Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (11/23/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 23 Nov 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 77
Today's Topics:
Query - Acronym SUDENE
Responce to Query - USENET's net.general
Computers and People - Hackers
Computer Security - Crackers and sensitive data
Compters on TV - Whiz Kids and Cryptography
Comment - Proper English
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Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1983 20:54-PST
Subject: acronym SUDENE in portuguese
Reply-to: kevinw at SU-DSN
From: kevinw at SU-DSN@ISL at Sumex-Aim
I am trying to find out the meaning of this acronym for a paper. It
is something like S- para a Urbanizacao e Desenvolvimento do Nordeste
... or something like that.
I am not on this list so please send at least a copy of any replies to
me.
thanks in advance,
-- Kevin
kevinw@su-dsn
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Date: 19 Nov 83 22:03:39 EST (Sat)
From: Mark Weiser <mark%umcp-cs@CSNet-Relay>
Subject: net.general
The net.general discussions are pretty boring. Net.general is a
specific news group of the very broad and sometimes very boring and
sometimes very interesting spectrum of newgroups available on the
Unix-based netnews network. There is no news group that exactly
corresponds to human nets: net.cog-eng (for cognitive engineering) is
often relevant, and so is net.mail sometimes.
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Date: 19 November 1983 17:11 EST
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Hackers
I feel I must rebut some claims made in this article:
The following is quoted from /The Chronicle of Higher Education/,
Volume XXVII, Number 12, November 16, 1983, page 16:
PROGRAMMING STYLE CAN IDENTIFY STUDENT
COMPUTER 'HACKERS', EXPERT SAYS
By Judith Axler Turner
A student's computer-programming style can often help identify
whether he is likely to become a "hacker" - someone who breaks
into a computer system electronically and manipulates the
information it contains. So says Seymour Papert, professor of
mathematics and education at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
Here again the "wrong" definition of "hacker" is used. It's stated
later that only hackers become really good programmers. That may be
true for the "correct" definition of "hacker", but not for the one
above.
Once identified, the potential hacker can be turned to more
acceptable pursuits, Mr. Papert told a national conference on
computer security last week in New York.
The above applies only to the "wrong" definition. People who break
into computer systems may be turned into more acceptable pursuits. But
there's no need to turn somebody who does real hacking, pressing the
state of the art to its limit, doing things nobody has done before,
into more acceptable pursuits.
The classification of programming styles below is totally inadequate.
Good programmers/hackers satisfy all three below except for organizing
the whole program before writing it and the part about living
dangerously. One doesn't have to plan a whole "program" before writing
any code. Only bureaucrats in government agencies do that. Macsyma
would have never been written if somebody tried to plan the whole
program ahead of time, yet it's fairly well structured. Programs are
written incrementally, yet structured. More at the end...
Mr. Papert said he had identified three principal types of
programmer, whose styles are common to both adults and young
people:
> The extremely structured programmer, who thinks everything
through and organizes his program before writing it.
> The "artistic" programmer, who doesn't know in advance exactly
what she wants. (More girls and women fall into this group than
into the other two, Mr. Papert said.)
> The programmer who is "living dangerously," testing the limits
of the computer and associating more with the machine than with
people. Some evidence of his reluctance to be involved is in
his program: only the writer can read and understand it.
... What's dangerous about testing the limits of the computer, for
example finding out whether it can be programmed to do things never
before done such as disassembling an auto fuel pump or beating a
grandmaster at Chess? It's only if the computer is used to violate
somebody else's rights, or if it is used to control inherently
dangerous devices, that pushing the computer to new frontiers can be
considered "living dangerously".
I'm making two points about the above classification: (1) The
individual items are self-contradictory, (2) They aren't mutually
exclusive as the writer seems to be implying. -- Maybe he's
prescribing three "styles", and saying anybody who doesn't faithfully
follow one of those styles "doesn't have style". If so, I resent
somebody telling me I don't have any style just because I don't fit
into his planic classification. -- More likely, he's making a
statement of fact, which is flat out wrong, and misleading to anyone
out there who reads that article.
