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Stu Savory's Blog | |
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Who He? 
Dr. Stuart Savory, overeducated, scottish Ex-Pat (and multilingual), blatently opinionated,
old (1944-vintage),
amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Beetle-driver,
textbook-writer, long-distance biker, blogger and webmaster living in the
foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to reveal
his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and humour and rants
irregularly. Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that he's not really
evil, or even anti-american, in spite of Dubya's efforts to convince him
that he should be. ;)
Political compass Quality Blogs American Samizdat Betsy Devine Dave Pollard Doug Alder Easy Bake Coven Frank Paynter Gary Turner Gary Williams Jeneane Sessum Joel Sax Kalilily KnowProSE Making Light Mandarin Design Mercurial Old fash. patriot Orcinus People's Republic of Seabrook Sherri Stuart Hughes Susan's Hindsight U.C.C.U Uninstalled Yule Heibel Neat News Sites BBC News Cryptome Exploding Cigar Need to Know Offbeat (Sky) Political Fact Check The Rockall Times Terms of (Re)Use A site that links to Stu Savory's web site or uses content from Stu Savory's website:- May link to Stu Savory's web site via permalink, home page link or any other page link (the latter may be subject to link rot over time); May replicate up to 10 (ten) lines of content contained in my web site and must attribute the content quoted therein to Stu Savory AND give a link to my original content; Must not represent Stu Savory's web site contents as its own; Must not present misleading or false information about Stu Savory or his web site Must not misrepresent Stu Savory's relation-ship with the linker; Must not imply that Stu Savory is endorsing the linker or any linker's services or products; Must agree that the link be removed at any time upon Stu Savory's emailed request. Now Reading
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Good BlogsFirst, congratulations to Doug Alder for two years of unstinted blogging. Also I'd like to point you to 3 people who have earned a regular place on my roll of high quality blogs :
Monday, March 29, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Opening KnightBack on Thursday the 25th it was a very special opening night at the HNF (world's largest computer museum) here in Paderborn, Germany.
The premiere showing of the reconstruction of
the 1769 Chess-Turk,
a mechanical chess-player. The original was built by a german-hungarian engineer
Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804) for the austrian empress
Maria-Theresia. Fittingly, his direct descendents (6 or 7 generations on) were
present at the opening night (see this photo, centre and right).
Also invited were several art historians (sadly not including
Yule) and many chess enthusiasts,
and of course yours truly (author of several books on artificial intelligence).
After an introductory lecture by a vienniese professor specialising in 18th century automata, the automaton was wheeled out for display. It is a beautiful nut wood cabinet, 95 cm high, 90 deep and 150 wide behind which is seated a life size doll, dressed as a Turk, which was very much in fashion in mid 18th century Vienna. The cabinet was opened, one door at a time after another, for us to marvel at the complicated mechanical stuff (gears, wheels, pulleys, pantographs etc) inside. Finally, the doors of the cabinet were closed and the clockwork spring was wound up - by the machine's assistent - with much show!
The chess-turk
In 1840 (and at thursday's premiere) the secret was revealed to us. Of course a mechanical automaton could not play chess; hidden in the cabinet - a la David Copperfield - was an accomplished (and thin!) human chessplayer , who moved silently around inside it as the doors were (serially) opened and closed. He used the pantograph to move the automaton's arms and to grip the chesspieces. Magnetic indicators below the chessboard showed him where the pieces were. The presentation was very well done, the 400+ audience (standing room only) giving a standing ovation, especially to the real hero of the evening, the very talented master renovator Bernhard Fromme, who spent over a year reconstructing the automaton from old woodcuts (including two originals by Wolfgang von Kempelen himself) and 150-year-old newspaper articles. He has made an international name for himself restoring such mechanical marvels. By the way, the HNF has a working Jaquard loom, Babbage's calculator, diverse Enigma cipher machines etc. and is well worth a day's visit!
