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It began prosaicly enough.
Randal Schwartz, who I knew from Usenet and his
very successful books on the Perl language,
was on business in Silicon Valley and agreed to meet me at
Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too,
an Italian restaurant in
Mountain View CA, to offer me advice for a program I was
writing.

It might seem surprising
that Randal would agree to take time
from a hectic schedule two weeks before going on trial to give
what amounted to free consulting to a stranger.

However, those who
have been interested in the Perl language for a while
know that Randal
is a legend for his generosity.

Actually, I didn't know Randal was going on trial in two weeks.
I had heard rumors that he had some sort of legal difficulties
(a civil suit I assumed) which involved Intel.
I'd known many people with matters before the
courts, some close personal friends,
and few liked to discuss them.
Therefore it was not until
Randal had fielded my Perl questions, the talk
turned to minor chit chat and Randal unexpectedly proved
willing to discuss the matter that

I discovered the person I was drinking beer with
was looking at fifteen years in a few days, and, if convicted,
would have the biggest legitimate reputation by far of
any computer criminal.

I didn't necessarily credit the story he told me -- every
accused felon tells you it was all a misunderstanding, and
they are almost always just plain guilty.
Neither, I must confess, do I have unquestioning faith in
all the conclusions D.A.'s draw.

Days later, an Oregon Jury convicted Randal of
three felonies.
Randal Schwartz was, in the eyes of the law, a
Geek Kahuna Gone Bad,
the first.

Especially eerie about the Schwartz matter
was the silence surrounding it.

This clearly was a very significant case, far more so than
some which have drawn a lot of attention.
Randal Schwartz was either
the most dangerous computer criminal ever,
or something was terribly amiss, I had to know which.
That night I put the project I had discussed with Randal
on a shelf, where it remains.

"Feel free to stop dancing around the issue
any time you like and
tell me what this is all about."

On July 25, 1995, a Washington County jury in Hillsboro, Oregon
convicted Randal Schwartz of three felony counts:

Count 1: Randal did
between November 1, 1992 and November 1, 1993,
"unlawfully, knowingly and without authorization alter a computer and
computer network consisting of Intel computers Mink and Brillig".

Count 2:
Randal did between August 1, 1993 and November 1, 1993,
"unlawfully, and knowingly access and use a computer
and computer network for the purpose of committing theft of the Intel SSD's
password file".

Count 3: Randal did,
between October 21, 1993 and October 25, 1993,
"unlawfully, knowingly
access and use a computer and computer system for the purpose of committing
theft of the Intel SSD individual user's passwords."

"Look, son, Randal may be a what you call a Geek Kahuna,
but the law is the same for him as everyone else."

Actually, Randal was not tried under the usual criminal
laws, but Oregon's Computer Crime law.
Uses of this law are rare.
I can discover only two convictions under it since 1991,
and in one there was no trial.
The purpose for a separate Computer Crime Law
was to avoid having bad guys escape on technicalities,
something its drafters felt that
even an extensive revision of traditional criminal law would allow.
This they accomplished by making it a felony
to knowingly do anything
"unauthorized" on a computer.
Unusually for a law with severe penalties,
there is no requirement to show the defendant caused or intended
any harm.
All that is necessary is to show
that the proper authority did
not like whatever was done.

The first count is that, pure and simple --
Randal putting a
program on an Intel computer which Intel did not like.
The "stolen" property of the second and third counts
was never removed from Intel's premises, Intel was never
deprived of any of the economic benefit of the
property, and no evidence was presented
Randal intended to do either of these things.
These "thefts" consist entirely, again, of doing things
which Intel decided afterwards
it did not like and which it claims that Randal
was not allowed to do -- this time with
password files involved.

Criminal laws with wide applicability and severe
penalties are a feature of totalitarian states, and
may be a necessary evil in free ones.
In Randal's case, where he was trying to be helpful
and caused no harm,
the potential evil in applying such a law
is far more apparent than its necessity.

