Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (10/15/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Friday, 14 Oct 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 63
Today's Topics:
Query - Standard Abbreviations for European Time Zones?,
News Article - Computer cracks Swiss bank secrets,
Languages - New Smalltalk book,
Computers and People - Trendiness enhanced by Worldnet?
Hackers on TV - Whiz Kids
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Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1983 20:05-PDT
Subject: Standard Abbreviations for European Time Zones?
From: nomdenet@Rand-Unix
Does anyone know whether there are standard abbreviations for the
European time zones, in English (preferably), French, German, or
Spanish? For that matter, how about abbreviations for time zones
worldwide?
Unofficlally, in Baedecker's guide to Germany, I've come across
CET, for Central European Time (German: MEZ, for Mitteleuropaeische
Zeit), and GST, for German Summer Time.
Please reply to me directly; I'll summarize and post.
A. R. White
nomdenet @ Rand-Unix
(213) 393-0411, ext. 7997
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Date: 5 Oct 1983 11:08-PDT
Subject: Computer cracks Swiss bank secrets.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-to: Geoff@SRI-CSL
Here's a scary one from the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, (p8, Vol. 129,
No. 14, week ending October 2, 1983) as reported by Walter
Schwarz in Paris.
"Computer cracks Swiss bank secrets
SMUGGLING savings out of France into a safe Swiss account has
been established practice for years. Lately, under socialism
with the French frac falling and strict exchange controls, the
middle-class habit has become a national industry.
But now no secret saver can relax. The Customs investigation
unit has struck a devastating blow -- by using the Defense
Ministry's computer to crack the secrets of the giant Swiss Union
des Banques Suisses, UBS.
The computer came up with the names of 5,000 UBS account holders
here. The affair is still officially secret, as authorities
round up delinquents, but it was revealed by the satirical Canard
Enchaine last week.
Armed with the list, Customs officers acted with ruthless guile.
They turned up with search warrants at each address and said:
"You have an account in Switzerland, n'est-ce-pas?"
Many suspected secret savers were so astonished that they
confessed straight away. If they did not, some were offered a
deal, others threatened with severe penalties.
The Customs men's coup strikes a blow at Switzerland's highly
prized banking anonymity. The shocked general secretary of UBS,
Mr. Franz Lusser, alleged: "The lists were forged by the French
Customs from information already at their disposal." Holders'
names of numbered accounts never appeared on lists and were known
only to branch managers and immediate assistants, he said.
The computer's name is Eureka, which is what it almost said as it
printed out the 5,000 names."
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Date: 6 Oct 83 13:42:04 PDT (Thursday)
From: Holbrook.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: New Smalltalk book
Just picked up a copy of the second book in the Addison-Wesley series
on the Smalltalk-80 System.
It's called "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice", and it's
edited by Glenn Krasner. $21.95 in softback.
This book is a collection of papers about Smalltalk implementation
techniques, drawing on the experience of those folks inside and
outside of Xerox who have implemented Smalltalk. Here's a table of
contents:
Part One: Background
The Smalltalk-80 System Release Process
Adele Goldberg
The Evolution of the Smalltalk Virtual Machine
Daniel H. H. Ingalls
The Smalltalk-80 Code File Format
Glenn Krasner
Design Decisions for Smalltalk-80 Implementors
Allen Wirfs-Brock
Part Two: Experiences Implementing the Smalltalk-80 System
Implementing the Smalltalk-80 System: The Tektronix Experience
Paul L. McCullough
The Smalltalk-80 Implementation at Hewlett-Packard
Joseph R. Falcone, James R. Stinger
The Dorado Smalltalk-80 Implementation: Hardware Architectures's
Impact on Software
L. Peter Deutsch
The Design and Implementation of VAX/Smalltalk-80
Stoney Ballard, Stephen Shirron
Part Three: Measurements and Analyses of Implementations
The Smalltalk-80 Benchmarks
Kim McCall
An MC68000-Based Smalltalk-80 System
Richard Meyers, David Casseres
Berkeley Smalltalk: Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
David M. Ungar, David A. Patterson
The Analysis of the Smalltalk-80 System at Hewlett-Packard
Joseph R. Falcone
An Assessment of Method-Lookup Caches for Smalltalk-80
Implementations
Thomas J. Conroy, Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart
Part Four: Proposals for the Future of the Smalltalk-80 System
LOOM--Large Object-Oriented Memory for Smalltalk-80 Systems
Ted Kaehler, Glenn Krasner
Managing the Evolution of Smalltalk-80 Systems
Steve Putz
Implementing a Smalltalk-80 File System and the Smalltalk-80
System as a Programming Tool
D. Jason Penney
Implementing a Smalltalk-80 System on the Intel 432: A
Feasibility Study
Guy Almes, Alan Borning, Eli Messinger
Preferred Classes: A Proposal for Faster Smalltalk-80 Execution
Robert Hagmann
Low-Overhead Storage Reclaimation in the Smalltalk-80 Virtual
Machine
Scott B. Baden
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Date: 5 Oct 83 9:13:55 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Re: Trendiness enhanced by Worldnet?
From: Russell Lear <Lear.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA>
One of the advantages of Worldnet suggested by REM is that alternative
views could be made widely known by using easily created direct-mail
lists.
Right now I'm deluged by various publishers telling me how much I need
to read their magazine to get a complete and accurate view of the
world. The Republicans, Democrats, NRA, Common Cause, and Ted Kennedy
frequently point out to me the perils of not subscribing to their
views (and incidently asking that I help support them with money).
There are even people on the net who seem to have my name on their own
private mailing list.
And you would make it EASIER to create these lists? Would I have ANY
control over who would get my address?
I'm not the hermit you might guess from the above, but the thought of
eager, dedicated and committed individuals creating large lists makes
my eyes ache and my finger twitch toward DELETE!
Russell.
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Date: 6 October 1983 00:15 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-ML>
Subject: Hackers portrayed on TV show
I accidently tuned in on the last half of Whiz Kids, and here are some
of my impressions:
The 1970 vintage vocoder with software as bad as the stuff I hacked up
about that time didn't seem to match the A.I. claimed in the rest of
the system. I can't figure out whether this system was supposed to be
1990 vintage A.I. with an archaic vocoder, or 1970 vintage hackery
with "A.I." that was a total fraud (somebody secretly manipulating the
system to make it seem intelligent when it wasn't), or the TV writers
don't have any time frame in mind at all and are just relying on the
stupidity of the TV audience.
The rest of the system seemed reasonable. "Kilroy was here" was mostly
text, with only the face graphics, easily within the capabilities of
terminals now on the market.
It seemed quite reasonable that the company LAN displayed a company
logo upon terminal online and asked for a password. The warning that
the requested temperature was out of bounds, when the kids tried to
change the temperature to 120F, and asking for confirmation, seemed
right on. But allowing the kids to go into memory-examine&modify mode
without first logging on seemed strange. Probably the terminal was
programmable, but a company computer system should have disallowed
more than 3 password attempts in rapid succession, but then perhaps
that company trusted its employees and didn't think anyone IN the
building would be a system intruder, so they didn't have that security
hole plugged. -- I'll give them credit for one thing, they searched
the passwords lexicographically, rather than pretending you could
guess one letter at a time like WarGames foisted on its audience. (But
at the rate they were searching, they got to BBBBBB awful damn fast, I
think they goofed on that item, it should have taken hours at the rate
they were going thru the AAAA's.)
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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