Friday, March 26, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Another screwup by MI5 spooksNot so long ago in London(UK) , the building of the Pakistan High Commission (that's what embassies are called in the Commonwealth) was being renovated. Pakistan is a valued partner in the fight against terrorism. However, one of the english casual labourer builders noticed that security was pretty lax there. Secret passwords were on post-it notes pinned to the walls and documents stamped "secret" lay around in rooms open for renovation. The builders were even asked to take them away for destruction.
MI5 bugs allies?
Said casual labourer thought it all highly suspicious and decided to call MI5. Now MI5 has a 'hotline' for any information from the public, which he called. MI5 didn't answer the phone. So busy tapping other people's phones that they didn't answer their own! The trusty patriotic Brit did not give up however. Instead he called the CIA in Langley, Virginia. They summoned him to a meeting in the US embassy in London, wanting the plans of the Pakistani building (why? we ask). Once he had given them these they arranged a meeting with MI5 for him, all very exciting, secret identification codewords were set up and the casual labourer set off to the arranged meeting place, a public square. And yes, "Claire", a woman from MI5 was there 'secretly' waiting for our friend the casual labourer. But "Claire" was so flustered by all the 'James Bond' excitement that she was still wearing her MI5 house-pass on her lapel for everyone to see! The epitomy of competence! Nevertheless it was arranged that MI5 would send their spooks, disguised as builders, to "work" on the renovation site. Noticibly, all of them had smooth, lilywhite 'office' hands, nary a blister between them. And they changed their alleged jobs daily, one day the same spook was allegedly a joiner, the next an electrician and the next a plumber! And MI5 still hadn't noticed that their original 'casual labourer' contact-man's place of residence was a local mental hospital, where he was on day-leave. When the whole farce was noticed by the Pakistanis, MI5 promised "scout's honour" dib-dib-dib that they hadn't actually installed any bugs in the building! And Claire's boss, a thin balding man in his fifties, gave the casual labourer = mental patient an envelope full of money and told him keep his mouth shut "very hush-hush, old chap, y'know!". Our hero skipped the country and told the story to the german press, from whence it appears in this blog. Of course, Pakistan made an official complaint, but the whole MI5 scandal was swept under the carpet. Why? Well at about the same time renovations had been made in the building of the British High Commission is Islamabad and the Ambassador had later gotten entangled in some loose wires under his desk. They turned out to be poorly installed (too short) microphone cables which had torn loose from their mountings when the ambassador moved his desk along to get a better view out the window from his chair! O tempora, o mores! If you like reading spook stories I can recommend a thriller "At Risk" written by Dame Stella Rimington. Who she? In 1992 Stella was the first woman to be head of MI5 and wrote the novel "At Risk" when she retired. Sherri, that's surely a book for you!
Wednesday, March 24, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Golgotha HillThey’ve just started showing a bloody, awful film (both adjectives used in their original sense) about a minor jewish prophet (that’s official Rabbispeak) at the cinemas here in Germany. The dialogue is in Aramaic (duh!) and Latin (which half I can understand) with only subtitles in German. Was it subtitled in the US too? Or all in English? That would explain why that lady from Utah thought that He spoke English. Anyway, after lightning hitting His actor, we now have priests dying in the cinema.Actually, I thought that The Book was better than the movie :-) The film was made by one Mel Gibson. Interesting that he can sum up the whole plot in the two words in his surname (Gib Sohn), or is this Jungian synchronicity only visible to those who can read German or Yiddish? What do you think, Yule? Apropos Yiddish : Czech historian Jaroslav Bransky, writing in the Prague magazine Reflex this month, has constructed a genealogical tree for President in spe JFKerry, which includes a teacher called Sinai, the brother of Rabbi Löw of Prague. According to Yiddish legend, Rabbi Löw was the priest who constructed the Golem, the first robot, made of clay and run by a scrip in his head. The Golem (which ran amok) was stopped by erasing from its forehead the initial E of Emeth (=wisdom) to give Meth (=death). If you can stop Clay, you must be pretty good :-) BTW, 'Robot' is also a Czech word, meaning 'worker'. If you didn’t (want to) know all that, you can czeck out now, OK ? Now given that Dubya has had the wisdom erased from his head for quite a while now, but is still running amok, maybe Kerry's genie-ology (excuse the pun) will enable him to stop the mad Golem this year. Bible reading 101 for Dubya : Not just to concentrate on JFKerry, I
would point out that the pResident (Dubya) alleges he has read the Bible. Perhaps he
can remember Proverbs 16:12 "It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the
throne is established by righteousness". Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest
please Dubya.
