Slashdot Mirror
The Magic Box Hoax
Rasvar writes "Here is an interesting article from The Florida Times-Union about a high tech hoax that managed to pull in the likes of Blockbuster Video, US West, Ted Turner, Sen Orrin Hatch and numerous others. I actually attended one of the "demonstrations" of this device years back. I came away cynical becuase of the way he presented stuff. Sometimes it is good to be a cynic. This is a very good article on an impressive high tech scam."
I can transmit video in realtime over a standard phone line -- it's called DSL. Additionally, I can even stream video over a modem, 512x512 @ 30 FPS as listed in the patent (even though TVs aren't square).
How about solid black? I'm thinking a 9600 baud modem can do that, depending on the compression.
I thought that the POTS line bandwidth was to some degree limited by other things like filtering.
Otherwise things like DSL wouldn't really work.
(off on a tangent) I recall many years (1970s?) ago how they did (and maybe still do) broadcasts in Boston of Boston Symphony concerts at TangleWood in the Berkshires, over 100 mile away. They had recordings of the original source, they had the signal at the end of the phone line, and they knew what the difference was. They merely amplified the signal at the source end to compensate for the losses, making sure to not clip the signals. Result at the end in Boston was a signal completely acceptable for FM Stereo broadcasts.
So I can see if you are not completely expert in the technology, being able to make up your own examples, and talking yourself into believing that Certain Limitations had been exceeded.
Heck, Look at the history of the dialup modem, going from teletype speeds to 56k, far exceeding original expectations.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I was a spectator to a similiar case, where a guy calling himself Paul "Voss" Hinds was trying to get money to start a flight simulator game company. That story has a LOT of parallels.
He claims to be an Air Force Academy Graduate.
His AF records cannot be found by ANYONE, and he claims this is because of his involvement in secret projects.
He was out of sight for several months in 1997, and later claimed he was on death's door due to a scorpion sting under a fingernail.
He had a "fall guy" who he claimed ran off with the $10,000 he managed to get from investors.
He submitted as "proof" several SGI generated "screenshots", all of which used clearly typical demo features and openGL artifacts.
He claimed to own a P-51 Mustang and even submitted a doctored photo of a P-51 with his head cut-n-pasted into the cockpit and his name written under the canopy. The font for the canopy matched an Adobe Photoshop default.
He claimed to have shot down several Iraqi fighters in his F-16, yet no records of those shootdowns exist.
The list goes on and on, and this guy finally resurfaced using his handle "voss" in an online simulation, and he verbally attacks anyone who brings the scam up, challenging them to talk to his "astronaut general buddy". Strangely enough, this astronaut guy actually exists although I have not contacted him personally.
The parallels kept hitting me as I read the article, and I wonder if this was the same guy, or if (somehow) Paul Hinds had been set up by this same guy.
For all those who are outraged that the scam took in so many (i.e. "Why didn't they get some competent people to recview it before investing), the answer is that they did. The article talks about the way that many scientists reviewed the invention, but were never quite able to say that the invention was impossible. On this basis, the investor's said "it appears to work. I'll take the risk and assume it does actually work."
<p>
Why didn't the scientists say that this was completely absurd? A lot of reasons. First, they are being paid to review the invention. If they say that the invention doesn't work and it does, then they are liable for the massive losses incurred by the investor for a failed opportunity. If they say it doesn't work and it does, they get sued by the inventor. So, what do they do? They hedge their bets. They say that "more study" is needed, etc. To business types, this sounds like they are just being nerdy and cautious. Since they leave the question open, the investor (who wants to believe) goes ahead and goes for it, figuring that the 5 million dollars invested (or whatever) could well turn into billions.
<p>
In some respects, the scientiastws have failed them by not emphasizing their near-certainty that the idea was nonsense. And the businessmen failed themselves by not bothering to learn that, when a scientist says "quite improbable", he means "impossible."
<p>
sounds like everyday life to me, and should to most geeks.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Here's a story about a similar scam from the dot com era. This guy raised $20M, and spent $16M of that on a party in Las Vegas with entertainment provided by the Dixie Chicks and The Who.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Anyone else remember pixelon? You'd think investers would learn from their past mistakes...
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
This article pisses me off, why? This scammer has an expensive home, a few cars such as a Jaguar (ok, Jaguar sucks but it is arguably better than his Eclipse), boats, and a couple of planes --- oh, and he still has a bundle of cash.
I, or any number of us, could pull an evil-scheme like this off. But, for some reason we don't. For some reason we have ethics and values. And, for some reason, a guy like that has more money than he needs to live on. Obviously, the world is not fair.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Perhaps this is of interest. Hal Puthoff, the "Texas physicist considered an expert in the concepts Priest said he was using", is---I believe---also known as Harold Puthoff.
Together with Russel Targ, this infamous team produced, let us say, somewhat credulous studies of spoon-bending psychic Uri Geller's remote viewing abilities. They also have the dubious distinction of having provided some of the best evidence that positive feedback improves ESP ability. Tragically, no skeptic who uses reasonable experimental controls seems to be able to duplicate their results.
The fact that Priest's box has something to do with Puthoff's area of expertise is hilarious! I wonder if the author of the article was being *intentionally* ironic.
Inventors make their livings breaking physical limitations. The 1903 Wright Flyer, the Bell X-1, ADSL, DOCSIS all are things designed to skirt around physical limitations.
I remember someone proposing illuminating lines with an x-ray maser, in an attempt get very high speed transfer. It exceeded the limitations of the wire by not using it. The wire only contained the data.
If I had "done my research" I would know I can't get 40gHz signals down an Aluminum wire, but waveguides work just fine.
If we listen to all limitations, we won't get anywhere. You just have to ask how something works.
-twb
It does seem that Laser at least has become a generic term, with the 'light' bit meaning the spectrum in general - take the Laurence Livermore Labs CMT Laser which they refer to as a 'table top X-ray Laser'. It gets down to 14-20 nm.
The Rutherford Appleton Lab's VULCAN X-ray Laser here in the UK gets down to about 5.9nm, though it's apparently huge (providing 90J of energy IIRC) whereas the CMT ('Comet') is obviously compact but only produces 5 or 6J of energy.
That's probably out of date by now but the point stands...
james
Absit Invidia
you know, from the article, it sounds more like that the "investors" were more interested in keeping his invention out of production. Particularly Blockbuster and Qwest had tremendenous motivation to supress the idea, whether legitimate or not. I seriously doubt Blockbuster was interested in obsoleting their own business model. And Qwest owns of the more miles of wire than anyone in the world. Whether they knew it was a hoax or not is kind of irrelevant, since the principle investors never intended the product to be developed anyway.