At the least,
a free society asks that a serious crime
genuinely reflect one of its serious concerns,
and not simply be a tool the powerful can use
against the powerless whom they find obnoxious.

A good test of this can be made when a powerful
individual breaks the law.
But for computer crime, which is complex and
technical, such tests are
available only as a matter of luck, since
the powerful decide who gets investigated.

However, we have such a stroke of luck in this case.
An Intel VP confessed on the stand to a more serious
infraction of Oregon's computer crime law.
And the Washington County D.A.'s office,
which so eagerly talked tough when facing the
powerless Randal,
has observed a demure silence on this topic.

The defects in the law should easily have
been enough to prevent
this case ever coming to trial, and made discussion of the rest
of this matter moot.
But at each step of the way, as one person or another faced
the prospect of telling Intel "no", they chose instead to
praise the Emperor's fine new suit.

Some Highlights from the Ongoing Farce

• 
  No evidence that Intel disapproved of Randal's behavior
  exists, except as remembered after the decision
  was made to prosecute him.
  Not so much as a hand-written note indicates anyone had a
  problem with Randal beforehand.
  
• 
  Lest those testifying for the prosecution,
  all of whom had financial interests in the good will of Intel,
  forget Intel's concern in this matter,
  an Intel Security person sitting at table next to the prosecutor
  served as a convenient reminder.
  
• 
  Intel was heavy-handed in making its presence felt throughout.
  The police prepared the search warrant at Intel premises,
  three Intel employees helped search Randal's house,
  and one helped police interrogate Randal.
  
• 
  This interrogation produced the prosecution's "best" evidence:
  police statements that put the words of a full confession
  in Randal's mouth.
  Indeed they claim Randal confessed to a history of hacking
  everyone he had done business with.
  (All these other "victims" provided witnesses for the defense,
  and Randal was charged with none of this activity.)
  
• 
  The police claim to have memorized Randal's highly technical
  statements with the aid of a few "cryptic" notes,
  and reproduced them accurately later at the station.
  It is hard to overstate what an incredible
  feat of memory this is.
  Det. Lilley, who produced the more complete statement,
  didn't know what the word "directory" means in computer lingo.
  Mere mortals with similar backgrounds would have found it
  impossible to follow the discussion,
  much less memorize it verbatim.
  
• 
  In other contexts, Intel had previously
  authorized Randal to commit both the acts
  allegedly unauthorized in this instance:
  cracking passwords and building a gateway to the Internet.
  
• 
  Randal was well aware of the steps a computer criminal usually takes
  to avoid detection of his activities and took none of them.
  

As I go through the records in this matter, more and more
startling and troubling material continues to come out.
It is as if this case was an entry in a contest to see
how much misbehavior could be squeezed into a case where nobody
was shot or beaten.
I document my progress into this shambles in the
Letters from Cybersalem.




The Letters From Cybersalem

CS0: Announcement.
Obviously, the letter which announced the series.

CS1: Disclosures and Disclaimers.
My connections
to Intel and Randal, and various other things which need to
be said. Nothing stunning IMHO, but you have a right to know and
to judge that for yourself.

CS2: Wizard Prosecutions: Then and Now.
A comparison of the quality of
the prosecution in the Salem, Massachusetts of 1692 and
the Hillsboro, Oregon of 1995.
Witchcraft prosecutions have declined sadly in the last
300 years.

CS3: The Unindicted: Ed Masi.
It is so easy to make a case for the crime of which
Randal was convicted,
an Intel VP testifying against Randal made a
full confession under oath on the stand.
It's all here.

CS4: Shocked, Shocked.
Randal's "crime" caused no harm, which is perplexing
since harm is basic to both the legal theory and lay
intuition of what "crime" means.
The policy infraction to which Ed Masi confessed
is shown to have quite likely caused real and serious harm to Intel.

CS5: Leadfinger.
This imbecility is not without its literary appeal.
A nicely Kafkaesque touch is added by the reluctance of the
Intel nabob who ordered Randal nailed to identify himself.
Of course, nobody forced him to come forward.