Monday, March 22, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
'The Inside is the Outside' and other linksKlein Bottles : Yesterday Teresa gave us a sidebar-link to a place where you can buy physically real glassware Klein Bottles ; thanks Teresa, I've always wanted one of those, thinking they were just a topological game, but never knew where I could buy one. For non-mathematicians or non-topologists, with Klein Bottles the inside is also the outside, weird!!!Quickie mail etc. : The BIOS specialists Phoenix now give us a utility which lets us access Outlook to read our mail, look at our schedules etc BEFORE Win XP spends an infuriating couple of minutes booting up. Ideal for Laptop users who can now forget their PDA. The Amazing Scotsman : Last friday fellow blogger and friend Doug Alder dedicated a great joke about an old Scotsman to me. Follow the link to read it now please, before you continue reading this paragraph in order to understand the following remarks too. At a party in Hanstein over the weekend I read Doug's joke aloud with great success, even more so when people realised I'd had to don my reading glasses to read it to them :-) Unphat : Last week Gary Turner and I arranged to race to lose weight. I managed 1.1 kilos in the first week. BTW, the BBC has an article about tackling the obesity time bomb. Might save Gary having to invest in one of those stair lifts :-) Flying : Maybe Northstar liked my Saturday post about really hairy flying incidents? Certainly he blogged a nice note from a little girl to the pilot flying the plane she was on. R U sad? : Reporting from the UK, The Register tells us that most IT pros are unhappy at work. Go ahead, surprise me! Actually, I've always been annoyed with the beancounters (MBA= Mind-stultifying Bean Arranger) myself. The Register also reports that China is starting to pull the plug on Blogs now. Wonder how long it'll be before Dubya does that too? Congrats : to Yule Heibel, awarded Feedster of the day recently.
Saturday, March 20, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Another spooky anecdoteLast week both Sherri and Brian each wrote asking for more spook anecdotes. So here is a rather amusing GCHQ tale which happened last year (2003).The GCHQ SIGINT people detected a slightly modulated signal coming from a transmitter in Yorkshire, not too far from the top-secret Fylingdales Early-Warning Radar Station there. All attempts to decode it failed; must be a new form of encryption they thought, because it was random noise at high modulation frequencies but fairly rhythmic in the sub-hertz range. Triangulation localised it to an existing transmission antenna and GCHQ traffic analysis showed that the signals were sent at roughly the same time of day each day. So the spooks had to build hides at some distance away across the open fields, lest they be spotted whilst themselves spotting with high-powered binoculars. It turns out that the modulations were caused by a rather virile local billy-goat! After tupping the nanny-goats each morning he would scratch his private parts on the transmitter mast which vibrated accordingly, putting the slight doppler modulation on top of its normal signal! I wonder if - when she is selling Tupperware and not just jetting about - Liz Lawley knows the meaning of the verb tup as I used it above? Maybe her socalled 'tupperware' parties are really orgies, gonzo marketing sex-toys? :grin: Apropos Jetting-about : Recently, several pilots who liked the
aviation bit from 22nd Feb
have asked for some more interesting aviation photos. OK guys (and gal), here are some
photos I took whilst visiting the
EAA meet in Oshkosh back in 1984.
