy health, psychiatrists destroy minds, lawyers
destroy justice, the major media destroy information, governments destroy
freedom and religions destroy spirituality - yet it is claimed to be
healthy, just, informed, free and spiritual. We live in a social system
whose community, wealth, love and life is derived from alienation,
poverty, self-hate and medical murder - yet we tell ourselves that it is
biologically and ecologically sustainable.

The Bush plan to screen whole US population for mental illness clearly
indicates that mental illness starts at the top.

Rev Dr Michael Ellner