CS6: Unlearn Perl in 41 days!
Rich Cower of Intel security, adds to the list of
remarkable intellectual feats performed on behalf of the
prosecution. On June 13, 1995, he answers most questions about
Randal's Perl scripts with assurance, but passes on others
until he can look at the code.
41 days later he testifies under oath he does not know Perl.

CS7: The Essential Cower.
As Network Security Expert at Intel,
Cower played quite a role in the case.
He was present at the search,
participated in Randal's interrogation,
was an expert witness and
as State's Expert sat next to the prosecutor
for the whole trial.

CS8: What Does Familiar Mean?
However, this Intel "expert", when shown the seminal
work in modern network security, Cheswick and Bellovin,
does not recognize the cover.

CS9: Shortcut to Expertise.
An examination of Cower's background and qualifications,
as revealed in his testimony.

CS10: Too Stupid for Their Own Good?
Randal's local paper was
The Oregonian,
already notorious for ignoring the Packwood scandal.
It heaped abuse on Randal and the whole
"computer programming subculture"
during the trial.
I recommend anyone planning to work as a programmer
in Oregon read this one.

CS11: Oregon Employees have No First Amendment Rights
Unbelievable?
That is Judge Nachtigal's ruling.
Read it.

CS12:
Oops! There Goes Another Personal Right
Judge Nachtigal also discovered that the law
allowed "silly" (her word) prosecutions,
which in the D.A.'s words
show his "office must have an awful lot of time on their hands".
These are forbidden by the due process protections of the
14th Amendment,
but Nachtigal finds that
"we may want that authority there with computers",
and the charges against Randal stand.

CS13: The Confidence of the Public
This one is entirely uncommented quotes.
Here are some snippets.
The prosecutor: "I don't represent Intel."
The judge: "Not yet."
The detective: "We could probably use two or three more people".
The Associated Press:
"Intel Corp. is handing the local police $100,000 to have two
detectives concentrate their computer theft efforts
at the company."

CS14: Moore's Lawlessness
It would be surprising if Intel's heavy-handed contempt for the law
were unique to this case.
As Tim Jackson's new book shows, it is not.

An Open Letter to Intel

We wish to express our strong objection to the prosecution of
Randal Schwartz and Intel's role in it. We believe it necessary
that Intel repudiate the criminal charges made against Randal in
Oregon v. Schwartz, refund any "restitution" paid based on those
charges and offset the costs of Randal's defense against them.
This is the minimum that fairness requires since what happened
was at worst a policy breach and since Randal also suffered loss
of income, loss of reputation and a good deal of anguish.

The full list of signers

The current signature count, with subtotals by country

Signers whose names you might recognize

Comments made by the Signers

The Open Letter closed to new signatures on October 4,
1999. Thanks to all the over 2000 signers!

To get an auto-reply giving Randal's own statement, and
discussing how you can contribute to his Legal Defense Fund, send
an empty message to

Randal's Defense Fund mail daemon
.

Steve Pacenka maintains

the Friends of Randal Schwartz website
,
which is dedicated to archiving all relevant materials from
all sides of this issue.

There is also
Randal's award-winning website
.
How come he gets an award and I don't? :-)

You can subscribe to

the fors-discuss mailing list,
by sending a empty message to
join-fors-discuss@telelists.com.

There is also
fors-announce,
a moderated announcement list for Randal's case.
This can be subscribed to by
sending a empty message to join-fors-announce@telelists.com.

Press Coverage

I want to thank this site's host ISP
A2I (rahul.net).
for its steadfastness and generosity.