I remember too that I had promised
Frank Paynter, who
hails from Wisconsin, to put these up on my site too; so here they are
finally Frank. Now folks, if you have strong nerves and are
not afraid of flying, then
follow this link to see some really hairy incidents, else just have a quiet
Thursday, March 18, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Amigo homeThe past couple of days we've seen many bloggers writing from SXSW (South by SouthWest), an introspective Bloggercon in Texas. Bet most of them were whiteys, who - blind as bats - blinded by the blogs - were ignoring the long-term (4 decades) racial problems arising in the SXSW area. Bet they didn't touch on that racy subject at all there.
I think it was back in 1848 or so that Mexico lost their territories Arizona,
California, New Mexico and Texas to the US. But 200 years later they
will be getting them back.
For they are outbreeding their way back to victory there, and certainly are
not assimilating.
Aren't there already five million Mexillegals in the US? Wire fence or not?
Some 47% of LA's inhabitants are hispanic (under 30% are nonhispanic whites).
The birthrate differential is mexicanising the LA schools.
Soon Spanish will be a recognised official language there. By 2040 the WASPs will be in a minority there. Political candidates may lose elections if they propose to limit the hispanic influence, because the Hispanics will then vote for the other guy. So by mid-century the politicians will be Hispanics too. Then at the latest, the transparent wire fence across America will fall, just as the Berlin wall fell here and with similar economic consequences. The US may split into a hispanic southwest and a WASP northeast. And if I remember correctly, Texas reserved the right to secede from the Union. May you live in interesting times. Want to know more? Obtain the current copy of "Foreign Policy" and read the fascinating article by Samuel Huntington. He was the guy who wrote the famous 1993 book about the clash of cultures between Islam and other religions (and was so right, as it turned out). Blog feedback : The world is not a perfect place ( check thy orbs) and so - sadly - I have had to add a 'Terms of (re)use' section to the sidebar. Joel shows us his blogplace. Eric Norlin has given Rageboy a job, which should enable him (rb) to bootstrap his way out of his personal bankruptcy and should help stabilise him, we all hope. An annoying dutch person at IP 80.231.158.231 keeps port-scanning me. Doug thinks I should get out more and exercise, pointing out that an anagram of my name is "your TV ass". Well gee, thanks, but Gary Turner and I have just started a lose-weight race. May the best man thin :-)
Tuesday, March 16, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Blogging introspectively todayHome sweet home :
On March 8th,
Kaye Trammel was collecting photos of where we blog. So here is mine,
strangely without the usual huge coffee cup on the ceramic dog-tile!
Just click on the thumbnail for a wry 80kB enlargement.
Wry enlargement?
Yessiree, because the blogosphere is so introspective,
you will see that the photo is of my blogging-place and it depicts
a 17 inch monitor showing a photo of my blogging-place containing a
monitor which shows ...turtles all the way down!In contradiction, the sheet of paper lower right bears an inscription written phonetically from the japanese : Kankei ga nei (="this has nothing to do with me"). Sure, you're right folks, recursive constructionism is NOT funny, just weird ;-) There now, I've shown you mine, now you show us yours :-) Saturday NO fever : I've noticed that on saturdays my blog traffic
halves, so I thought maybe blogreaders are from schools and colleges.
Some hits are from Israeli sites
which I can't even read,
ditto from Greece (
from Vangelis Haniotakis maybe? Rock on, man!)
Missing Introspection : Pot calls kettle
Sunday, March 14, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Weasel WordsGiven that title today, I bet you thought I was going to harangue about Dubya again, dincha? But I'm not, 'cos I'm very busy; instead I'll copy an amusing true story from Alaska. My better half, Cornelia, recently spent some time in Talkeetna (Alaska,USA) with our friends Doris Ehrenstein (Talkeetna Chocolate Shop) and Klaus Steigler (Talkeetna Real Estate). She brought back inter alia a copy of The Talkeetna Times, which had a great little story about 'Ermy the Ermelin' in its March 1st issue. With their express permission (thanks, Judy) I blog an amusing anecdote written by Michael Castle today.......
