Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Sand, Maps, Antiquities
The world will beat a path to their doors. parvati writes: "This is the follow-up to an unusual contest mentioned on Slashdot a few months ago. A Princeton neuroscientist, John Hopfield, created a neural network modeling how the brain interprets sensory input, posted it on a website, and invited others to deduce the basis behind the way the network "thought". There is now a winner--David MacKay's group at Cambridge University--and the results will be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a bit. Preprints are available from the website that contains the information about the network."
Cuchulainn also passed on word of this NYTimes story on the two winners of the contest.
Who's spamming who, on the freeway of love? jamie passed on this email from Bennett Haselton, who runs Peacefire.org, as a followup to the recent story of his about the traffic-blocking capabilities (and implementation) of Above.Net.
I've found out why I haven't been getting any email from the gilc-plan or ifea-plan mailing lists for several weeks now.The hosts where these mailing lists are run is connected to the Internet via HIS.com, which is connected to the AboveNet backbone. Peacefire's ISP is on AboveNet's "boycott list", which means all their downstream customers are blocked from accessing our Web site or sending email to peacefire.org addresses. (To them, it just looks like the site is down -- "the server is not responding...", or "Returned mail: host not responding...")
AboveNet does not publicize that they do this, and in fact I called AboveNet pretending to be a naive customer and asked them whether they blocked their users from accessing anything on the Web. All five employees that I talked to in sales and tech support, said "No". Although when I talked with a high-level technician and showed him the evidence, he did admit that AboveNet blocked sites on the boycott list.
I talked to several AboveNet users affected by the block, and they had no idea that AboveNet was filtering their Web access; most were pretty pissed off about it.
When Slashdot published a story about this, AboveNet immediately re-opened their customers' to our ISP's web sites: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/12/13/1853237 but I don't know if the un-ban is temporary or permanent. Currently we are detecting when customers connect to our site from an AboveNet-controlled IP address, and opening a separate window to warn them that AboveNet has been blocking their Internet connection for the last several months, and that they may be entitled to sue AboveNet for censoring their connection without their knowledge.
AboveNet is participating in a boycott of our ISP, organized by the Mail Abuse Prevention System, because of sites like http://209.211.253.69/ which sell mass email software (but does not spam or use spam for advertising). I think this distinction is important (there are many sites that host software programs with far less ethical uses, however, the hosting ISP's aren't the ones responsible), but never mind -- there's nothing wrong with a boycott as long as it's voluntary. AboveNet, however, is co-opting their users into the boycott involuntarily, knowing that 90% of their customers would never agree to have their Web access censored if they knew what was going on. AboveNet admitted it has nothing to do with protecting customers from spam (obviously, since they're blocking Web sites, and the targeted servers aren't spamming anyway); it's just a way of putting pressure on the ISP by threatening to cut off their customers' access to their sites.
We also contacted the boycott organizers to ask why they didn't just remove Peacefire's IP address from the list and block the others in the same range, and they said it was technically possible, but they wouldn't do it -- unless we joined the boycott by going to another ISP.
For the time being, I can get mails from the gilc-plan and ifea-plan lists. If AboveNet re-instates the ban after the controversy dies down, I'll re-subscribe to the lists under a different email address.
-Bennett
bennett@peacefire.org http://www.peacefire.org
Anyone care to ante up 1/6 for an MP3? minard writes: "I have on my shelf an example of a wax drum (forerunner of the vinyl record) that had been sold in Britain circa 1905. I just noticed a label on the side I hadn't really paid attention to before. It says:
"This record is sold by the National Phonograh Co Ltd upon the condition that it may not be sold or offered for use by the original or any subsequent purchaser (except by an authorized factor to an authorized retail dealer) for less than 1/6 each. Upon any breach of said condition the license to use and vend this record implied from such sale immediately terminates."
1/6, by the way, would be about 10c. Not sure how much that would be today. Basically this is a license restriction that enforces pricing controls (completely legal at the time). I'd always assumed these were a new thing. Guess not."
You look a little down in the Mouth ... The seventh in our continuing reprint of Jon Katz's "Voices From the Hellmouth" series is now online.
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
If you want to be pedantic, then you probably couldn't sell it for less than 1/6, or its equivalent value (what would a coin collectior pay for a mint condition 1905 1/6 piece?) Inflation isn't mentioned, so that doesn't count, I suppose.
Isn't stuff from 1905 out of copyright though, even in the US? That also assumes that that someone is still around to complain.
If you think that's funny, one person in Washington was actually sick enough to bookmark that picture (favicon.ico)
Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion (if any) of your choice, but with respect for the beliefs of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all; plus... A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2001, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, colour, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishes.
Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.
Note: I didn't write this, and I'd credit it, but I'm not sure where it came from. It may have been written by Ted Scribner.
http://www.bulkisp.nu/ That Site!
-- dieman - Scott Dier
The thing is, is that peacefire.org was being blocked at the routers of abovenet at one time (i.e. it wasn't just mail that has been blocked like everyone claims).
That is a matter of opinion.
I've been on the receiving end of a boycott. My ISP used to use Agis for their backbone connection. After Agis became a spam haven, people started blacklisting all of their IP blocks, including the non-spamming Agis customers. My ISP was forced to switch to another backbone provider. I don't blame the people who blacklisted my IP address, I blame Agis for not being a good net citizen.
The sad fact is that the only way to get some people's attention is to hit them over the head with a two-by-four. In the case of greedy bastards like the people who ran Agis, the only thing that will get their attention is a severe reduction in cash flow when their customers start leaving in large numbers. And that is what it took to get Agis to take spam seriously.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who is a customer of Media3 is part of the spam problem. Nuke them all.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Heh, just wait until you meet the friendly members of DIE-MF, the Directorate for the Immediate Elimination of Monospaced Fonts.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I doubt there are any good arguments for your side. The best I've seen might have been Metallica's response here on Slashdot but that might not be exactly what you want.
;>
*shrugs* Anyone who says they don't break laws is either a liar or stupid. Look at all the dumb laws still on the books from way back when. Look how many people speed just a little or run a yellow light as the situation is useful to them. Surely breaking basic saftey laws like those are much more dangerous that people who share MP3's. I agree that the ebst place to win the battle is to change copyright laws but honestly big businesses control the government to well for us to easily fight back and the big media companies control what goes into the average persons mind to well to wage a public relations war. Let them fight the criminals in court and not remove whole categories of technology just because they have the ability to be abused. There are some points you can argue.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I administer Cyber Patrol for a school system. (I'm a contractor, don't actually work for the schools). Anyway, you can click on http://www.cyberpatrol.com/cybernot/
and find out why a site is blocked and if it can be unblocked. From there, you can also request it be unblocked, and while it takes a few days, I have always gotten an e-mail back on the subject.
Also, what is filtered depends on the Administrator or whomever makes the decisions. In my situation, the Board of Ed decided to block Sex Education, but not Sports or Alcohol.
Likewise, some sites (Babelfish being one) are blocked because you can translate URLs in them, and CyberPatrol only recognises English.
Do I like filtering? Heck, YES! It makes my job a lot easier. I never get calls from librarians anymore complaining that some kid set the wallpaper to a porn background. The teachers are happy because the kids can't hit the rap lyrics sites all day or porn or online gambling instead of doing their work.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
This doesn't work at all with Slashback because you have to follow the link first, to even find out what it's about.
So I think Slashback should be eliminated as a topic category.
(Also, I really hate following a link and finding my only choices are PDF or PostScript or Word. You should always warn if there's no plain-HTML version.)
There is no such thing as 'nonconsensual' speech.
Alas, that's not true.
Suppose I decide that you and the people in your apartment building are ripe for induction into my MLM scheme; all you need is a little more information about it. So I go buy the biggest loudspeaker system I can find and set it out front. I then rant continuously for days at a time, using pals to keep up a continuous stream of sales pitch. Neither you nor your neighbors are interested, and you are all trying your best not to hear.
When people are talking about nonconsentual communications, that's what they mean. You're welcome to have a different name for it, of course.
The entire point of Free (as in liberty) speech
is that you have the unfettered right to communicate.
I am sad to say that you are again off the mark.
Communication requires at least two participants. If I stand alone in the woods and speak my mind, that isn't communication. And if I stand alone in the woods and just listen to the wind in the trees, that isn't communication, either. Communication only happens when there is a speaker and a listener.
Freedom of speech means that nobody (especially the government) should come between two people trying to communicate. It does not mean the act of flapping ones lips should be at all times protected. If, despite your requests to stop, I chase you down the street shouting obscenities and nonsense words, that's just harassment; free speech never enters into it.
If you're interested in learning more about the nature of communication, you should read that hacker favorite, Godel, Escher, Bach.
I presume that the price mentioned is the original retail price; that would effectively prevent people from opening used wax cylinder stores. I guess that's why we don't see such stores today, eh?
you are confusing two wholly diffrent ideas... speach and communication speach does not require a reciver...
I'm not confusing the two here; I'm separating them. My point is that 'free speech' isn't about the legal right to open your mouth and make noises. It's about the legal right to communicate freely, without the government trying to stop communication to suppress ideas it doesn't like.
if you wanted to stand outside my aprtment building preaching the vertues of whatever your selling, you can do that, but i better be able to sleep at night.
