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However, the same story was in The Sunday Times.

The case is not quite the same here in the UK.
The Sunday Times (free reg) regularly has sci-fi on their top 10 booklist for the week. Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are practically permanent residents on the chart, and this week "Attack of the Clones" (R A Salvatore) tops the chart under Hardback fiction.
There are also reviews of fantasy books although the genre do seem to take a bit of a backseat in this area.
Many consider the Sunday Times pretty high brow here in the UK, but apparently they are recogninsing that S/F adn fantasy now is a BIG market.

The Times of London article is here (long registration process required)

The Sunday Times and The Times have always been separate publications. Nowadays Rupert Murdoch owns them both, and has been combining some of their operations. But that's a recent development.

The Sunday Times registration process has an amusing flaw. Tried to tell it I was born in 1830. Not acceptable. 1890? Nope. 1899? Get serious. I meant to try "1900" next, but typed "2000" by mistake. That was acceptable! Apparently 1-year-olds read the Sunday Times, but not centenarians!

Yeah, it's an Aussie who claims with a straight face that it's a scientific experiment, not a stunt. (Of course, he's already sold the rights to a television producer..."Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, Dorothy.")

Anyway, here is the story.

I pulled it out of a recent Sunday Times piece

George Orwell noted in 1941: "In so far as it hampers the British war effort, British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi." Elsewhere he wrote of the "unadmitted motive" of pacifism as being "hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism".

The whole series of articles is excellent, especially this one about "Why they hate America". Thanks for the link.

The Sunday Times (of London) has a report of what it is like to fight in Afghanistan by a member of Britain's SAS (special forces). This guy trained the mujaheddin and taught them how to fight the Russians in the 1980s. It's an incredible story. Perhaps the most important thing is that, in his view, fighting once the snow comes--in October--is likely to have one main effect: loss of Western troops.

quack? .. if i were big and bad with billions to spend, i'd surely launch a skunky spooky manhatten-like project to find that quantum box asap that cracks your cherished pgp secrets in nano-seconds.. not that i'd tell you about it, though..

if, when we all get quantum crypto, expect all hell to really break loose.. seems unlikely these days, though, that freespace quantum crypto will land in the hand of the common man..

until then, i think i'll keep my secrets away from bits..

"Cyber-games make children brighter"
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/22/1952241.shtm l
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/ 07/22/stinwenws03005.html

'nuf said

I don't think these '15 year-olds' are really THAT brilliant

The obvious counter-example is the Irish cryptographer Sarah Flannery.

And RSS developers might recognise Aaron Swartz.

I realize that you have a job to do, and articles to write, but please try for something more useful, innovative, insightful... SOMETHING ORIGINAL.

Use the source! that goes for news as well as code.

Is it just me or are an awful lot of MSNBC stories getting posted? Keep you friends close and your enemies closer.

Use the source! that goes for news as well as code.

Is it just me or are an awful lot of MSNBC stories getting posted? Keep you friends close and your enemies closer.

at princeton university: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/ 06/04/stifgnusa01007.html

Intersting picture of the journalist.
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11 d2-A769-00AA001ACF42


Ok ok, I do know what it really is.
--------

The fair, brotherly cops and respectable politicians are the source of enough institutional racism that the UN is getting involved. Your government has investigated the cops and found them guilty of pervasive racial bias. Heck, your own officers don't even believe that their fellow cops are fair or brotherly.

BTW, the rate of church attendance is more like 44% in the US and 27% in the UK. The University of Michigan has one of the most respected social sciences/statistics departments in the world, so please don't come back here claiming otherwise.

And as far as New Labour and the "Third Way" being responsive to the people... well, it's about as believable as hearing the same thing from Clinton. It is true that the British government isn't bought and sold as brazenly as ours is, but it is just as responsive as any other government when dollars (or pounds, as the case may be) are at issue. When those businesses want to start invading your privacy more brazenly, you can be sure that MI5 will be there to help out.

In conclusion- either you are a damn good troll or you are pretty deluded about the society you live in. Hope it is the latter... it is never too late to learn.

~luge

I especially liked the last paragraph of the review which read

If the 21st American century contains any serious ideological battles between might and right, power and community, the big battalions and the radical small fry, it seems likely that they will be fought out here in cyberspace.

The work is being undertaken by the Raelian-backed Bahamas-based Clonaid company, which is charging a few hundred thousand dollars. Clonaid says that if it's successful, they intend to make it a business. Some independent scientists who have examined the Clonaid methodology say that it will "probably" work.

