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Nixon Tape To Reveal Secrets at Last?
jonerik writes: "As part of its inevitable 30th-anniversary-of-Watergate coverage, ABC News has this article on the National Archives' search for someone who can recover part or all of the missing 18 ½ minutes of President Nixon's Oval Office tapes, whose existence had been unknown until the Watergate hearings. The famous tape - recorded on June 20th, 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in - was last examined in 1974, but Nixon tape archivist Karl Weissenbach is hoping that nearly thirty years of technological progress can make the difference this time, saying 'We have decided that the time is right and appropriate to determine whether that conversation can be retrieved or recovered.' Stephen St. Croix, one of several forensic audio experts who is interested in taking on the job, says 'You never completely erase a tape. You think you do, but you really don't.'" There's another article in Wired on this quest as well.
but wouldn't it be funny if the missing minutes were just Nixon concealing from his wife the fact that he'd been yuk-yukking it up with his beer buddies about his latest sexual conquests...?
"To decipher that data, forensic experts would use "bandpass filters" and other high-tech devices that look for frequencies that they do not need within a sound."
Wow, "bandpass filters"; that _is_ high-tech! Wonder when they'll be available to consumers.
Can you hear me, Major Tom? I'm not the man they think I am at home...
...isn't that the long version of Inna Gadda Davida?
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
A cheaper alternative is a match and some lighter fluid. I challenge anyone to recove a tape "erased" in that manner ;)
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Okay, so it wasn't the greatest film. But I thought their explanation for the missing eighteen minutes and the whole Deep Throat thing was pretty damned amusing. The dream sequence between Michelle Williams and Dan Hedaya was hilarilous. Incidentally, Hedaya is one of the better Nixons I've seen.
And wouldn't it be a crack up if the missing minutes really were the confessions of a lovesick teenager?
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Here be Dragons
You never completely erase a tape. You think you do, but you really don't.
I have a blowtorch that says magnetic tape can be erased.
I think the analogy to FAT does not go very far. At least for the usual use of harddisks it's this way: if you overwirte it (with /dev/random, f.i.), it's gone. I remember when a friend found out about undelete and wanted to show me how great it works and that he can save more data on his hardisk that way.. luckily he just chose autoxec.bat for his demonstration (we were about 13 then).
I think marking a file as deleted is just like removing the label from a tape. The interesting part is, to recover the data, after it has been overwritten.
This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
Take that zombie Georg ^H^H^H Richard Nixon!!
(Oh, that's just such a huge target! Everyone knows he sold his soul to the devil, it only makes sense that he'd arise to walk among the undead.)
These tapes could have won Al Gore the Presidency. I heard these 18 1/2 minutes were Sen. Albert Gore Sr., introducing his son and Al Jr. discussing plans for the Internet
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
There's a version of Alice's Restaurant that I have on MP3 where Arlo talks about exactly this. He claims that during the Carter Inauguration, Chip Carter pulled him aside and noted that they had found an LP of 'Alice's Restaurant' in the library. Arlo goes on to joke, "So, how many things can you think of that are 18 1/2 minutes long?".
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.