I just receieved a message from my lawyer that the Oregon Supreme
Court has declined to hear my case, thus leaving the unfavorable
Oregon Appeals Court decision as the final authority.
While I haven't discussed further options with my legal team yet, my
recollection is that at this point, the options were all extremely
expensive and unlikely to be fruitful.
In other words, I'm a felon for life, the restitution order stands,
and the statute used to convict me remains in place to be used to
prosecute future cases, with my court history available to assist.
I'm also higher at risk constantly, since any future conviction would
be on top of these three felonies, and I'm on the short list of
suspects for related crimes. No chance of a civil disobedience act
for me. Ever.
I'm greatly saddened by this news.
To those of you that have stood by me since the beginning, I thank you
deeply for your support and trust, and belief that this thing should
make sense at its conclusion. I'm sorry it didn't. I made my best
run at it, and got this.
To those of you who joined my side as the battle progressed, I thank
you as well.
To those of you who contributed to me financially, my banker thanks
you.
To those of you that have helped spread the word, thank you for
helping to prevent others from suffering similarly. Please continue
to do so. Now more than ever, apparently.
To those of you that have challenged me, I thank you for keeping me
honest.
I will continue to be available to groups to speak about my case, and
I will continue to work to change the laws that permitted my
prosecution. A law that makes a person a felon for changing the
background color of a screen, or trying to be a good samaritan to help
the people who had paid the bills for five years, just doesn't make
sense.
But the battle for my personal legal case appears to be over, and I'm
saddened by this apparently final outcome. I have lived for the past
eight years in the hope that the legal system was truly a justice
system, but that hope has now faded, and I'm older and wiser, but
permanently battle-scarred.
Thank you.
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

Heidi Wall:

There's more than one way to do it.

Yes, Heidi, and I'd be glad to show you several of them.

Heidi Wall:

There's more than one way to do it.

Yes, Heidi, and I'd be glad to show you several of them.

Heidi Wall:
There's more than one way to do it.
Yes, Heidi, there certainly is.

Heidi Wall:
There's more than one way to do it.
Yes, Heidi, there certainly is.

Order today, and we'll include a Randal Schwartz at no additional cost!!!

I don't find that post as interesting as a slightly earlier post I made, which I claim is the first announcement on Usenet of a remotely exploitable security hole.

The poster of that comment is Randal Schwartz, who grew up to be a Perl Demigod.

As an aside, it's sad that WebTechniques has decided to pull the plug on all the useful-to-developer content starting with their March 2002 issue. I'm sure it'll be missed as a resource. I was very happy with the 70 columns I got to write for them, and I'll miss that particular outlet.

As an aside, it's sad that WebTechniques has decided to pull the plug on all the useful-to-developer content starting with their March 2002 issue. I'm sure it'll be missed as a resource. I was very happy with the 70 columns I got to write for them, and I'll miss that particular outlet.

Heidi, are you on drugs?

Geeks on the High Seas!. I've been on 7, and they're a lot of fun, and a lot of learning too, having access to experts at all hours during the week.

I've known for a long time that Perl is a funny language. After all, its creator, "Larry Wall", definitely has a sense of humour.

The proof of this, of course, is right here, and here.

What you're saying is that smart people like him, who sometimes use a little poor judgment, should be given life sentences in prison? You're saying that was Randall did is on the same level as murder?

He wasn't here to market the software, and, AFAIK, it's not marketed in the US at all. The whole beer metaphor is getting stretched rathout of of shape :P

Whether to light for the crime or not, Mafiaboys sentence is quite light by the standards of other convicted computer "hackers" - Randal Shwartz is an excellent example (www.stonehenge.com for some details)

We have argued that these laws are overbroad and/or vague: that they make illegal ordinary activities, and/or they are indeterminate by a person of reasonable intelligence as to the applicability of the act.

Overbroad laws lead to "selective prosecution", which is constitutionally disallowed. If every single person who violated ORS 164.377 in Oregon were to be prosecuted (using the most liberal definition of the terms "alter" and "authorize"), the courts would flooded every day. Hence, to even exist, these laws have to be enforced only when there's some other agenda, and that's no longer justice: that's a big stick in the wrong hands.

