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Forged e-mails from Linus
"Here's a copy of an e-mail from Linus.
X-Authentication-Warning: penguin.transmeta.com: torvalds owned process doing -bs
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:31:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
To: Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Fake emails from "Linus"
X-Loop: majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-kernel-outgoing-dig
X-UIDL: e42dadffdd3e89d559b44840e4ccea2a
Just a heads-up: somebody is sending out fake emails that claim to be from
me, and that have me endorsing the Java client for Seti@Home.
The reason I know somebody is faking emails is that I got a bounce from one of them.
If somebody on the kernel list gets a message that claims to be from "Linus Torvalds " with a subject line of "Seti@Home user interface", it is fake.
I'd like to see the full headers from such a message, to see if it shows where it is really originating from: the bounced message does not contain the original headers..
I assume it is a mass-posting trying to market Seti@Home or the particular client in question, and I'm not all that amused.
Linus
PS. Although I have to admit that the first line brought a grin: "Being the awesome Linux stud that I am.." "
I would like to point out that the fake mail was an endorsement of the Java seti@homeclient which is just a front end (one of many such homemade front ends)for the actual client distributed by the SETI folks.. I don't think it's fair to blame them.. that is, unless you're blaming them for bringing SETI to the masses.. that's about as far as their involvement goes in all of this. *two cents go plink*
Really, I think Linus has defended himself fairly well already. Just ask yourself:
What did those people hope you would think about them by having 'Linus' endorse their product?
Now that Linus has exposed the sham, what do you think of them?
show the US Government that better encryption is needed.
Deep Crack already demonstrated that very nicely. Add to that the paper on RC6 (today's /.) and there's little point in actually crunching a test key. If the cracking teams really want government attention, they should go to work on an encrypted bank transaction. That would force the government to admit it's true opinion on the security of current key sizes.
That has to be one of the worst possible reasons for choosing that I can think of. If you want to do rc64 because you think that's more worthwhile, more power to you, but just because somebody (And we don't even know at this point if it was anybody directly involved with the project or not) did something really stupid is the wrong reason to do anything. The last thing we should be doing is letting the lowest common denominator make our decisions for us.
Shawn Asmussen
Maybe it's someone from Distributed.net trying to discredit Seti....
> such as when some lunatic over in Boston, USA, patented Linux, I believe, and then tried demainding money from Linus, Red Hat, etc.
It was not a patent, it was a copyright. But the guy did attempt to enforce his copyright on the term, by sending threatening letters to all of the major distributors (but not Linus).
Cheers
Eric Geyer
No I am not saying that math is all useless just extremely difficult to understand (how many nice glossy textbooks have you seen on hyperdementional geometery).
Your logic seems "hyperdementional"[sic]. So ... math is not simple. What difference does it make if it can't be put in books with pretty pictures?
And I am not saying that computers are useless (they do some rather interesting things) it is that people in areas of pure math (where most of cs started) do not really think about how to apply this knowledge to anything really useful to most.
I see ... so ... the "mathematical elite" have been using computers for their own purposes (more digits of PI) and not doing things that the masses want (AI, as you gave as an example in an earlier post)?
Problem is, we already know how to compute PI -- we do not know how to make a complete AI. You seem to be under the illusion that the computing resources going into, say, computing PI, could go into creating an AI instead, as if AI were as trivial a problem as PI. There are actually a LOT of the "mathematical elite" spending every waking hour of their lives on the problems with AI. Actually developing the theory necessary to make an AI requires more human talent and education (mathematical and more) than it does computing time, so you may as well compute PI while you're waiting, instead of letting the machines go to waste.
It wasn't until the math requirement went down that a person could really do anything in cs without a Phd.
Problems don't get magically less complex just because less skilled people are thrown at them. But nooo... math is hard ... the people who know it should just get out of the way and let the rest of us try to implement an AI using bogo-sort, right?
There's a box in front of you right now, my friend. Nobody's denying you access to it. Go ahead, get all your like-minded friends together and make an AI. Write an RC5-like system to run it. Thanks to RMS, you have free (libre+gratis) tools availible to you. Go on, already! Where's that AI?
---
DNA just wants to be free...
You shouldn't bad mouth a project just because you don't agree with it. I happen to think RC5 is a waste of time, but I don't have a go at the poeple running the clients. It's their choice, the same as it's mine to run the SETI client.
SETI is big news at the moment. I would surmise that this is the reason this particular project is getting so much bad attention. It has a lot of good things going on too though.
How does the old saying go? "There's a sucker born every minute." Well, on the Internet, it's more like every 10ms.
You and I may have been on the Internet for years (I started reading Net News more than ten years ago), and know that 95% of everything on the Net is pure crud, but there are thousands of newbies flooding the Internet every day, and many of them are still under the illusion that, "If it's on the computer, it MUST be true!"
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Maybe instead of interpreting this incident as a rallying cry to the mass lynching of forgers and spammers, we should think of it as a reminder of why it's good to use digital signatures for authentication.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Just shows you how popular Linus has become, and how much power he has behind him now!
Ok, so how many people think that Linus was stoned out of his gourd and actually sent the email?
I can just see it now. He goes to Phantom Menace, gets all psyched up on finding aliens, goes home....
_______
2B1ASK1
Basically I think that everything that is currently done with distributed computing is a waste of time in one way or another due to the lack of a way to generically impliment distributed computing solutions for something interesting like perhaps an ai system, the human genome project, etc. Basically most of computer science was (and still is) linked to the a verry large ammount of mathmetical knowledge at it's core. How many math problems are considered pointless? Most of them. How many of these projects are pointless due to the same methods? Most. Not to say that cracking cyphers and finding out about intelligent life are not interesting but most of the time I think that people can do better. The future of space travel to the level that Star Trek has would be most likely in the 10,987th century and not the 24th at the rate that we progress. I really don't think that the Vulcans will contact us.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
he future of space travel to the level that Star Trek has would be most likely in the 10,987th century and not the 24th at the rate that we progress
what?
what frame of refrence do you have for guaging technological advancement over 10,987,000 years? the human race itself is only about 35,000 years old. all of recorded history is only a few thousand. 300 years ago there was no industrial capability *at all* 80 years ago, there was no computer tehcnology *at all* 35 years ago there were no microprocesors.
Basically most of computer science was (and still is) linked to the a verry large ammount of mathmetical knowledge at it's core. How many math problems are considered pointless? Most of them.
this makes even less sense. Are you saying computers are useless? most of the math i've ever seen has been pretty usefull. have you ever taken calculis, or physics? the stuff you can do when you know that stuff is simply amazing.
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It is possible to trace an email back to the originating server, :o) .. ask the sysadmin for that server (hopefully s/he's a :o) to parse his/her sendmail logs and find out where it
assuming that you have the co-operation of the sysadmins of the relay
at the other end; he knows from where the bounce originated, and
(probably) has the message ID (but if not, he has the 'source' email
address
Linux user
came from.
NOOO !!! How could the evil ones blaspheme so upon our Holinous of The Kernel... I can only pray that such an event never happens again.
Is nothing sacred ?
Congrats to Linus; I once tried to be a Unix stud but got caught in a conundrum.
It would increase my respect. Identity theft, fraud, defense of one's rights and honor are just the kind of things to "get all governmental about". If the gov't doesn't exist to protect individuals then what good is it?
I often wonder how many (if any) violations of individual rights perpetrated by Microsoft are ignored by focusing on the bogus anti-trust laws.
Linus should sue! Seriously. He's probably the only person in the Linux world who can more or less demand 100% respect
Hrm...Linus suing would be a way for him to lose that 100% respect. Its definitely alright to be upset over this sort of thing, but its not something to get all govermental about. I think I like how Linus sticks to Linux, and not to politics.