Recently, I was at my computer in the office, near the window where we have a wide variety of birds, squirrels, and other varmints that come to see what might be available to snack on. I had been seeing birds fly in and out of a wire cage sitting outside a window near by, which looked like some kind of feeding contraption from where I was sitting. I soon found out it was a "live trap" used to relocate problem squirrels. Ermy's weight apparently trigger the trap as he followed a Chickadee in who was sneaking food out of it. Ermy had killed the Chickadee - but was in a panic because he could not get out of the trap, and he was one very unhappy weasel to put it mildly! Ermy was talkin' that talk, spitting, raising all kinds of hell in that trap! I wanted to get a picture of him, but not inside the trap, so Dondi (Ford-Visser, from the Good Times office) and I loaded the trap with Ermy inside it into my little truck (a Suzuki Vitara). We were going to turn him loose near the Smurfy-blue cabin at the entrance to the driveway, where there happened to be a lot of fat juicy mice, voles, and shrews for Ermy to feast on. I figured one of us could work the camera while the other let Ermy out of his trap. Now, Ermy already had an attitude about being trapped while catching his dinner, and now he was being hauled off to parts unknown, inside a moving vehicle, (which is very unweasel like), and very much against his will! Now as anyone in the military can tell you, the best time to escape if taken prisoner is as soon after you are caught as possible, before you are taken deeper into enemy territory ... this rule must be in the Escape Handbook for Weasels, too. Years ago a fellow named Ray Stevens had a song out about a Mississippi squirrel that he had taken to church inside a shoe box that had gotten loose, and had went totally berserk ... and when the choir stood up to sing, the squirrel ran up Harv NewIan's coveralls ... Harv leaped to his feet and said "Somethin's got a hold on me!" Yeow! Harv thought he had weed eater loose in his Fruit-Of-The-Looms ... well, the lyrics to that Mississippi Squirrel song was all I could think when I saw something out of the comer of my eye, and turned around to see Ermy on the top of the back seat looking at me with beady black eyes and flashing teeth. I told Dondi watch out - Ermy was loose... now we only needed to drive 100 yards to the cabin, but the driveway has some curves in it, and it was full of snow and ice. I didn't want to stop because we only had 50 yards to go - but didn't want this weasel with an attitude jumping on the back of my neck or get down my shirt, or up under the seat and get into my snow boots, either. I was trying to keep the car between the ditches while watching for Ermy to launch his sneak attack at any moment, so I decided to open my door while still driving which would give him the option of making a break for it (which would be the smart thing to do), or stay and fight, which would probably put three of us in the ditch. Ermy took one look the snow outside and felt that cold air, and he was gone ... but not before spraying my truck and leaving me with the wonderful scent called "Essence of Ermine".
E = mc²
Friday, March 12, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
More on spooky stuffWest Point : Snailmail came yesterday from the US Military Academy at West Point, but it was just my author's copies of the January issue of Cryptologia which contains a crypto paper of mine. I'm co-published with Kahn and Kruh - just to namedrop two - ; things are looking up! Fan Mail : Judging by the eMails I've been getting, several of you liked the short anecdotes about spooks (such as a paragraph I wrote on March 7th and the longer rant on March 1st), and have asked for more - a mini-series maybe. So let's start with 3 on telephone terror:- Israel : Whilst scanning through Wednesday's copy of "Jediot Ahronot" (an Israeli newspaper), I read that Meir Dagan left his mobile phone in the car, from where it was stolen. Why is that interesting? Well Meir Dagan is head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. So, if whoever stole it can crack the 4 digit PIN, he will have an interesting list of incoming phone numbers, outgoing calls and a very interesting internal phone list. And then there is the crypto-chip of course ... Even if he/she was only a casual thief, certain interested parties (who CAN crack the PIN) would be very interested in buying that mobile phone :-) Al Qaeda terrorists have an interesting misconception about anonymity. Judasphone : As soon as your mobile phone is switched on, even if you are
not making a call, it reveals its position to the cell network.
