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This is true.

Actually on a Mac what you can do is make a free-floating encrypted Sparse image. It's the same way that the OS handles FileVault encrypted home folders. It's superior to just making an encrypted DMG, because it's readable and writable like a regular filesystem, plus it can expand and contract depending on what's stored in it.

It doesn't have the steganographic or deniability benefits of Truecrypt, but it's good encrypted storage. (Plus if you're ultra-paranoid you can put it inside your FileVault encrypted home folder, so that the data on disk is encrypted twice.) Plus I don't think you need to be an Administrator to do it, so it could be useful if you only have a user account on a system and don't trust the person with the master password.

The only "trick" is that Disk Copy will not make one, you need to do it from the Terminal with hdiutil.

% hdiutil create SecureSparse -size 5g -encryption -type SPARSE -fs HFS+ -volname SecureImage

Where "SecureImage" is the name of the file you want to create and 5GB is the maximum size (which is not necessarily the space it will take on disk).

There are a few caveats though. You can't share it with someone who doesn't have a Mac, hdiutil is not open source and there is not to my knowledge a Linux version, and I'm not sure what happens if you try to copy it to a FAT filesystem and back. I've copied one to a Linux fileserver (EXT2) and back and it seemed to survive okay, but I have always been told to use caution when moving sparse files around.

(I originally learned about this procedure from this page, so all credit to them.)

L. Detweiler's entry in Net.Legends.FAQ

L. Detweiler (you are all TENTACLES of the CYPHERpunk anarchoSYNDICALIST
pseudospoofing CONSPIRACY; everyone who contacts me via post or email is a
tentacle of a single Medusa):
All information relevant has been deleted (probably by the cypherpunk
pseudospoofers); ask around - old-timers can tell you about him, through
"safe" avenues (like email). Warning: attempting to disillusion him of
his theories usually results in threatening mail and getting incorporated
into said theories. Handle With Extreme Care. Appeared occasionally on
the news.* hierarchy (for instance, news.admin.policy), crossposted to hell
and back. Author of the Internet Anonymity FAQ and the InterNet Writer Resource
Guide, pre-legendary status... first name apparently Lawrence or Larry.
Contrib. post:
>I think this article was some sort of satire but I fell asleep on
>the spacebar and, ya know, I just don't get it. Anyone care to boil it
>down to a sentence or two?
Yes. L. Detweiler, the guy who posts as an12070, and who also posts
(now less frequently) under his own account
"ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu", is a paranoid psychotic (or
someone doing a good parody of one) who believes there is a nationwide
conspiracy out to get him, said conspiracy consisting of almost every
prominent cryptographer on the net. He periodically rants against this
conspiracy. He makes lots of extremely bizarre claims, such as stating
that every person posting articles saying he's nuts is in fact a
pseudonym of the great conpiratorial group. He's pretty much
ignorable, although he has sent death threats to a large number of
people that some have taken seriously.
--
...This *may* all be a "front"; he comes across as relatively sane in
email (just don't mention Nick Szabo or Tim C. May...). There's really no
way to tell, which may actually be the point of all this... Was peculiarly
insistent on wanting to become the poster of *this* FAQ as well (to the
point of my having to tell the news.answers team "Don't approve this unless I
send it to you"...). Posted as ld231782@<various>.lance.colostate.edu (L.
Detweiler) and an12070@anon.penet.fi (various constantly-changing identities)
- this last address has been disabled by the anon server's sysadmin, and was
been proven to be him on several different occasions, although he was hiding
it fiercely for a time... his Colorado address has gone also (2/94), according
to the sysadmin; this impending loss apparently prompted the Blacknet notices.
He's not been seen since from that address - but beware: anyone who "talk"s
you may actually be either Detweiler or a Tentacle incognito... MUAaahahaaa!!!
The person posting to (among other places) news.admin.* as tmp@netcom.com is,
if not this entity, making a good run at attempting to imitate Detweiler
(posting to all the same old places, antagonizing Tim May, having S. Boxx and
Blacknet show up in tmp@'s constantly-changing .sigs, assuming a dizzying
variety of identities...) - but with somewhat better material this time
around... and given Detweiler's bee-in-the-bonnet, impersonating him
succe

Apple is reviving Star Trek.

As seen on News.com TalkBack and on Usenet:

Pretty kewel! And complementary:

Intel Inside/Apple Outside
Blue Men Dancing/Other Bright Silhouettes Dancing

Wonder what the pundits will call this duo? Aptel? Inpple? Intelapple? AI? OSx86?

____________________________
Related links:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/04/ 0238235&tid=118&tid=3&tid=137
http://www.geektimes.com/michael/techno/computing/ hardware/products/apple/macintosh/misc/project-sta r-trek.html

Unrelated link:
http://www.shawnevans.com/

Blatant plug:
CharlesJo.com

You mean Windows is based on the HHTTG text-adventure game?

Uhm...I don't think so, judging by Douglas Adams' thoughts on Windows 95. ;-)

Excerpt: As part of this billion-dollar festival of smoke and mirrors, Bill Gates has apparently paid the Rolling Stones 8 million pounds for the right to use Start Me Up, the song which is better known for its catchy refrain "You make a grown man cry".

Tee Hee.

"I don't really know much about the christian mythology but the early Apple logos featured the whole tree"

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Microsoft wrote a version of Windows for the PPC and never released it (though I'd never heard of it before, personally). After all, Apple had Project "Star Trek" back in 1994, which was porting System 7 to run on Intel-based processors.

from this funny page

"Joel and I started this round of debugging on Friday morning. Sometime later, maybe Friday night, another programmer, Danny, came to work. I suppose it must be Sunday by now because it's been a while since we've seen my client's employees around the office. Along the way, at odd times of day or night that have completely escaped us, we've ordered in three meals of Chinese food, eaten six large pizzas, consumed several beers, had innumerable bottles of fizzy water, and finished two entire bottles of wine. It has occurred to me that if people really knew how software got written, I'm not sure if they'd give their money to a bank or get on an airplane ever again." (Ellen Ullman, in Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents. (Excerpt from Salon Magazine, http://www.salonmagazine.com, during the weeks of Oct. 13 and 20, 1997.))

...oh so true.

Interesting account of previous x86 work at Apple: