A number of correspondents have said 'Why should libraries provide access to pr0n over the Internet when they don't stock it on their shelves?' This is an interesting question. The answer is simple -- large libraries do stock pr0n on their shelves.
Check out the entries for Playboy at the LOC or Playboy at the Cambridge U library. It would appear that the LOC has a better collection going back to the 50s, while Cambridge only goes back to 89 (and then not all issues).
The only difference between keeping back issues of Playboy on the shelf and permitting access to www.playboy.com is that you probably need to ask to find the paper copy, but on the upside, you can study the articles in a corner of the stacks somewhere!
Back in my youth, we built an SK reducing machine -- called SKIM -- S, K, I Machine (where I = SKK). It was (as I recall) built out of around 100 TTL chips on two cards all using verowire technology (yuk). My responsibility was to write the microcode that directly executed the various combinators. We ended up supporting around 20 operators, starting out with S, K, I, and then progressing through B, Y, and some simple numeric and comparison operators. The garbage collector was written in one (long) night as the result of a bet!
It worked remarkably well considering the date (1979-1980). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy of the paper that describes it online anywhere.
One of the cool things about SKIM was that you could enter infinite programs, and since they were evaluated lazily, things just worked. For example, you could define a function that returned the infinite list of prime numbers. Actually what it returned was a code fragment that evaluated the list, and as the caller needed those values, the list would be evaluated, and the code fragement pushed backwards down the list.
We never thought of building a UTM - now it has been done, it seem obvious!
I think that IPv6 will take a significant amount of time to acheive widespread deployment in the US. Why? There are too many devices (cable/dsl router/firewall appliances) in use that don't support v6. While they may be flash upgradeable, I'm sure that the vendors would prefer to sell a new box which did support v6.
I've thought about running v6 at home and connecting up to the 6bone. However, the list of instructions was long and complex, and it was unclear to me that my existing ipchains based firewall code would continue to protect me. It was also unclear that I could enhance the ipchains rules to protect myself.
I quite like the idea of being able to expose multiple devices on different IP addresses, but it is (still) a non-trivial exercise.
On a side note, I'd like to see more deployment of multicast -- this could help Internet Radio stations significantly in the future. Yes, there aren't good multicast clients at the moment, but that is because there is little multicast to listen to, and no way of getting multicast to the end user. Lobby your ISP for multicast!
p.s. In case you think that I'm an idiot for not being able to configure IPv6 on Linux -- I'll tell you that I was kernel contributer in the pre-1.0 kernels.
I wondered whether any address that I signed up would be spammed anyway. So I created a new address (never before used, and never to be used) and we will see if it gets any mail.
Even if the DMA are honest, their service can still be used to get good addresses. Consider the following scheme:
Sign up with e-mps.org for $100.
Get one of these 25,000,000 email address CDs
Filter it through e-mps.org
Diff the filtered results against the unfiltered input.
Send out spam to the difference list.
This gives you a list of live addresses -- ones which get less spam than average, and hence which are more likely to read your tasty marketing message.
I have a bunch of old 9-track tapes that have potentially useful data on them. I guess I had better get moving on converting them to something more readable. Now I need to find somebody with a 9-track tape drive!
On topic: I can recall using magnetic powder sprinkled on tapes to see where the block gaps were. Then you could use a ruler to measure the size of the blocks, and convert to byte (by multiplying by the density). This gave you a head start in getting the JCL DD statement right for the tape. FB/80/800!
Actually the answer is yes -- there was at least one plane with two pilots. I did design and construction work on it during the mid-late 70s.
The fundamental design was done my my uncle Nick Goodhart. There are no detailed descriptions online (that I can find), but one of the pilots mentions it on his interests page.
The general shape was a 40 meter (yard) wing with the two pilots seperated by 20 meters. Steering was performed by varying the power output of the two pilots. This was controlled by bullhorn in the chase car. The pilots had a single control -- an elevator on their individual tails. This allowed them to control the twist on the wing section between them, thus varying the lift and hence should allow them to bank.
The craft -- called 'newbury manflier' was built at Greenham Common in the UK on the US Air force base there. They had huge empty hangers and a huge runway that was hardly used. Unfortunately we got thrown out when Cruise missiles were stationed there.
The craft flew a few times, but never very far. The goal was to win the original Kremer prize (the 1 mile figure of eight course) that Macready won with Gossamer Condor.
The problems with the craft were the general fragility of the airframe which meant that crashes caused significant amounts of damage, which took a long time to repair -- partially due to the nature of volunteer labour.
The manflier is now in the Science Museum (it might be in London, but is probably at their offsite storage facility).
It seems that CPRM and Open Source are completely
at odds with each other. The only way that CPRM
can acheive its goals is by having *all* the
software between the content player and the hardware under license.
This means that it will not be possible to have
a (closed source) player that runs on an open
source operating system.
Note that it would be possible to implement the CPRM hooks (for non-removable drives) in the linux kernel *entirely in software*. Of course, the drive ID might be hardwired to a known value, and the hidden area might not be very well hidden.
The problem that they are trying to solve cannot be solved by technical means without having a secure cryptographic processor as part of the system. This processor has to be physically secure and well integrated. Just recall how much effort has gone into making secure smartcards, and how difficult it has been.