Here's a summary of my programming style, for reference (how many
other hackers <original correct definition> out there have similar
styles?): Usually I have a clear idea of part of what I want to do,
but not exactly how to do each part. So I try different things, trying
to get parts of the job done, finding some things work and some things
don' work or are too clumsy. As I write and debug code in parallel, I
gain a better idea of how my program is organized, and even though I
tried to structure my code from he outset I go back and restructure
parts of it to better reflect my newer concept of organization of the
program. Often I write inline code just to get it working, then later
move that code out to a named function and write a comment in front of
it telling what it does. I often find the programming system I'm on
doesn't seem to allow me to do what I want, so I often have to
experiment around trying to find some way to get some task done.
Sometimes the only way I can get the job done at all is in some really
ugly way that I detest but I'm willing to do it because otherwise the
task couldn't be done at all. (This last ability, getting the task
done "by hook or crook" when necessary, is the true test of "hacking"
nature.) But I write verbose documentation of the ugliness of the
thing I was forced, and beg the writers of the system for a better
way. -- So which of the above three platonic categories am I in? Or do
you claim I'm not a programmer because I'm not one of the three?
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Date: 21 Nov 83 12:43:26 PST (Mon)
From: Martin D. Katz <katz.uci-750a@Rand-Relay>
Subject: Re: Crackers and sensative data (H-N V6#74)
I agree that it is possible (and necessary) to be careful with
sensative data. Where I think that we dissagree is as to how secure a
"secure" system such as Multics realy is. I believe that files under
Multics are about as secure as files stored in a locked cabinet in a
locked room. Unfortunately, there are many people around with
lockpicks. For data which is extremely sensative, one needs to have
an effective alarm system and some sentries.
Whereas Multics is a fairly secure operating system, most systems
don't go to the efforts which Multics does, and most companies don't
seem to have the administrative know-how to keep their systems secure.
So, while I think you are correct that the problem is mostly getting
people to act responsibly about security, I also think that we must
think carefully about designing our locks, alarms, and sentries
better.
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Date: Sun, 20 Nov 83 17:53:35 PST
From: Peter Reiher <reiher@UCLA-CS>
Subject: whiz kids and cryptography
In a recent message, Robert Maas, commenting on an episode of Whiz
Kids, suggested that the conventional cryptographic system used in the
episode was clearly inadequate and should be replaced by a public key
system, with each site choosing a new key pair periodically and
sending that information to the central computer. As stated, this
scheme has the potential for disaster, since the message seemed to
imply a cleartext transmission of the new public key. If this were to
happen, the villains could interject spurious messages in which they
announced a new public key for a police car or even the central
dispatching facility itself. From this point onward, they could
masquerade as the actual entity. This can only be avoided by
encrypting the key announcement messages (which Maas may have taken as
assumed).
Peter Reiher
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Date: 19 Nov 1983 0714-PST
From: SEGELBAUM.UCI-20A@Rand-Relay
Subject: The Buck Stops Here
Pardon me for being trivial, but I just cannot stand to see written
English abused...and the abuse perpetuated. We seem to be perpetuating
a spelling error, and I would like to stop it NOW. It's "sensitive,"
not "sensative." When KATZ@UCI-20A first misspelled it, it looked
like a typo, until you realized it was being repeated consistently
throughout his message (by the way, we should at least credit Martin
with totally consistent consistency -- for he consistently misspelled
all derivatives of the Latin root "sentire" and other related roots,
by substituting an A for an I ("sensable," "feasable," et al for
"sensible," "feasible," et al)). But then two other users, responding
to Martin's stimulating piece, copied his misspellings!
In this electronic age, we have a never-before-known capacity for the
dis- semination of informaton...and also, of course, MISinformation.
We have a responsibility to put energy behind efforts to insure the
former, and control the latter. It starts with the observation of
simple grammatical, syntactical, and orthographic conventions, without
which the language could ultimately end up in a kind of electronic
chaos, with no one having the faintest idea what anyone else is
saying.
So, for god's sake, we have fantastically powerful and speedy spelling
correctors...if you don't feel like looking doubtful words up, use
software!
rob
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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