dlinder

Token-passing networks were interesting for hard real time system analysis, as they featured deterministic access control instead of collision detection. They made possible extending Rate Monotonic Scheduling theory to the network layer as well. The priority work (priority ceiling protocol, multi level token priority schemes) survive today in token bucket rate limiting.

Audit the Fed (cube)!

Around 1995, our high school "Pascal I" and "Pascal II" classes were taught in a forgotten Apple //e lab in the Math wing of the school. The PC and Mac labs were occupied by typing, word processing, and desktop publishing classes. I think every other kid in class groaned, but to a hamfest scrounger of PDPs, Vaxen, and weird UNIX workstations, UCSD p-System Pascal on Apple hardware was weirdly intriguing, the cherry on top being that the whole lab was served by a Corvus hard disk shared over, I think, an "Omninet" network. We'd all come in, turn on the lights, turn on the computers, and then have the lecture portion of class while this poor early NAS would serve Pascal to 20-odd machines simultaneously. I think we saved our work on floppy disks, though maybe that was a backup, as I think I recall turning in our work by saving to the Corvus? Even at the time, it all had a very "you are living the early experimental days" feeling to it.

This brings to mind the legendary "property passes" from Commodore / Amiga. These were passes to remove property from the office, so if you brought in personal property, you'd need to get a property pass issued to remove it at the end of the day. Of course the security guy handing out the passes was clueless, so the engineers would get property passes for Boeing 747s, Cray X-MPs (just in case Commodore ever bought a cray, the lucky holder of the property pass would presumably be able to wheel it out the door), and so on. Dave Haynie records these stories in his "Deathbed Vigil", though the property pass story seems virtually unmentioned on the textual web, aside from an everything2 source.

You can also write to longbets@longnow.org - but we will have the registration open again shortly (within weeks).

Dan @ Long Now

WarGames and Real Genius were the regular weekly watch (on VHS!) between my brother and I growing up. What WarGames is to computer hacking, Real Genius is to hacking, pranks, and working hard / playing hard.

"It's yet another in a long series of diversions in an attempt to avoid responsibility."

You sound like a kindred spirit. I have put hard drives in freezers to release stiction; I have baked motherboards in the oven to re-flow questionable solder. I wonder if anything in our kitchen is sacred! Sometimes I wish I had "MacGyvering goofy tech junk" as a full time job!

I worked on a social news product and part of our look was to have an icon for every story - either an image pulled from the page, a user-uploaded image, or, in the case of Flash content (say, a video player), a screen capture.

We had it all up and running - loading the content, waiting for the player to initialize, taking the snapshot, generated sizes - on a windows machine when, one day, the request came in to migrate that machine to a VM. After the migration, things were fine - until we disconnected RDP. Snapshots were coming back at the right size, but totally white.

The eventual "solution" was a laptop in the engineering area RDP'ed into this VM to keep the snapshots from going white. It got unplugged one holiday weekend, earning it a red hand-sharpied sign - "PRODUCTION LAPTOP: DO NOT UNPLUG". It was unplugged again one fateful weekend, this time prompting a healthcheck to be written that looked for all-white images in its output.

That rig ran that way, I believe, until someone had the insight to make a second VM, this one RDP'ed into the first.

Turtles, all the way down!

132-51 CONS CONUS FSR Support hourly rate. CONUS rates will be billed for Services performed outside the continental U.S. unless in a warzone. Normal business hours are defined as an 8-hour work day (rate is 15% more outside of normal business hours). $ 146.60

132-51 OCONS OCONUS FSR Support hourly rate. OCONUS rates will be billed for Services performed in a warzone. Normal business hours are defined as a 12-hour work day (rate is 15% more outside of normal business hours). $ 195.47

Hey Don!

I was about to post a link to your new gig when I spotted that you had beaten me to it!

It too would be diluted down to 4 parts per billion and not matter.

iirc "upstream" refers to collection out on the Internet - the "fuck those guys" program is MUSCULAR, which is the tapping of private interdatacenter links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstream_collection vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSCULAR

"The committee has spent several years working on a voluminous report about the detention and interrogation program, and according to one official interviewed in recent days, C.I.A. officers went as far as gaining access to computer networks used by the committee to carry out its investigation."

Never mind Person of Interest, where an all-seeing computer helps extralegal lawbending crimefighters save lives...

Hahaha, cpyright.htm

8 + 3 ftw!

When your opponent uses Navy submarines to tap undersea cables right under the Soviets' noses, you probably shouldn't trust your leased fiber with unencrypted data. This interception could occur where undersea cables make landfall without any datacenter antics.

It seems like the Solicitor General made his case to the Supreme Court, claiming defendants would be notified. Fast forward to recently, Dianne Feinstein goes and tells a reporter that yes, we've used evidence from a warrantless wiretap in this particular case. That guy's lawyer responds with the legal version of "wait, what?", the Solicitor General realizes that he (unknowingly?) lied to the Supreme Court, throws a fit (because you don't lie to the Supreme Court), Justice orders prosecutors to start revealing when such evidence is used, and now guy is mounting a legal challenge and ACLU/EFF/EPIC are going after the original case, wherein the Solicitor General (knowingly?) lied to the Supreme Court.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130716/01513323814/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131017/18381624923/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/when-will-government-o...

Data Mining Guy won't put hamburgers on his CC, says insurance companies will eventually retaliate: http://www.economist.com/node/21556263

Are you smelling the famous peninsula Trichloroethylene plume? Some people describe it as unbaked cookie dough:

http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=88

So, first, TRON was shot in the Shiva Laser facility, a precursor to NIF that is also situated at LLNL.

Second, if anyone would like to see an inspirational speech given by NIF Director Ed Moses on how you move from theory to a a working reactor based on this technology, he spoke at Long Now in SF a few years ago:

http://fora.tv/2010/06/16/Ed_Moses_Clean_Fusion_Power_This_D...

Next up: text "MERGE" to #448482

So I guess this means you can't use Glow without worrying about them sharing pregnancy progress info with the Feds? Sounds like information that could be used to gain leverage on future moms and dads. Or the IRS reconciling # of dependent deductions? Or the DEA building cases against people using drugs while trying to conceive...

Don't give up yet. Reading about TrueCrypt's other features (hidden volumes, plausible deniability) makes me think this might still be a deep troll by Greenwald. We'll see!

There's an English version of the article now, co-authored by Greenwald/Snowden-related journalist Laura Poitras. Looks like the Snowden connection is solid!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-nsa-documen...

Is it certain that these leaks actually came from Snowden? In light of the Independent's GCHQ story [1][2], it sounds like there may be State actors providing leaks in the name of Snowden that cast him in a negative light. Ideally, these news outlets would be able to confirm it's the real Snowden via GPG fingerprint or something.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uks-...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-gove...

"You know, and I think you can hear it from some of the comments that we’ve gotten here. (Inaudible) – see, think about people who are willing to go forward to Iraq and Afghanistan to help insure our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, so they can get the intelligence that they need. I believe these are the most noble people that we have this country. They are willing to put their lives on the line for their fellow – their fellow soldiers and fellow Americans, and other countries. And 20 of them lost their lives. And when you think about that, the issue is these same people who take that same oath to uphold and defend the Constitution (are?) the ones that run these programs. And we get all these allegations of what they could be doing. But when people check, like the intelligence committee, they found zero times that’s happened. That’s no bullshit. Those are facts." - General Alexander, 31 July 2013, Blackhat 2013

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/T...

"That guy's a fuckin' liar" - ioerror, 29c3, "Not My Department" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl5OQz0Ko8c&t=24m15s

Baby Boomers (those born after 1945) are entering retirement.

So Obama is replacing this Putin meeting with a trip to Sweden. Is he just trolling the Internet at this point?

Anyone else here remember the CHRP/PReP days? Good times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platf...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PReP