In short, this scheme will probably hit the shelves, but provided that the open source community builds the CPRM emulators *before* the media recorders/players arrive, I think that will make for more interesting court cases under the DMCA -- imagine telling a judge that the player was produced *after* the circumvention device was distributed world-wide.
Slashdot Mirror
A number of correspondents have said 'Why should libraries provide access to pr0n over the Internet when they don't stock it on their shelves?' This is an interesting question. The answer is simple -- large libraries do stock pr0n on their shelves.
Check out the entries for Playboy at the LOC or Playboy at the Cambridge U library. It would appear that the LOC has a better collection going back to the 50s, while Cambridge only goes back to 89 (and then not all issues).
The only difference between keeping back issues of Playboy on the shelf and permitting access to www.playboy.com is that you probably need to ask to find the paper copy, but on the upside, you can study the articles in a corner of the stacks somewhere!
K is the constant combinator. It takes two arguments, and returns the first one. This can be written as:
Kxy -> x
S is the spread combinator. It takes three arguments and does some spreading.
Sxyz -> xz(yz)
Try and evaluate SKK There are insufficient arguments to do anything, so lets add 'x'
SKKx -> Kx(Kx) (by the S rule)
-> x (by the K rule)
Thus we say SKK = I (the Identity combinator).
All other combinators can be built up from these two, including Y -- which is defined as
Yf -> f(Yf)
This is the magic 'recursion' operator.
It was (as I recall) built out of around 100 TTL chips on two cards all using verowire technology (yuk). My responsibility was to write the microcode that directly executed the various combinators. We ended up supporting around 20 operators, starting out with S, K, I, and then progressing through B, Y, and some simple numeric and comparison operators. The garbage collector was written in one (long) night as the result of a bet!
It worked remarkably well considering the date (1979-1980). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy of the paper that describes it online anywhere.
One of the cool things about SKIM was that you could enter infinite programs, and since they were evaluated lazily, things just worked. For example, you could define a function that returned the infinite list of prime numbers. Actually what it returned was a code fragment that evaluated the list, and as the caller needed those values, the list would be evaluated, and the code fragement pushed backwards down the list.
We never thought of building a UTM - now it has been done, it seem obvious!
I've thought about running v6 at home and connecting up to the 6bone. However, the list of instructions was long and complex, and it was unclear to me that my existing ipchains based firewall code would continue to protect me. It was also unclear that I could enhance the ipchains rules to protect myself.
I quite like the idea of being able to expose multiple devices on different IP addresses, but it is (still) a non-trivial exercise.
On a side note, I'd like to see more deployment of multicast -- this could help Internet Radio stations significantly in the future. Yes, there aren't good multicast clients at the moment, but that is because there is little multicast to listen to, and no way of getting multicast to the end user. Lobby your ISP for multicast!
p.s. In case you think that I'm an idiot for not being able to configure IPv6 on Linux -- I'll tell you that I was kernel contributer in the pre-1.0 kernels.
Even if the DMA are honest, their service can still be used to get good addresses. Consider the following scheme:
- Sign up with e-mps.org for $100.
- Get one of these 25,000,000 email address CDs
- Filter it through e-mps.org
- Diff the filtered results against the unfiltered input.
- Send out spam to the difference list.
This gives you a list of live addresses -- ones which get less spam than average, and hence which are more likely to read your tasty marketing message.Great service guys!
I have a bunch of old 9-track tapes that have potentially useful data on them. I guess I had better get moving on converting them to something more readable. Now I need to find somebody with a 9-track tape drive!
On topic: I can recall using magnetic powder sprinkled on tapes to see where the block gaps were. Then you could use a ruler to measure the size of the blocks, and convert to byte (by multiplying by the density). This gave you a head start in getting the JCL DD statement right for the tape. FB/80/800!
The general shape was a 40 meter (yard) wing with the two pilots seperated by 20 meters. Steering was performed by varying the power output of the two pilots. This was controlled by bullhorn in the chase car. The pilots had a single control -- an elevator on their individual tails. This allowed them to control the twist on the wing section between them, thus varying the lift and hence should allow them to bank.
The craft -- called 'newbury manflier' was built at Greenham Common in the UK on the US Air force base there. They had huge empty hangers and a huge runway that was hardly used. Unfortunately we got thrown out when Cruise missiles were stationed there.
The craft flew a few times, but never very far. The goal was to win the original Kremer prize (the 1 mile figure of eight course) that Macready won with Gossamer Condor.
The problems with the craft were the general fragility of the airframe which meant that crashes caused significant amounts of damage, which took a long time to repair -- partially due to the nature of volunteer labour.
The manflier is now in the Science Museum (it might be in London, but is probably at their offsite storage facility).
This means that it will not be possible to have a (closed source) player that runs on an open source operating system.
Note that it would be possible to implement the CPRM hooks (for non-removable drives) in the linux kernel *entirely in software*. Of course, the drive ID might be hardwired to a known value, and the hidden area might not be very well hidden.
The problem that they are trying to solve cannot be solved by technical means without having a secure cryptographic processor as part of the system. This processor has to be physically secure and well integrated. Just recall how much effort has gone into making secure smartcards, and how difficult it has been.
In short, this scheme will probably hit the shelves, but provided that the open source community builds the CPRM emulators *before* the media recorders/players arrive, I think that will make for more interesting court cases under the DMCA -- imagine telling a judge that the player was produced *after* the circumvention device was distributed world-wide.