As a fellow computer professional, would it make more sense to you to "hack in to get my own email" as the prosecutor offered, or to believe me when I say that I was doing this to show that my former sysadmin group was failing to maintain proper security? Yeah, I thought so.

To this day, the prosecutor still claims that he doesn't understand the case. And yet, he managed to share that confusion with the jury in such a way that I'm still a felon, awaiting yet another round of appeals to support a greater common good.

Yes, my methods may have been lousy, and I certainly didn't get prior approval for what I thought would be a no-brainer, but my intent was to help the people that had paid my bills for five years, not harm them.

Back a few years ago, I wrote in a column of mine about setting the User Agent string for a Perl LWP fetch to something odd like "Mozilla/3.0 (Sony Playstation)". Looks like I was off only in the version number. {grin}

Figure a coder makes US$40,000 a year minimum. That's a LOT of Paypal donations - I've never heard of anything like this happening.

So, it can happen.

The fact that he took notice of Perl- and Python-using competitors is significant. He views those languages as being nearly as powerful as Lisp; their main deficiency is that their syntax isn't ``easily extensible.'' Both possess means of extending syntax, but the revealed expressive power is handicapped by the languages' definitions.

Lisp macros work directly on Lisp objects, which exist after parsing but before compilation. Perl mostly lacks that middle ground (or rather it has 12004782 different middle grounds, depending on how you look at it), and Python's AST system is terribly difficult to use (and somewhat non-portable). Both of those languages treat syntax extensions as black magic; Lisp makes them everyday tools.

Lisp does have its problems. The package system is slightly obtuse, and the inheritance scheme in standard CLOS is completely busted. And it's only as portable as its implementations. The free Common Lisp implementations that run on many platforms are interpreters. The compilers run on a very restricted number of platforms. And there's no equivalent to CPAN. But it's still worth a look.

I've got most of the code in my "Am I Hooter Not?" WebTechniques column, which appeared two months before these guys were interviewed. Hmm. I wonder who gave the WT editors the idea for this story. {grin}

This thread (although largely trolls feeding each other) eventually fascinated me enough to go find a picture of the young lady in quesion. I hereby submit said picture as evidence of the fact that she is in fact extremely attractive. Cute smile, particularly.

Well, I think so anyway... and I don't really care what anyone else thinks, about this or much else :) But I'm genuinely suprised if anyone really thinks she isn't attractive...

Regards,
Denny

--

1. Bad date flick. Title contains the words "Terror", "Justice" and/or a roman numeral greater than III.
2. Average date flick. She won't talk smack about your taste in films, but won't be impressed either.
3. Above average date flick. This is perfect for a non-Heidi female, but not quite good enough for the sweet divine perfection of a woman that is Heidi Wall.
4. Good flick. Heidi will want to talk about this film afterwards, giving you a great excuse to go get a cup of coffee together instead of having to drive her home.
5. Superior flick. Heidi will lash you furiously with a riding crop and then make you unlace her shoes with your teeth.

I've been looking for a language with which to petrify Heidi Wall. Now I know that giant Aibo's with scientifically proven magical petrification rays are the preferred method of petrification, but there are a couple of snags.
First off, scientifically proven magical petrification rays only work on hot young actresses. While Ms. Wall is both hot and young, she has 0 stage or film credits to her name.
Secondly, Ms. Wall insists that only Perl be used to petrify her. This is out of a (misguided) sense of loyalty to her father and his life work.
Unfortuanately, Perl's bolted on OOP support is unsuitable for the kind of enterprise-ready, scalable and cross-platform petrification script I have in mind. A perl/python hybrid would be perfect. That way I could get the excellent OOP structure of python while not making Heidi feel like she has betrayed her family.
This rocks!
Now all that remains is to test the script out and then get Heidi naked. I'm currently working on a testing harness, and, quite frankly, there's no way that Heidi will be able to resist my charm and manly beauty.
I should be able to report my results shortly.
--Shoeboy

Yes, I've had code to do this in Perl on my website since late 1997. It's really not that difficult.

I regularly find myself browsing the web for Heidi Wall pictures.

When I find one, I cannot resist the urge to start licking the screen. I've tried, but I just cannot do it.

The problem is that with 6 or 7 licks, I wind up getting more moisture on my monitor than the little monitor cleaning pads are capable of dealing with.

So my idea is a method whereby I only display the pic for only a fraction of a second. That way, I can only lick the screen once.

So my question is can I patent this, or does the Amazon patent cover one lick techniques?

--Shoeboy

Unfortunately, I had a much different outcome from this student. I'm still in the process of demonstrating that the law under which I was tried was constitutionally flawed, turning the activities of dozens of Oregonians every day into unwitting felonies.

By itself, no, but there are a number of organizations who will support mySQL for you.

It's no different than support for any other open source software. If you want training and support, you find a third-party company that does training and support.

They may not even really be "third party". Randal Schwartz' Stonehenge Consulting does Perl training. Randal is a key developer in the Perl community. Does he count as third party?

--

By itself, no, but there are a number of organizations who will support mySQL for you.

It's no different than support for any other open source software. If you want training and support, you find a third-party company that does training and support.

They may not even really be "third party". Randal Schwartz' Stonehenge Consulting does Perl training. Randal is a key developer in the Perl community. Does he count as third party?

--

By itself, no, but there are a number of organizations who will support mySQL for you.

It's no different than support for any other open source software. If you want training and support, you find a third-party company that does training and support.

They may not even really be "third party". Randal Schwartz' Stonehenge Consulting does Perl training. Randal is a key developer in the Perl community. Does he count as third party?

--

Dude,

Why didn't you pic one of the cooler pictures in the archive, like this one?

Are you the real Heidi Wall?
Cause if you are, you're a total babe.
Wanna get a cup of coffee some time?
--Shoeboy

But the fact of the matter is that ORS 164.377 is overbroad and vague, and that the police and judge created a search warrant out of speculation. We are arguing that in court right now, and the jury is still out. Until that matter is resolved, the fat lady hasn't sang yet.

And in the meanwhile, Oregonians (and residents of many other states with very similar overbroad and vague laws) are at risk, for doing their job. I've had dozens of people come up to me and say "there but for the grace of God go I" over the past seven years.

Yes, I did stupid things, even with good intentions. Perhaps I should have gotten fired or worse. But being made a triple felon (and losing a cumulative year of work and a quarter million dollars) in the framework of bad legislation and bad implementation doesn't fly, and I won't bow down to it.

For more details on my ongoing case, visit the FORS archive.

Sounds like parallel elements to my ongoing legal case where I was trying to determine the extent of potential leakage for my client at the time, Intel.

Anything where the natural shell approach would be 'cat file | x | y | z',

Find them here.

mod_perl can provide computed configuration files on the fly, directly from any database supported by DBI, for example, or even just computationally derived. There's examples of such in the mod_perl docs.

Want to see some good Perl? Check out Randall's WTR columns. And his UnixReview columns which are more tutorial.
Of course the biggest collection of Perl is CPAN. I disagree with the previous assertion that modules on CPAN are sloppy. The one's I've bothered reading are really clean and nice.
You cite slashdot as an example of sloppy Perl. Please realize that it tracks a moving target. Code that powers web sites tends to be sloppy because web sites change in unpredictable ways. Want to see clean code? Look at Net::Ping for example.
I guess we live in two different worlds. The kind of projects you work on are the ones I avoid like the plague. I would never work with idiots or work under strict arbitrary rules, not when there are so many great places to work. Maybe your workplace has a vicious cycle - the barriers you've erected to keep the 'sad wankers' at bay scare off the more talented programmers.

Want to see some good Perl? Check out Randall's WTR columns. And his UnixReview columns which are more tutorial.
Of course the biggest collection of Perl is CPAN. I disagree with the previous assertion that modules on CPAN are sloppy. The one's I've bothered reading are really clean and nice.
You cite slashdot as an example of sloppy Perl. Please realize that it tracks a moving target. Code that powers web sites tends to be sloppy because web sites change in unpredictable ways. Want to see clean code? Look at Net::Ping for example.
I guess we live in two different worlds. The kind of projects you work on are the ones I avoid like the plague. I would never work with idiots or work under strict arbitrary rules, not when there are so many great places to work. Maybe your workplace has a vicious cycle - the barriers you've erected to keep the 'sad wankers' at bay scare off the more talented programmers.

--

As real and serious as Randall's legal problems have been, I feel like this is a thoughtless slam against a good guy and important contributor to our community. The whole situation is just silly, although it has scary imlications as well. Please read Randall's website to get the other side of the story.

IMO, an apology to him would be in order as well...

I've made it very clear that my Just another convicted Perl hacker talk is available to anyone who can get a group together expecting 20-ish or more, with a suggested donation of any increased travel cost I incur. And since I'm always bouncing around the country anyway, the additional costs are often near nothing.

Hehe you get involved in one little book project and suddenly find yourself interesting.

Seriously, though, I love to make myself available to user groups when travelling, like I did when I came down here to Dallas in May for a friend's wedding (the fact that I found a job here and wound up moving back is another story). I suspect most authors, open-source-project-leaders, et al have similar attitudes: catch me when I happen to be in Pennsylvania (or wherever), and I'd love to give a presentation.

OF course, that makes it incumbent upon us (as potential speakers) to publicize our travel plans, a la Randal Schwartz -- something I'm guilty of neglecting myself, and I should probably get around to updating. Taking it a step further though, that makes for a lot of work on the part of the program chair of a user group: you still have to wade through all of the homepages of each potential speaker until you find one who will happen to be in the neighborhood. Perhaps someone would like to undertake building a "Random Sightings" website where people who wouldn't mind giving talks while travelling could enter their travel info into a database (and prog chairs could subsequently browse the same)?

MOO;IANAL.

The issue is pretty simple: the techniques used by crackers are legitmate techniques used by security concscious sysadmins every day. Will clueless legislation start to put honest, hardworking sysadmins at risk?

This makes me less up-to-date on the latest technologies, and cost me opportunities to do really cool things and be part of a team somewhere, a part of my "former" life that I sorely miss.

As the requirement for a formal disclosure and acknowledgement of my current legal status ends in just a few more days, I can once again look at being involved in direct consulting, rather than training. (Although being directly employed will almost certainly still not be possible, I can look for opportunities where a company contracts with my Stonehenge company once again.) But the six years in the middle have been very tiring.

For more information about my ongoing legal battles, please visit the Friends of Randal Schwartz website or send a blank mail message to my autoreply bot.

This makes me less up-to-date on the latest technologies, and cost me opportunities to do really cool things and be part of a team somewhere, a part of my "former" life that I sorely miss.

As the requirement for a formal disclosure and acknowledgement of my current legal status ends in just a few more days, I can once again look at being involved in direct consulting, rather than training. (Although being directly employed will almost certainly still not be possible, I can look for opportunities where a company contracts with my Stonehenge company once again.) But the six years in the middle have been very tiring.

For more information about my ongoing legal battles, please visit the Friends of Randal Schwartz website or send a blank mail message to my autoreply bot.

Randal Schwartz's really simple proxy was what I used as a framework for a one-shot "slashdot munger" to fix a particularly crack-addled wide layout this site was using for a while, and this one looks full-featured but still under development. (Abigail's didn't come up in a perl.com search though.)

I learned early on to channel energies using an aluminum foil dish strapped to my forehead. I have long since ceased to be mortal.

best mousepad: the one with boobs

best pic from the cruise: big iron

best art from the gnu/art site: l33t debian button.. gotta get one

enjoy!

Probably the same as everyone else. They've been a client of mine since the incident; for proof, see the check they sent me!