So spooks can track you, making a travel profile. Many phones also have an
escape sequence called 'babyphone mode'. It means that if the phone is switched on,
someone can call the phone (silently, without it ringing) and turn on
the microphone. An ideal bugging device. And of course, since it is
known where you are (resolved to the nearest cell),
a suicide-bomber with his own mobile phone ( for initial guidance)
and a photo of you (for final target acquisition) makes
an ideal anti-personnel guided missile.
Thursday, March 11, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Freeping the MirrorBush is whacking We have a weekly publication called "Der Spiegel" (=the mirror) which is a bit left of centre here in Germany. That makes it "left-left" in the view of the ultra-right Bush worshippers, and thus a target for manipulation. "Der Spiegel" also has an online subsidiary which polls readers (insecurely) on the Internet for their views. So too, last week. Readers were asked to give an opinion of Dubya's term in office so far, using the German schools' rating system of 1 (best) to 6 (worst). Up until March 5th, 13:00 Berlin Time, the results showed 3.3% gave score 1, 1.5% gave score 2 and some 70% gave score 6. Then Dubya's windy media manipulators struck; Hastur, Ligur and David Kaspar. KKKasparle's wake-up call to the pro-Bush bloggers resulted in the percentage giving score 1 being pushed up to 41% by 10pm Berlin time the same evening, multiple votes falsifying the poll. Apparently the ultra-right freepers think it is OK to stuff the ballot box and cheat on the poll. I wonder from whom they learnt to do that? If you can read German, the original report on this freep is here. By Monday things were swinging back to normal (38% score 1, 62% score 6), by Tuesday it was 20 to 60, but the very bimodal distribution shows that both pro- and anti-Bush factions had gathered their followers, which is legitimate as long as they only cast 1 vote. This is a DDOS-like kind of media-manipulation, against which cookie-setting (Der Spiegel had not done that simple precaution) offers some protection. Looking at the referrer logs however, showed that most manipulators came directly from the website of Free Republic, where the aforesaid KKKasparle had called upon the pro-Bushites to manipulate the poll. Bottom line: This poll means nothing. Nor do any where Freepers were involved.
Whilst I'm calming down, go read Howard Dean's GridIron Speech. Good, isn't it? So folks, Dubya's media-manipulators, liars, cheaters, freepers and vote-stealers are even reaching us here at home. A sad day, a very sad day. But "that's how it goes, you think you're on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armageddon on you" (quoted from 'Good Omens', by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, a book I very much recommend!).
'Tis a small world! Turns out I have namesake
dextrous blogreader called Linda Savory, in Tucson (USA). Welcome Linda, babe! She and I do not
see eye to eye as far as Dubya is concerned. But then, if we were all on the same
side of the centre, it wouldn't be the centre, would it? It takes opposite views
to define a centre. But Linda writes some amusing eMails. "I guess the first thing I'd say after reading some of your blogs is I hope we're not related :-)" and "I'll be visiting your site ~~ sometimes I get low blood pressure and your blogs will raise it to at least normal ;-)" So today's tale of 'Freeping the Mirror' should please Linda, 2flower and Brykmantra all 3 in one go! Amazing how easy it is to keep your fans happy, isn't it, George?