Cloning a dead adult is not the same as bringing the adult back to life, because the clone would not have the dead person's memories. But cloning an infant seems different. Clonaid actually refers to their work as "bringing back to life a 10-month old child". (Even a new-born infant has some memories from its mother's womb, though--as well as some affects from the womb environment.)

The London Sunday Times has the story. Brave New World, here we come!

______________________________________________
Don't blame Windows--if you were a Microsoft operating system, you'd have problems too.

The work is being undertaken by the Raelian-backed Bahamas-based Clonaid company, which is charging a few hundred thousand dollars. Clonaid says that if it's successful, they intend to make it a business. Some independent scientists who have examined the Clonaid methodology say that it will "probably" work.

Cloning a dead adult is not the same as bringing the adult back to life, because the clone would not have the dead person's memories. But cloning an infant seems different. Clonaid actually refers to their work as "bringing back to life a 10-month old child". (Even a new-born infant has some memories from its mother's womb, though--as well as some affects from the womb environment.)

The London Sunday Times has the story. Brave New World, here we come!

______________________________________________
Don't blame Windows--if you were a Microsoft operating system, you'd have problems too.

We always knew he was a troll, but come on Katz, getting first post on your own story is just plain cheating.

btw, anyone else notice this Nazi/IBM stuff in the sunday times (uk).

Drive by wireless cracking?

Senator Hatch was sponsor of the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). The history of this twenty year extension is mentioned in this London Times article

So Senator Hatch used "international harmonization" as the reason for the CTEA.

They say that a man has two reasons for doing something. A good one, and then the real one. Hatch is also responsible for the DMCA, proposed patent extensions (Claritin), and this lovely little piece of legislation

It makes me seeth when political whoring such as this is so obvious. But it shows you just how stupid the people of Utah (my state) are for re-electing the jerk. And if anybody is believing any of the "fair-use" nonsense he has been spouting off lately about online music only needs to look at his record and stop being fooled.

While I do not think that the original 28 term will be returned to, I would settle for life plus 28 years. At least then we would see the work of or great grandfathers enter the public domain. International treaty is pre-empted by our constitution that says copyright is for "limited times," and for the author only. Let international treaty "harmonize" with our constitution for a change.

If you are in Salt Lake and want to organize against bad Copyright Law/Senator Hatch - email me kphil@hotmail.com

Actually, apparently not on that doppler method only being able to detect gigantic planets.

Here is an article from a UK paper (I first found it referenced by exosci.com) on the preliminary results from one such doppler study that have found two potential earth like planets. The system is a double red star system named CM Draconis. It even comes complete with a large Jovian sized gas giant in the system to draw asteroids and meteors away from the terrestrial sized planets with. Gotta wonder about what effect the two red stars would have on any possible development of life though. They do also note that this study was pushing the instruments to their very limits in the article as well.

Results are very preliminary still it seems.

Why was the guy arrested? Didn't he return (albeit in a roundabout way) the machine in the first place? As quoted from the Sunday Times?



I am so smart. S-M-R-T ... I mean S-M-A-R-T.

BTW, read this today in the Sunday Times: Twiglet Terror is new top banana of the fruit and veg villains "The centre for criminological research at Oxford University has found that robbers are increasingly using their fingers, cucumbers and candles as "bluff" guns. Another survey found that a shortage of readily available firearms meant that in 70% of attempted "armed" robberies in Britain, the raiders either used a toy gun or a banana wrapped in a bag."

Sunny Delight has an advert where a snowman drinks it and turns orange. It was reported in the news that a few kids had turned a bit orange from drinking too much of the great "stuff" that kids go for. (Stuff, why dont they call it orange or juice, hmm?)

A quick google search turned up this link http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/12 /26/stinwenws01016.html
click here
Informative underatted and funny? (Hint, hint moderators)

The page linked to from the /. post makes almost no sense, but the link at the bottom of that page goes to a better/longer/more coherent version of the story.

-Gabe

It could be extrapolated from this that the average duration of use is around 1.4 hours. Unless, that is, it really HAS been too long since I took my last math course or I'm just plain wiggin' out :-)

I believe this was previously reported on Seinfeld - 'The Bris'

KRAMER: Hey, I'm telling you, the pig-man is alive. The government has been experimenting with pig-men since the 50's.

GEORGE: I wish there were pig-men. You get a few of those pig-men walking around, suddenly I'm looking a lot better. That way if someone wanted to fix me up they could say, 'Hey, at least he's no pig-man.'

KRAMER: Believe me, somewhere in this hospital the anguished oink of pig-man cries out for help.

link is here

A very interesting read.. I liked the comments on geeknews (which is where the story was posted) even better. 300x the speed of light=5.5 warp speed :-)

http: //www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/01/16 /STN160801.300x204.jpg

I see one cop with a handgun and another cop with a rifle. Show me your evidence that the British cops don't pack.

I don't buy your other argument, either. Produce official statistics on crime rates in Britain. Thi s article in the Sunday Times claims that more than 3 million illegal guns are held in Britian, leading to over 13,000 armed offences in 1998. It also claims that there are 100 crimes per month involving firearms in Birmingham alone! I don't know what kind of reputation the Sunday Times has, but I've produced hard number and I suspect it is more evidence than you can produce.

-jwb

http: //www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/01/16 /STN160801.300x204.jpg

I see one cop with a handgun and another cop with a rifle. Show me your evidence that the British cops don't pack.

I don't buy your other argument, either. Produce official statistics on crime rates in Britain. Thi s article in the Sunday Times claims that more than 3 million illegal guns are held in Britian, leading to over 13,000 armed offences in 1998. It also claims that there are 100 crimes per month involving firearms in Birmingham alone! I don't know what kind of reputation the Sunday Times has, but I've produced hard number and I suspect it is more evidence than you can produce.

-jwb

For those of you unfamaliar with with elliptical encryption I recommend this book. EE is an asymetrical algorithm in the same way RSA is. This "crack" is significant because it shows the relative strength between RSA and EE. 512 bit RSA ca n been cracked in about 12 microseconds. Other nice properties about EE algorithms :

- patent free (RSA expires this year!)
- faster than RSA
- can be implemented easily using 8/16bit microcode (ideal for smartcards)

Bruce likes to claim cracking contents have no value, but I disagree. EEs haven't been studied as much as RSA, so contest like this are important to showing the algorithms strength as implemented in the real world - and more importantly - generating interest in the research community.

It's happening here in the US. Once they finish licensing and registering and banning guns and gun owners, they'll start in on the rest of the Bill of Rights in earnest, making the Rampart division of the LAPD look like choir boys.

And then we'll wind up like Britain - where law-abiding citizens are not permitted to have privacy on their computers, nor to own the tools with which they can defend themselves, and criminal thugs may attack with impunity thanks to a government guarantee of disarmed victims, and since the penalty for a .22 popgun and a submachine gun are essentially the same, nat urally they opt for the submachine gun.

All freedoms are intertwined, and the right to armed self-defense lies at the foundation.

If you live in California and haven't signed the self-defense Constitutional amendment initiative, get thee to http://www.vetothegovernor.org/ post haste.

-Michael Pelletier

Displaying lack of technical knowledge

An example of shoddy reporting...

...and an analysis of the 'expert opinion' on which it was based

Trundling out the same ol' tired junk

This doesn't mean there isn't at least some truth to the reports of attack, but, it does suggest you should take what they say with more than a pinch of salt; in fact, I'd recommend sprinkling on a heavy layer of skepticism and critical thought.

on a similar theme, an editorial in today's London Times also addresses this issue. It is less bitter, but also belittles the danger that did exist.

A valid point it brings up is whether the amount spent on Y2K was reasonable. Interesting quote from the editorial: "If British Telecom spent £400 million and Telecom Italia next to nothing, questions will have to be asked."

The author's ranting about techo-hucksters is quite off the mark, but he does propose an interesting riposte for managers to fend off upgrading to new microsoft products. :-) The sad thing is, though, that his enmity towards "techno-hucksters" stems from his understandably poor experiences with microsoft products and the relentless, enforced update cycle, and then projects it onto areas where these experiences do not necessarily apply.

I've heard that this is the method they are considering using for mammoth birthing - using an African or Indian female elephant to implant a woolly mammoth embryo.

A couple weeks back, the London Times ran t his story which reports that so far, all attempts at extracting mammoth DNA from preserved specimens have failed. Furthermore, it's unlikely that a usable sample will ever be obtained, though they haven't given up hope and are continuing their search for more frozen carcasses.

For now, though, it looks like mammoth cloning has gone... well, the way of the mammoths. ;)

Regards,

"... you can't beat them [Linux on Intel] in the bangs for your buck department. It blows Sun out of the water..."

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Linux vs. Solaris, not just in terms of price, but overall performance, reliability, maintainability, and ease of use. As a developer, I'm seeing Linux considered as an alternative to Solaris in many places, but there's little factual (or even anecdotal) information comparing the two.
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The Times of London had a s tory Wednesday indicating an Isreali team has a hendheld quantum device that can crack 512-bit RSA keys in 12 MICROseconds.

I've heard a lot of people dismissing this story as pure fabrication and, whilst I do suspect that Ungoed-Thomas doesn't have a clue about what he's writing about (do a search for "Ungoed" on NTK for my reasons for thinking this), I'm inclined to suspect that there may be some truth behind the story.

Back in '95 I wrote a couple of articles on on information warfare, battlefield technology, etc. for an international military magazine. In April '96, I was contacted and asked if I could supply an EMP device which could "wipe out all computers within a 100m radius in a built-up area", for a certain amount of money (in excess of $15k).

Obviously, I refused the "commission", and thought no more of it, but several weeks later, the Sunday Times led with this story.

Needless to say, I've kept an open mind about these things since, especially as, since then, I've been asked to do all manner of illegal things, from hacking into the mail servers of competitors, takeover-targets and companies planning IPOs, to monkeywrenching - i.e. causing crashes, glitches and other problems in a company's systems and networks to make them look bad).

The methods of blackmail are very simple as most of the systems run over standard high bandwidth lines. It's a simple enough problem to get into these systems by going through the exchange points rather than walking through the front door of a bank (just like breaking into most company networks is actually much easier to break the PABX system and then jump across into the data stream that contains the network link rather than trying to attack the firewall directly).

That's true enough, and it's also true that companies' phone systems are often a lot less secure that their data networks, but that sort of hacking is quite low-level and requires a level of knowledge which, luckily, isn't as easy to acquire as normal hacking scripts are.

You'd be surprised as just how lax most banks are with thier internal security.

I don't have any experience with banks, but I've been involved in testing the security at other financial institutions, and I've been completely astonished at things like an insurance company with a wide open RAS dialup into their internal network. Senior executives can and do crap themselves when they realise just how vulnerable they are and, perhaps more importantly, that they are legally responsible for the security of their company's information systems and networks and the data (financial and personal) held on them.

Another interesting whole to watch out for in the future will be the increasing use of direct fibre channel connections. Some of the setups that I've seen put the mainframe connection in one site and the drives and backdrives in two separate sites. The drives are hooked up using fibre channel as though they were local hard drives to the machine. If you know what you're doing, getting inside one of these links can be quite easy.

I work with FCAL technology (Sun A5*00 arrays, mostly) and so on and I've heard of these type of set-ups as well. I think that the security of SANs and NAS devices will become an issue over the next couple of years.

Despite repeated demonstrations of how easy some of these systems are to break, the banks just don't seem to be interested in trying to make it more secure. They don't want to spend the extra money because it eats into the profit margin. Security through obscurity seems to be their favourite mantra.

Agreed. There's a huge amount of complacency in the UK regarding computer security. In August, a bunch of guys at DNSCon "outed" a couple of websites which were vulnerable to hackers, including the Scottish Government's site. Unfortunately, although they claimed to have tightened security, the new measures obviously weren't quite secure enough, as they were hacked not long afterwards.

There's a growing feeling in the UK that companies are failing to place enough emphasis on information security, and that a lot of so-called information security consultancies are incompetent. Many of them are formed by IT auditors, who might know how to count computers, but know fuck-all when it comes to effective information security risk management. Even the British Standards Institute's BS7799 standard for information security management is widely acknowledged to be a joke. The majority of systems which are certified as conforming to BS7799 are still vulnerable to attack.

The recent revision of the UK's Data Protection Act has taken a step towards making the directors of companies directly responsible for ensuring that the private information which is held on their companies' information systems, is adequately protected.

However, I feel that it won't be until the shareholders realise that their companies' profits are in danger, because of management incompetence, that we'll see real moves towards implementing effective information security practices.

The Dodger

As I suspected when I saw the reference to the Sunday Times, the original article that was cited in USA today was authored by Jon Ungoes-Thomas. Readers of ntk.net will be familiar with Ungoed-Thomas as a journalist who is long on unsubstantiated sensation, and very short on fact checking, and who is building a career out of predicting the collapse of civilization as a result of the Internet.

I'd take this particular article with a few large and tasty grains of salt.

As I suspected when I saw the reference to the Sunday Times, the original article that was cited in USA today was authored by Jon Ungoes-Thomas. Readers of ntk.net will be familiar with Ungoed-Thomas as a journalist who is long on unsubstantiated sensation, and very short on fact checking, and who is building a career out of predicting the collapse of civilization as a result of the Internet. I'd take this particular article with a few large and tasty grains of salt.