Agreed. Spam isn't wrong because of the ideas expressed in the messages; it's wrong because of how the message is delivered. When people yell about how blocking spammers is censorship, they miss this point.
Presenting the award for...
Highest Moderated Goatse.cx Link!
No comment at this time
And a Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it.
;)
Surely you mean a Joyous Hanukkah or some such. I mean, that looks like a menorah to me, but I could be wrong.
In terms of music... I was scheduled to "debate Napster" on a school radio show today. Essentially, the producer picked me 'cause he knows I'm "good with computers." He also knows I'm sort of "against" Napster, so I got to be the Con side. By argument is pretty much "File sharing is Good, federal crime is Bad, if you don't like copyright law, the way to change it is not to break it. Oh and, this is what 'fair use' really means." I wasn't too sure that would hold up... fortunately, the show was postponed because the Pro girl had to go produce a TV show. I have to do it tomorrow agianst someone else, a guy who is frighteningly bombastic and determined that he has a right to download whatever the hells he wants. Can anyone point me toward some better stuff for my side of the debate?
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
From what I can understand, Peacefire's primary complaint was that they didn't know. BTW: it wasn't Peacefire's IP that was being blacklisted, this time. They just weren't getting mail from the blacklisted site. Above.net (their ISP) was willfully dropping packets, but not telling customers. When the peacefire guys asked above.net, their Customer Support people said "No we're not".
I've got no problem with above.net blacklisting an entire block of IPs. In fact we almost reveled when they forced Microsoft to cry uncle. They just need to be open about it. If above.net is using RBL to block sites, they should let customers know about it, and even give them a tool to check if the reason why they can't get to a site is that it's being blackholed.
There are a couple of reasons to be open about such blacklisting. The obvious is that you owe it to your customers. The other is that -- if you want to put pressure on an ISP to change policy, then people have to know that there's something going on.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
OK: so peacefire ISbeing blocked. It was the mailing list provider who's a customer of above.net.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
E-mail spam in many ways mimics the so-called junk faxes that have been outlawed in most places. Despite this fact, companies still send these junk faxes. I believe that companies and individuals that send these junk e-mails should be treated in the exact same way people who commit the same crime with facsimile machines are. Both are unauthorized use of my resources, which I pay for. I have much less of a problem with junk mail, since I don't have to pay to receive it. The sender pays, and I trash it. I also have a problem with telemarketers because they waste a considerable amount of my time, tie up my telephone and call at inappropriate times.
I do, however, agree that the MAPS RBL is a rather ineffective measure, and certainly no better than any of the censorware filtering software that we've all grown to hate. The MAPS RBL blocks as much or more legitimate traffic than it stops, and the real solution is to either prevent anyone from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail or to require that all unsolicited spam be marked in a header or on the subject line in a standardized fashion so that the recipient can always filter if he or she chooses to do so. I would certainly prefer the first measure come into being for the simple reason that I don't see why trash e-mails need to be sent -- there are better, less intrusive ways of advertising, the easiest being putting up a website and letting a few search engines spider it.
And to all the spammers out there: For the millionth time, no I don't want a non-accredited diploma or degree, to make money fast, mass-mailer software, e-mail list CDs, or viagra.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
i believe that price control is legal in many countries, for example if you buy packet of ciggarettes here in sweden there is a sticker saying "max price 38(or 39 not sure any more) skr"
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
Peacefire ostensibly opposes censorship. If I developed and distributed a program for clogging Islamic mail servers with so much garbage that useful messages couldn't get through, they'd be all over me bitching about how I was interfering with someone's $deity-given right to communicate. Then they'd jump all over my ISP for provide 'net access to such scum. I'd probably even get my own link on their homepage, right under NetNanny.
But when *their* ISP does that very thing, and all of a sudden it's "Not only are they on a different IP, the company doesn't even spam directly." Even when AboveNet whitelists them -- letting them off easy for consorting with known spammers -- they *still* keep whining.
Vixie has a blacklist, and they bitch about that. AboveNet has a whitelist, and they bitch about that. It's time for a baptism-by-fire-list. When somebody whines like Peacefire has been doing, their IPs get put on the firelist. As a precondition to using MAPS, ORBS, DUL, and friends, admins would have to agree to *never* block any traffic to a host on the firelist.
