Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (10/05/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 5 Oct 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 62
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - Mailer Problem,
Computers and People - New Dimensions Radio and Jacques Vallee &
Trendiness enhanced by Worldnet? &
The NSA and You (3 msgs) &
Telecommunications Security and Privacy (2 msgs)
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Date: 4 Oct 83 21:55:40 EDT
From: Charles <MCGREW@RU-GREEN.ARPA>
Subject: Administrivia
On the evening of 3 October, our mailer system went down with
a hard error that caused us to lose any mail that was left in the mail
queue. Anyone who had not received an issue of human-nets (due to
downed network nodes on the ARPAnet) will now not get the issues at
all. If you missed an issue, please let me know and I'll remail it to
you.
Charles
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Date: 3 Oct 1983 1514-PDT
From: Ted Shapin <BEC.SHAPIN@USC-ECL>
Subject: New Dimensions Radio & Jacques Vallee
In answer to a recent question: New Dimension Radio, 267 State St.,
San Francisco 94114 produces a number of interesting programs on human
potential topics. Write for a catalog. I didn't hear the interview
with Jacques Vallee that you mentioned but I know who he is. He is
one of the pioneers in computer-aided conferencing. He used to be at
the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park with Hubert Lipinsky. They
wrote "CONFER" for DEC-10's which is in the public domain. Vallee
formed his own company INFOMEDIA to exploit computer-aided
conferencing. Among their customers are all of the operators of
nuclear power plants, so if anyone is having a problem or needs a part
the other operators are likely to respond.
Personally, having tried his system and CONFER, I much prefer this
type of bulletin board system for participating in a discussion.
The book THE NETWORK NATION by M. Turoff and S.R. Hiltz is very good,
although a little dated (Addison-Wesley, 1978). These authors are
pioneers in computer aided conferencing and run "EIES" at the New
Jersey Institute of Technology. As of a couple of years ago, they had
about 700 users in hundreds of "conferences" running on a mincomputer.
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Date: 30 September 1983 04:53 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Trendiness enhanced by Worldnet?
Fortunately the kinds of bulletin boards and digests we have on the
Arpa/Internet permit rebuttal to false claims, so if somebody like you
on such a bboard or digest is alert, a false/misleading movement can
be quenched before it becomes too popular. We who advocate WorldNet
hope it too will have this property.
I would welcome the National Enquirer to switch to this kind of
digest. If the moderator/editor attempts to squelch contrary views,
rebuttal can be sent direct to individual members, and direct-mail
lists can be created to bypass the bad moderator/editor.
P.s. I wonder how hard it would be to get a list of subscribers to
National Enquirer (in the real world today)? It would be interesting
to send rebuttals of N.E. misinformation direct to such people and try
to convince them to stop subscribing to N.E. and subscribe to a
rebuttal magazine instead.
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Date: Fri, 30 Sep 83 0:19:43 EDT
From: Ron Natalie <ron@brl-vgr>
Subject: No Such Agency
NSA's motto has always been:
In God we trust.
All others we monitor.
-Ron
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Date: 30 Sep 83 8:41:30-EDT (Fri)
From: Jim Dunning <jdunning%darcom-hq@UDel-Relay>
Subject: The agency that DOES NOT exist
Congratulations to those of you who have just discovered that Uncle
Sam cares enough about his citizens to listen to what they have to
say.
Once you get over the initial shock of realizing that things like this
do happen in the real world then you can proceed to become fascinated
by just what is really being done, how it is being done, and to whom.
The National Security Agency is not something that just popped out of
the woodwork. It was created (in the fifties I think) by Presidential
Order (which is in itself highly classified). For those not entirely
familiar with the buzz words of the federal government, a Presidential
Order is what we would call an edict or decree if it were issued by a
monarchy, dictatorship, or other such nefarious form of government.
NSA, more or less, operates in the field of signal intelligence
(sigint) and reportedly makes CIA look like a piker as far as the
budget goes. You've been hearing of some of their activities in the
past but you just didn't know it was their doings. Supposedly the
Pueblo was being operated by the NSA when the North Koreans decided to
claim pre-sinking salvage rights as was the Liberty when the Isrealis
"mistook" an electronic surveillance ship flying the American flag for
an Egyptian coastal freighter and tried to blow it out of the water.
Anybody want to guess who the RC-135 electronic intelligence plane
involved in the Korean Air flight 007 incident was working for?
For anyone interested in reading more about the National Security
Agency there is a book out entitled "The Puzzle Palace".
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Date: 30 Sep 1983 0726-PDT
From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL
Subject: worm mememes
The situation is even worse than that described by REM; the warning
messages themselves cause meta-memes in the minds of the receivers
(mememes; the transmitted form is youyouyous). The meme warning
messages (which were certainly desirable) should be followed up with
warnings about the mememes.
Dave C
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Date: 30 September 1983 01:14 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Geoff's testamony about Telecommunications Security and
Subject: Privacy.
I have one major complaint with this testamony. The suggestion is made
that when a modem disconnect occurs the job should be destroyed
(logged out). I suffered this "feature" a few years ago on an RSX-11M
system I was working on (for money). Every few minutes there'd be a
momentary loss of carrier, and my job would be logged out instantly,
and I'd lose all my work since the last time I saved it. Carrier would
be back faster than I could notice the problem, in fact most of the
logout message would appear on my terminal. This was one of the two
most frustrating things about that system, and I never ever will
accept employment on that system again.
The right thing to do when carrier is lost and it looks like a hang up
has occurred, is to detach the job. This retains all work but merely
disconnects the job from the dialup port. Then the user can attach to
the detached job and pick up where he left off, either immediately or
after redialing. This will adequately protect against unauthorized
access by a new dialup user into the old user's job, providing a
password is needed for attaching.
The above applies both to direct modem dialups and to network
connections. If the network connection is lost for any reason, the job
should be detached, not destroyed (logged out).
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Date: 2 Oct 1983 17:08-PDT
Subject: Re: Geoff's testamony about Telecommunications Security and
Subject: ...
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Reply-to: Geoff@SRI-CSL
Thanks REM
I stand corrected.
Geoff
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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