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Step one: Access the internet where you're practically untraceable, such as at an internet cafe or with an AnonDSL account.

Step two: Open and use an anonymous e-mail account.

Step three: Report the vulnerability.

Step 1: Get AnonDSL service.

Step 2: Create an anonymous webmail account.

Step 3: Practical immunity to abusive lawsuits means they can't take you to court for ...

Step 4: Profit!

And then the judge *orders* you to keep records in the future if you're going to engage in conduct likely to provide reason for subpoenas, and when you don't, you're hit with a charge of contempt of court/obstruction.

This only fuels the spiral of move and counter move. The next step is to use someone outside of that judge's jurisdiction to manage your comunications. In this case, don't you think that there are some Canadian Mac Addicts who would happily strip and forward incoming emails?

Nice try, though. If your idea worked, don't you think an ISP would have gone ahead and said "We don't keep logs at all! Come warez on our network like crazy!" by now?

You mean Like this?

LK

In the late 1970's I worked for a defense contractor that built specialized signal processing computers. The NSA was a major customer. We tried to find other applications, like oil and gas exploration, but nobody else was buying.

My job was to write microcode assemblers and then write the microcode that handled I/O. My description of the hardware is here.

Up to 24 voice grade channels (8K samples per second each) arrived time and/or frequency multiplexed onto a single data channel. The system detected the presence of the subchannels, determined the type of modulation being used, and ran them through the appropriate demodulator algorithm. I don't know what happened to the data after that.

We didn't use custom chips. A cabinet full of Schottky MSI chips was enough for a three processor system. The system's speed was due to parallelism, not high clock rate.

By the way, one of our computer rooms was built inside a big metal box that was suspended from the roof on cables. When it mattered, all external connections except for power were unplugged. We were too cheap to pay for a shielded air-conditioning system, so tests lasted a maximum of 20 minutes.

H.G. Wells was *not* Orson Welles' father. (If nothing else, notice the difference in the last names.) See http://www.bway.net/~nipper/biobirth.html.

and by some, you mean one right?

Implementing a system where when people stumble onto out-of-date materials on your site, they get a notice saying "This material is out of date. Follow this link for a more current page." involves nontrivial programming changes, careful thought, an architecture for tracking which pages currently reflect the present on each issue, and a careful and continnuous evaluation of your site for which materials no longer reflect the current state of things. It would be extremely useful and neat, but also require, you know, actual work.

Implementing a system where out-of-date materials are in robots.txt, thus decreasing the possibility people will accidentally stumble onto them, requires an intern, a perl script, "find ./*" and 20 minutes. Which, as the story link notes, appears to have been exactly how this was done.

• The Memory Hole

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Here's a minor example of something those two sites didn't catch: Remember Iraq's so-called "mobile biological weapons factories"? A month after the story broke that they were for weather balloons, the CIA moved their report's URL.

An intriguing fact about this whitehouse.gov/*/iraq thing is that they do in fact cover some of the important statements which are apparently not duplicated in the press release, conference, and briefing directories. Perhaps there was a "unique urgency" to cover up some poor choices of words?

In addition, we require reimbursement for our attorneys' fees in the present amount of $140.00.

I look forward to your response on or before January 30, 1998.

A rather less politely-worded letter was sent to the maintainer of
Ulysses for Dummies,
a spoof of Joyce's novel, back in 1998. The hilarious and thorough reply concluded,
'Frankly, we're going to keep the site just as it is, and the successful IDG Books " ... for Dummies" series will just have to learn to live with it.'

Great. Now that I know IDG==WILEY, I won't buy Wiley books either. If they respond further to Nester's letter all he has to do is point them at this website, Ulysses for Dummies, and tell them to buzz off. That site has been up for 4 years. Judges tend to see through this kind of bullshit and hammer lawyers doing this kind of inconsistent crap.

Corporate Standover Tactics for Dummies

Great. Now that I know IDG==WILEY, I won't buy Wiley books either. If they respond further to Nester's letter all he has to do is point them at this website, Ulysses for Dummies, and tell them to buzz off. That site has been up for 4 years. Judges tend to see through this kind of bullshit and hammer lawyers doing this kind of inconsistent crap.

Corporate Standover Tactics for Dummies

This has already been done before -- see the section on "CHAOS, ORBITAL DYNAMICS, AND FUZZY BOUNDARIES" on this page. I know it was detailed in Scientific American back in the mid/late 90's.

I live not far from Bonnybridge. I wouldn't call it the arsehole of the universe, because arseholes have a use. Bonnybridge is a classic oversized-small-town, i.e. crammed full of disillusioned young people with nothing to do. UFO spotting is pretty much the only thing to do there of an evening that doesn't involve pointy implements or GTA (the Live Action version).

Note the military airlanes, note the undulating foggy roads, note that UFO sighting go up after firework displays. It's pretty much a local game now, with people playing along and making up more and more outrageous claims. And note also the ulterior commercial motive: a (dear god) theme park.

I'm picturing the pitch now: "Come to Bonnybridge, home of surly teenagers and desparate hollow eyed single mothers. Taste the delights of warm Irn Bru and soggy chippies. A free stabbing with every ticket!"

Shudder. Nothing to see here. Move along. For your own good, move along.

If people are interested in what to say when confronted by this sort of letter, they could do worse than to follow the example of the guys who wrote the Ulysses for Dummies web site. They got a letter from lawyers for IDG Publications (the publishers of the ...for Dummies series). Their reply is priceless. Copy and paste away!


...phil

If people are interested in what to say when confronted by this sort of letter, they could do worse than to follow the example of the guys who wrote the Ulysses for Dummies web site. They got a letter from lawyers for IDG Publications (the publishers of the ...for Dummies series). Their reply is priceless. Copy and paste away!


...phil

Daniel.

(The page linked to here is a description of an e-mail exchange with IDG's lawyers; at the bottom of that page is a link to the "offending" site.)

A rather less politely-worded letter was sent to the maintainer of Ulysses for Dummies, a spoof of Joyce's novel, early last year. The hilarious and thorough reply concluded, 'Frankly, we're going to keep the site just as it is, and the successful IDG Books " ... for Dummies" series will just have to learn to live with it.'

A rather less politely-worded letter was sent to the maintainer of Ulysses for Dummies, a spoof of Joyce's novel, early last year. The hilarious and thorough reply concluded, 'Frankly, we're going to keep the site just as it is, and the successful IDG Books " ... for Dummies" series will just have to learn to live with it.'