Peacefire seems to want every brain-dead AOLer to have unfettered access to port 25, so let them have it, but just for *.peacefire.org. Let them bask in the glory of a totally unfiltered broadband pipe. Let them handle every spam and DoS attack by themselves. Let them discuss problems one-at-a-time with the BoFH running a spamhaus in Lower Elbonia. Give them the totally open access they seem to want. Let their mailboxes fill up with chain letters, let their news spools overflow with 20k rants from the world's McElwains and Bloxys.
And when they discover that that is *not* what they really want, that a little control and upstream responsibility is a good thing, let them crawl back to Vixie and beg to be put back on the black list.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
No, the funniest part is that you looked at that thoroughly disgusting pic long enough to figure that out.
You should be able to find out at: http://www.nic.cx/whois.cfm but there appears to be a problem on their backend right now, because when I hit query it says "connect error". Hmmm... a problem on the backend when I query. Somehow, that seems appropriate.
Regardless of who he is, he's missing out on a lot of ad revenue. If you're gonna be a pornographer, you might as well make money.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
There is no such thing as 'nonconsensual' speech.
If there was, your boss would not be able to express the desire to fire you, if you did not agree to hear it.
There is nothing wrong with unsolicited communication. If you are in my way, I have the right to ask you to move.
The problem with spam is that it the sending of it generally violates the contracts between the carriers (UUNet, etc) and their customers (the spammer). In other cases, spam can be considered a theft of service.
Also, your statement "Freedom of speech is only a valid concept when there exists an audience who will willingly listen to that speech." is completely absurd. The entire point of Free (as in liberty) speech is that you have the unfettered right to communicate. Spam, paper junkmail, and Jerry Springer are the prices that we pay to communicate in better and faster ways.
I find it amazing how people can accept, understand and advocate the notion of 'Free software'; yet cannot understand the Bill of Rightds.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The names of sex offenders are published for all to see because they have been convicted of a crime in an open court. Court records, like most government records, are public records, open to all.
MAPS and ORBS are unaudited private groups who claim to represent the interests of the internet at large. They publish lists of servers which are known 'spammers' or open relays. While we all dislike spam, it is not a crime, nor should it ever be.
You'll be glad when the law allows you to sue for unauthorized use of your mailservers. Good for you. I'm sure you'll be even happier when internet usage is taxed to support the 'war on spam'.
I will never understand why people are so psychotic about spam. It's impact on business is nil. People wasting their workday reading and posting to Slashdot and other message boards wastes far more bandwidth than spam.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Obviously, it was a mechanism that you could use to make sure you did not resell your copy at a loss. (I wonder how they enforced it as far as private sales go.)
Obviously, this was intended to cover retail shops. But it still makes you wonder....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
What's the peacefire guy's problem? He can't sign up for a free email account at one of the hundreds of providers? It kind of sucks they got blacklisted, but that's the price we all pay for spam sympathizers.
Agreed. Peacefire needs to talk to their access provider and get their provider to stop providing spam support services. Once the provider stops supporting spam they will get out of the blackhole. Nothing could be simpler.
If I was peacefire I'd be shopping for a new non-spam friendly isp. This really has nothing to do with censorship. The provider aggreed to stop providing spam support then they went back on that agreement. Result? All their IPs get blackholed.
As far as I'm concerned this provider can rot in the blackhole till hell freezes over.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
And since when does AboveNet have the right to blacklist entire domains and IP blocks anyway?
It's all about the Karma Points, baybee...
Moderators: Read from the bottom up!
SIG: HUP
Their god is Linus Torvalds and they'd live and die for him.
They believe in source code, and not in the corporate way.
So I'll go to "slashdot dot org" and post a comment and saaaaayyy....
HEY THERE MISTER SLASHDOTTER! Merry fscking Christmas!
Put down that disk of core dumps, and hear my holiday wishes...
In case you haven't noticed, it's Jesus's birthday
So get off your penguin-loving butt and fscking celebrate!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
What's the peacefire guy's problem? He can't sign up for a free email account at one of the hundreds of providers? It kind of sucks they got blacklisted, but that's the price we all pay for spam sympathizers.
My home connection to the internet is through Flashcom, who in my area was using Above.net. Since Flashcom is currently in Chapter 11 and have chosen to neither answer their phone nor provide any functionality on their webpage, it is difficult to discern exactly to whom to complain. They certainly could care less now.
The really odd thing is that my internet access has been otherwise flawless over the last year and a half. I will definitely have to pay more attention to this.
John
Torg, come out of the spaceship. Nothing can stop Torg.
AboveNet is participating in a boycott of our ISP, organized by the Mail Abuse Prevention System, because of sites like http://209.211.253.69/ which sell mass email software (but does not spam or use spam for advertising).
Well, really? media3.net is the ISP in question. Have a look at Spamhaus. Who's at the top of the list? media3.net? gee...
