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I am a keen listener to FLOSS Weekly hosted by Randal Schwartz, and am astounded at how often he is away on a geek cruise ship, evidently having a great time, and learning from other geeks. I cannot imagine a better person to address this question to.

The TUAW reader who got his iPhone unbricked? Perl guru Randall Schwartz. He posted the info on his Jaiku microblog.

I also hear through Chicago Sun Times writer Andy Ihnatko that he's been able to unbrick a phone.

Happy Anniversary, Larry!

Everyone, please don't forget to wish a Happy Anniversary to Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen. The three of these gentlemen have created the Perl we all know and love.

I have been blessed with the opportunity of going to week long Perl classes with all 3 of these (well, Tom & Randal. Larry just came for lunch :) gentlemen/gods.

Merry Christmas one and all!

About the women part, here's how Eric Raymond works the ladies:

ESR busting a move

...eventually justice can work for "the little guy."

You're right, Randall's, what, 5'2"? 5'3"? (for reference)

He's eating pink taco with this girl. He is a missionary linguist, after all!

I'm just hoping that Perl 6 comes with a brand new edition of Learning Perl, complete with Sponsorship from Hooters. Randle Shwartz clearly knows his circular arrays. I'd love to hear his State of the Onions address, complete with gimp'ed role-models.

Monday, March 04, 2002

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Felchmale^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HFetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

ESR pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

The Match.com Love-Letter Reply

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Today was shaping up to be a great day for Eric S. Raymond, Open Source figurehead and accidental anthropologist extraordinaire. He had finally received, after two years, a reply to his Match.com love-letter. Using Open Source tools such as Perl and Jägermeister, Eric had wired his entire house to his 386 running Linux. His shack had just lit up like a Christmas tree before his eyes the instant the reply hit his inbox.

Straining to read the dusty 13" monitor, ESR pulled out a soiled handkerchief and spat it in, eagerly wiping away the year

...and blogged the conference, some of the more interesting bits below,

• Presentation Aikido by Damian Conway
• Perl Best Practices by Damian Conway
• Making Programs Faster by Mark-Jason Dominus
• Fire and Alarms (Various)
• The Tuesday Night Extravaganza
• The Wednesday Morning Keynotes
• Perl 6: End Gameby Damian Conway and Larry Wall
• What's new in Perl 5 by Nick Clark
• The Conway Channel...
• Autonomous Robots by Joe Bosworth & Joe Monti
• The Thursday Morning Keynote
• JSAN by Nick Clark
• Don't Drop the SOAP by Randy Ray
• I Want a Ponie by Nick Clark
• Make: Magazine at OSCON
• Extereme Perl Makeover by Peter Scott
• The Stonehenge Party (Thanks Randal!)
• The Friday Morning Keynote
• Easily Extensible Perl by Ask Bjørn Hansen
• Hacking Your Home Phone by Brian Aker
• The Final Keynote

Amazing conference, if you weren't there, you should have been...

book that beats people into submission so that they make READABLE perl

We often talk about "the maintenance programmer". As in, "you, three months/weeks/hours from now, when you can't remember what the hell you wrote", and how to write for "that" person.

Believe me, I have a vested interest in removing the "Perl is unreadable/unmaintable" meme. It shall die!

We didn't really have 5.8's differences in mind. However, we made sure that the exercises were not invalidated by 5.8.

So yeah, you got us. It's a marketing ploy.

However, we did do more than "rearrange" things. We're constantly updating our Llama class, and the latest changes were indeed dragged back into this book. So, you've got the best of an already good class, as updated by people that are teaching it every week.

Well, you can either go with The Alpaca book (Learning Perl Objects References and Modules), or The Perl Cookbook. I've heard both touted as "the third book".

Well, you can either go with The Alpaca book (Learning Perl Objects References and Modules), or The Perl Cookbook. I've heard both touted as "the third book".

RMS might be Order of Merlyn 1st Class, for all we know...

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Felchmale^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HFetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

ESR pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

Since there wasn't a link to Randal's collection of articles I'm providing one here. There's some excellent stuff in there.

And I've convinced some of my clients that the code I write for them for hire belongs in the CPAN, and that the magazine articles I write for them for hire belongs on the web for free.

It's all a matter of what you negotiate, and finding out what's needed and wanted and doing it. You don't need to charge for the software itself if you can figure out what else they'll need to make the best use of the software.

And I've convinced some of my clients that the code I write for them for hire belongs in the CPAN, and that the magazine articles I write for them for hire belongs on the web for free.

It's all a matter of what you negotiate, and finding out what's needed and wanted and doing it. You don't need to charge for the software itself if you can figure out what else they'll need to make the best use of the software.

Pssst, don't mess with him man, thats Randal L. Schwartz you're arguing about Perl with. As in the Schwartzian transform Randall L. Schwartz. Do not meddle in the affairs of perl monks for they are subtle and quick to anger. <g>

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Felchmale^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HFetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

ESR pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

Monday, March 04, 2002. Eric was just wondering how the singing magnets work, but not finding any satisfying explanation on Google and Wikipedia, he decided to finish one of the emails he was just writing. It seemed like a good idea to not think about science for a while and concentrate on something else.

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Fetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

Eric pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

Monday, March 04, 2002

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Fetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

Eric pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

Monday, March 04, 2002

I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Felchmale^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HFetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

ESR pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

Windeth I towarde the skye
I haveth eye but blinde am I

Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jägermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

Love,
Eric S. Raymond

Or send him an email. That was, after all, none other than Randal Schwartz.

Certainly sir, here you go:

1 2 3 4 5 6

I had a good wank earlier looking at these. Hope you enjoy them too!

Certainly sir, here you go:

1 2 3 4 5 6

I had a good wank earlier looking at these. Hope you enjoy them too!

My mind is a bit hazy on this, but I think visiting this monument as a child was part of the inspiration for my company name.

I wrote a similar article recently for SysAdmin magazine, although the focus is more about Perl.

• #21: WWW::Mechanize 101
• #22: Scraping with WWW::Mechanize
• #36: Downloading Images from Webshots
• #44: Archiving Yahoo! Groups Messages with WWW::Yahoo::Groups (which uses Mech)
• #64: Super Author Searching
• #73: Scraping TV Listings

• WWW::Mechanize::Examples
  A random bunch of examples submitted by users, included with the Mechanize distribution.
• http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2003/01/22/mechanize.htm l
  Chris Ball's article about using WWW::Mechanize for scraping TV listings. (repurposed into hack #73 above)
• http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/col47.ht ml
  Randal Schwartz's article on scraping Yahoo News for images.
• http://www.perladvent.org/2002/16th/
  WWW::Mechanize on the Perl Advent Calendar 2002, by Mark Fowler.

Tell that to Randal Schwartz. Because he did not obtain permission for each individual action, he was convicted of Computer Crime. You can email his perl bot for more info.

Beware people with benevolent intentions, as they usually become malevolent when they realize 1) you are smarter than they are, 2) they bought an insecure product, 3) they fear you. While this contest may be on the up and up, the information they are seeking is worth far more than $250 and could easily turn into criminal investigations whether they intend them to or not.

If someone can get my library records without my knowledge, sniffing some packets is child's play.

Tell that to Randal Schwartz. Because he did not obtain permission for each individual action, he was convicted of Computer Crime. You can email his perl bot for more info.

Beware people with benevolent intentions, as they usually become malevolent when they realize 1) you are smarter than they are, 2) they bought an insecure product, 3) they fear you. While this contest may be on the up and up, the information they are seeking is worth far more than $250 and could easily turn into criminal investigations whether they intend them to or not.

If someone can get my library records without my knowledge, sniffing some packets is child's play.

ask google about "Randal Schwarz".

You got the spelling of his name slightly wrong. It's "Randal Schwartz", and you can find his website here.

The other meme I want to start is let's just call the next few years: 3, 4, 5. Since we can write the 00's but can't pronounce it sensibily, let's just knock off the whole 200x and call it 3. What year is it? It's Three! Next year, it's Four! Kind of like a new "A.D.", we don't need that old point of reference no more.

As proof, I always date my autographed books, and if you find someone with an autograph of mine, you'll see that I've been using single digit years since the rollover.

If someone will employ you, then you're trusted.

Well, maybe, but we should also point out that in this case, it's irrelevant.

Anyone seriously interested in a secure network will have a policy that nobody is trusted. Especially not the foxes guarding the henhouse.

A good security setup is one whose violations are spotted quickly. This is especially true of violations perpetrated by the people running the security setup itself.

The management should trust the security people, and the security people shouldn't trust each other. They should all do what they can to make sure that they are also subject to the security system.

An instructive example is the Randal Schwartz case. He was arrested after running a password cracker that showed that a number of the VPs had easily-guessed passwords.

The obvious question here, from a security viewpoint, is "Why the hell weren't those VPs charged or fired?" They were violating a written company security policy, and making their systems vulnerable. The obvious answer is: Those VPs knew damned well what they were doing, and were in a position to punish someone who discovered their violations. They are probably still knowingly violating their system's security.

This is what happens when the top people are immune from the security policies themselves.

probably because despite that what he did was wrong (and it was):

a) the courts had to prosecute him in a time when "computer law" (i.e., "horse law") was pretty much nonexistent.

b) the courts also pretty much screwed his case - and sentencing - up.

sadly, i've heard of other notables getting in the deep for less than he did, because of similar technological ignorance within the legal system.

Your caution is well founded.

Perl guru Randall Schwartz was criminally prosecuted in the state of Oregon when as a consultant he warned his client's system administrators about poorly secured systems he found. He was convicted of a felony. It cost him over $170,000 in legal fees and $68,000 in restitution. He very nearly went to jail for 90 days.

I'd bet HE'D have some ideas whether the wording in a consulting contract would be good enoughto sabve you from his experience.

But I came out of the surgery being able to drive without glasses the next day, and with a perfect 0/0 correction left eye (seeing 20/10: better than my eye doc with his glasses) and about -0.7 nearsightedness in the right eye: a perfect bifocal, important since I hit 40 this year.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Will you get the same results? Only your doctor can tell (or maybe guess).

The main thing was after 10 years of glasses and 20 years of contacts, I wake up in the morning and can see the individual leaves in the tree outside my window. And instead of the once-a-day horror when some crap would get behind my lens, I have about a once a month piece of junk in my eye. Absolutely worth the trade.

I do not notice any night loss. Perhaps that's because my doc used the machine that makes an extremely wide cut... I know that some of the "cut-rate" docs have simpler machines. That was an initial concern of my eyedoc, which is why he hesitated recommending me. But my night vision is amazing, and I confuse my students when I can read their monitor text from 6 or 7 feet away.

My eyes are just as good today. Actually, I haven't even gone in for an eye exam for two years, because they're just working! It's truly a miracle.

But I came out of the surgery being able to drive without glasses the next day, and with a perfect 0/0 correction left eye (seeing 20/10: better than my eye doc with his glasses) and about -0.7 nearsightedness in the right eye: a perfect bifocal, important since I hit 40 this year.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Will you get the same results? Only your doctor can tell (or maybe guess).

The main thing was after 10 years of glasses and 20 years of contacts, I wake up in the morning and can see the individual leaves in the tree outside my window. And instead of the once-a-day horror when some crap would get behind my lens, I have about a once a month piece of junk in my eye. Absolutely worth the trade.

I do not notice any night loss. Perhaps that's because my doc used the machine that makes an extremely wide cut... I know that some of the "cut-rate" docs have simpler machines. That was an initial concern of my eyedoc, which is why he hesitated recommending me. But my night vision is amazing, and I confuse my students when I can read their monitor text from 6 or 7 feet away.

My eyes are just as good today. Actually, I haven't even gone in for an eye exam for two years, because they're just working! It's truly a miracle.

That was what I wanted to ask, actually. I was wondering if I could have a date with your daughter, Heidi.
Thanks.

In addition to the Perl & LWP book, about half of my 150+ columns have been about LWP in one way or another. Enjoy! (And please support the magazines that still publish me: Linux Magazine and SysAdmin Magazine).

On the first two attempts, they claimed to the new registrar that I hadn't replied positively to the transfer when asked, or that I had declined. When the new registrar got me a trouble ticket number on the second attempt, I went 5 rounds in email with Verisign, with various non-sequitor responses quoting FAQs at me.

On a whim, I tried the third time, and had to jump through about three or four messages with URLs for confirmation buried in the middle of an apology and near-demand to stay with Verisign. I just kept saying "no no no, let it transfer, yes, transfer, yes." And finally, I am free of the beast.

For Perl, I wouldn't bother with any kind of reference. Just find scripts that roughly do what you want and hack them; it's blind groping around, but that's the way Perl works. If you can't get it to work that way, you probably should be writing in something else other than Perl.

Most people coming to computers and computer programming wrongly think that objects are either the best, or even the only, way to build abstractions.

The solution that the (defunct) etoys.com adopted for their site was based on code from one of my Perl columns. My code is based on CPU throttling, but you can quickly change it to bytes sent using the same technology.

God I want to rim her tight puckered ass.

Here is a sample chapter from Learning Perl

The Yahoo page requires cookies and other junk in order to be able to be displayed, while Randall's own archive does not.

By the way, before anyone mods me down, let's get one thing straight: Randall's cool with this. As his website says, "One of my latest "stupid Randal tricks" has been to cruise the net for guest books and see if they accept raw HTML, testing it by feeding it a name or comment of Barney &ltIMG SRC="http://barneyonline.com/Barney/Images/Home/ic onBarney1.jpg"&gt. It's amazing how many of them blindly accept it." So given that he's cool with defacing other people's bulletin boards, I really wouldn't feel it necessary to have a conscience about his own.

He's also a hypocrite for whinging about the time that someone found out his slashdot account had the password "slashdot"

Randal Schwartz, poster child for the "I'm a persecuted geek! It isn't my fault!" tendency.

Fuckhead.

By the way, before anyone mods me down, let's get one thing straight: Randall's cool with this. As his website says, "One of my latest "stupid Randal tricks" has been to cruise the net for guest books and see if they accept raw HTML, testing it by feeding it a name or comment of Barney &ltIMG SRC="http://barneyonline.com/Barney/Images/Home/ic onBarney1.jpg"&gt. It's amazing how many of them blindly accept it." So given that he's cool with defacing other people's bulletin boards, I really wouldn't feel it necessary to have a conscience about his own.

He's also a hypocrite for whinging about the time that someone found out his slashdot account had the password "slashdot"

Randal Schwartz, poster child for the "I'm a persecuted geek! It isn't my fault!" tendency.

Fuckhead.

is on Schwartz's own site. He is very objective about the situation, but justifiably mystified by the seriousness of the charges. Three felony counts? C'mon.

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.