Tuesday, March 9, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Eel, 'Song Fu'.A Jaques E. Doc story : Caveat : This tale may only be understood by my Canadian and French blogreaders. I wrote it in particular to make Riri, who had a bad Saturday, laugh. Yesterday I had a visitor from France at work, a nice French lady. Her German was nonexistent and her English poor, so we spoke French. This meant that I had really to concentrate, since it is a while since I spoke it - I can understand more than I can speak, a question of passive versus active vocabulary. I particularly had to struggle for technical words at times - it's not all papier tournesol as Ben would say, Carl, if you're reading this :-) After a while though, the brain throws a switch and you're into french-only mode I find. Anyway, we took a lunch break and went down the road to a nice chinese restaurant. When the (german-speaking) waiter came, I ordered for us and he just stood there looking blankly at me. It was then we realised that I'd spoken to him in french! My lady guest laughed and said "They are mad, the english!". At that, the waiter about-heeled and disappeared! Ten minutes later he came back with two steaming fish dishes for us. Bushwhacking : I've just started reading a superb satire by Al Franken, as shown over on the sidebar. It's called "LIES and the lying liars who tell them. A fair and balanced look at the right". It even starts off "God chose me to write this book . . " :-) I've only read two chapters (of 43) so far, but I can thoroughly recommend it. Very funny indeed. Here's another sample (about WMD) :- "The question must be asked: What did the President know? And, if not, why didn't he know it? If, as may be the case, the President did not understand his intelligence briefings, why didn't he ask to have them explained to him? And did he know that he didn't understand them?". Great stuff indeed, from a very talented satirist. "Eel Song Fu", "Lei Song Lei" : In case you were wondering what the french lady said, the French for "They are mad, the english!" is "Ils sont fous, les Anglais!" (say it aloud!)
Sunday, March 7, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Check thy orbs!
Back on the fifth of February
I blogged complaining about a guy
who had copied blog-entries of mine wholesale into his own blog - without
any source acknowledgement. Challenged, he took the page down.
A few days later, a similar 'coincidence' happened to our fellow-blogger and friend Michael O'Connor Clarke. Now, Wired eZine has a report about an HP study on this anonymous-copying theme. They write that certain A-list bloggers are simply taking material from us C-list bloggers and recycling it without attributing to their sources. Shame on you guys! NB: Wired does not mention their names, but excludes the pure aggregators such as Slashdot from their criticism. Surprising report really, considering Americans' fear of being sued. Well, unattributing copiers, should you want to grab today's blog-entry, please move your nose closer to the screen centrally between the two tartan pictures displayed above, such that your eyes are directly looking at the check patterns. Stay in this position for a while and you'll plaid-your-eyes, plaid-your-eyes, as the much copied Tom Lehrer sang back in 1960 ;-) Spooky feedback : Several blogreaders - especially from the UK - liked last Monday's blog entry about the UK intelligence services debacle, but only Peter C. Harris had the courage to link to it. Most asked for more anecdotes about UK spooks screwing up. Here's one of many: Down in Lambeth - certainly not London's smartest borough - there is a good little spanish restaurant called Rebato's, offering garlic with everything. This place is attractively close to that architectural neo-babylonian monstrosity called "Ceaucescu House" - the HQ of MI6. So the spooks often go there for lunch, a useful thing to know if you're a spooklistener, but a fact usually discreetly hidden. Except by one absolute expert of theirs. It is told that he not only forgot his laptop in the place - yes with lots of state secrets on the hard drive - but, trying to avoid the hassle of having to report the fact, put an ad in the local paper asking for it back and giving his office address (as MI6!) and (secret) telephone number. Duh! Talking in private : One lady - unnerved by the spooks' UN bugging - asked me "is there any way of ensuring that my private conversations really are private?". Assuming you mean direct conversations ma'am and not phone-calls (Echelon can record any of those), the bugging experts recommend you go for an unplanned walk, as outlined here. Flu flew : Thanks to all who mailed wishing me a speedy recovery from the flu.
Friday, March 5, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Down with viral Flu !
Well, the snow is melting here and it's getting warmer. The first crocus is
showing its head in the garden as are the snowdrops, harbingers of spring.
So I find it annoying to be stuck in bed with a bad case of viral influenza (the flu). Shivering shakes, heat waves, fever and the mother of all headaches. But our village doc has put me on Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), which together with a doubled dose of Paracetamol should at least alleviate the symptoms somewhat. I hope to be back blogging normally(?) for you by Sunday. In the mean time here's feedback from Doug Alder, regarding the blogging tool tips I gave you on Wednesday. Doug recommends the CLI whois from SoftGears Company. I'll be trying it too, when I'm back on my feet.