Well done! The people who saw it no doubt immediately understood your commentary on the futility of blocking software. I'm sure not a one of them didn't fail to apprehend that this site shouldn't have been viewable, or that it was in place of more worthy ones. Moreover, I'm certain that not a single person walked out of that store thinking, oh, say, "the internet has some horrible smut on it! There ought to be a law!"
- Michael
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
minard writes about seeing a warning label on a wax cylinder sold in Britain in 1905 and states '1/6' is about 10 cents us. [one shilling, 6 pence]
prior to 1971 and decimalisation the pound sterling contained 20 shillings or 240 old pence thereby making a shilling = 12 pence.
before 1914 one pound sterling was worth us$5.00, doing the math: 18 pence*2.08333 = us$0.375 cents.
an inflation calculator [http://www.westegg.com/inflation/] gives the value of us$0.375 cents in 1905 as us$6.75 in 1999, not bad considering us$5 per week was considered a decent wage in 1905...
"...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!"
- Media3's one of the top spam producers (were it not for UU.NET) -- see Spamhaus and news.admin.net-abuse.sightings.
- Media3 hosts spammers. They may use throwaway dialups to open mail servers, but they host the pages that are the main cause. Once again, news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
- Efforts to get this to the attention of *anybody* without a clueless responce has been a waste of a few good phone calls by voice. news.admin.net-abuse.email
So, yes, the RBL listing is nessisary -- just as publishing the identities of child molesters is now nessisary (and quite legal in many court decisions over the years). But it is only a publication -- what you do with the information is up to you. Most ISP's who use it block mail that is comming from them. Above.net (who Vixie left about a year ago if not more, get it straight) chooses to block any connection.And while I'll prase Peacefire for doing *some* homework (unlike jamie, who fell for alot of the hype and FUD) for contacting MAPS and Above.net, their next step is to contact their upstream to find out why they're not getting a clean, spam-free feed to the Internet. If they don't get an answer, a good solid answer, not just another clueless reply, then walk to another provider.
I'll be glad when there's a national law in which we can sue them for unauthorized commercial usage of mail servers. I betcha CmdrTaco can run Slashdot and AnimeFu on what's left from the lawyers cut...
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
i was in a radioshack the other day. they had computers set up with some sort of broadband net access. and cyber patrol to filter out all the smut.
i try to load the peacefire webpage. it's blocked. no surprise there. so i try to load www.goatse.cx. it's not blocked.
i left it open, so the customers have something to think about, then left.
--
Let's be clear on this. Media3 is what's in the RBL, not Peacefire specifically. Media3 is a spam-friendly provider, and given the spam problem that I face on a daily basis, I'm very pleased that they're on the list. If they weren't, I'd add them to my own blacklist. Of course, I'd just be blacklisting them at the SMTP level, not the IP level, which is what certain other organisations (like above.net, at least for some of the time) have done.
Why blacklist Media3 at the IP level? It's not because they have people selling spam-tools, believe it or not. Nowhere in the mail-abuse guidelines does it talk about blacklisting people for selling spamming tools. Personally I detest spamming tools and the people that sell them, but I'm aware that one can't easily pick and choose about blocking sites on this basis. That is a form of censorship, and I think censoring the Internet is futile, even if it would serve my particular desires.
So if it's not about the tools, then what's it about? It's about the spam, stupid! The people who sell the spamming tools use the spamming tools to advertise their wares. The spam isn't necessarily originating from Media3's network: I expect that their terms and conditions prohibit it. So what does a spammer do? They host their permanent web page at Media3, then spam-advertise that web page via some other service entirely. Create a throw-away account, spam until it gets terminated, rinse, repeat. Under these circumstances, the only real way to hurt the spammer is to target their web page. It's getting close to borderline, but I believe that the RBL is still quite justified in their actions here.
My advice to Peacefire (all 2 cents worth, discounted and donated to the public domain) is to stop dealing with a spam-friendly service provider. It's one thing to support freedom of speech, but spam is nonconsensual speech. It's noise thrust upon you by a sociopathic git who's playing the numbers game. I do my level best to avoid spam, and I've had to deal with several items in the last day. I'm all for freedom of speech, so long as I maintain the freedom to not have everyone else's junk arbitrarily delivered to my inbox when I don't want it. Freedom of speech is only a valid concept when there exists an audience who will willingly listen to that speech. When it comes to imposing speech on an unwilling audience, that's a violation of the rights of the audience, not an affirmation of the rights of the speaker.
Peacefire, from all that I've seen, is doing a valuable job. Don't spoil it by confusing anti-spam measures with censorship. Both issues are too important to conflict like this.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.