Wednesday, March 3, 2004 . . . skip to yesterblog
Neat Blogosphere thingsUseful tools : Although my blog itself is handwritten HTML and CSS, there are a couple of tools which I would like to recommend:
But my Orkut friend, the fair
Tarja - who hails
from Finnland herself - tells me :- Tarja tells me too that Agnete succeeded in duping me 'in the restaurant' back on 7th January. A tall tale well told; well done, Agnete, I owe you a drink! Guess I'm just too gullible, girls :-) Links to some neat web humour :
Monday, March 1, 2004
Banned, James Banned?Once upon a time, there was a naive American(!), one Henry Stinson, Secretary of State around 1930, who said "Gentlemen do not read one anothers' mail". As a result of this, the US codebreaking offices of the time were shut down, which led to the fired codebreaker Herbert Yardley publishing his book "The American Black Chamber", which I referenced for you in my January sidebar. The book's publication caused a scandal in its time. Of course America came back in force and now has one of the largest spying organisations in the world. Here is a photo of their NSA site. The NSA is the SIGINT (signals intelligence) arm; they run the secret Echelon system which eavesdrops on ALL our communications worldwide (nobody should be surprised by that); there is an Echelon listening station in Bad Aibling (here in Germany) too.
But now we have a series of intelligence "scandals" from the UK. Their SIGINT people at GCHQ (the building in Cheltenham shown in the photo on the left here) have screwed up several times in a row. Katharine Gun, a translator sacked by GCHQ for revealing a secret US e-mail (wherein the NSA called for spying on the UN) has been cleared of a charge under the Official Secrets Act. Probably because Tony B.liar didn't want evidence given in open court about intelligence issues leading up to Dubya's US-Iraq war. The collapse of the case against GCHQ whistle-blower Katharine Gun dominated most UK broadsheet newspapers. Of course, the UK attorney general says his decision to drop GCHQ worker Katharine Gun's trial was legal and not political. Ho Hum. The shit really hit the fan however, when Clare Short (ex UK development minister and no friend of Tony B.Liar) revealed that GCHQ had been bugging the office of Kofi Annan (UN Head). How very UNgentleman-like! Clare Short claims the UK spied on UN chief Kofi Annan in the run up to the Iraq war - and was branded "deeply irresponsible" by Tony B.Liar for saying so. WMD-Inspectors Butler and Blix were bugged too, they claim. Noticably, MI5, which runs the UK agents, has been keeping its head down and hiding in that very ugly building, Ceauscescu House (=Thames House, actually). MI5 have always occupied buildings of peculiar architecture, one even had gun ports pointing down the London streets! BTW, there is a great persiflage on MI5 online, here. All this made the job-announcement from the previous week by that very same MI5, claiming that "Britain needs MORE spies", even more topical. I wonder though, if there will be any consequences? I doubt it! The intelligence community will go on spying on all of us; and the unintelligent community will go on deciding to make unjustified war regardless of what the data actually say :-( Before anyone asks, yes, Germany has a similar service of its own too, called the BND, based in Pullach. Here is their SIGINT decoding room. Germany has only about 6000 spooks though, much much less than the US or UK. But enough to advise clearly Chancellor Schröder on the run up to the US-Iraq war that there were no WMD and no reason to go to war. Which aforesaid advice he had the courage to follow :-) Back in March 1999 Germany's BND warned the CIA about Marwan al Shehhi (he flew into the southern tower of the WTC on 11th. Sept. 2001), giving them his full names and even the number of his mobile phone (to bug it). The cocksure CIA chose to ignore the German warning though, answering "Thanks, but we have everything under control", just as they had done at all meetings since January 1993. Only last Friday - confessing to the independent US investigatory committee - did the CIA admit to ignoring the BND's warnings. Finally, some recommended reading on the subject in general :-
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