koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) (05/29/90)
In article <24970@usc.edu> annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) writes: >In other cases, certain >moderators have held up publication of an article until an appropriate >government review authority cleared the posting. As a moderator, I can tell you that this is bogus. Of course, if you're right, you shouldn't believe me anyway. :) -Steve
annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) (05/29/90)
In article <9005290034> USENET.News.Group.Software@PT.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >I refuse to be paranoid about this ... Indeed, I suspect it is possible that some government (or other equally intrusive entity) may monitor and occasionally interfer with news items posted to USENET. Sometimes the intrusion is relatively subtle (e.g. a properly posted news item never gets distributed) or particularly overt (e.g. postings from certain newsgroups never reach our site). In a few cases (e.g. asb) it is said certain backbone sites elected to halt the flow of such newsgroup postings through their sites and all downstream sites were unable to receive these articles. In other cases, certain moderators have held up publication of an article until an appropriate government review authority cleared the posting. No doubt the hackers newsgroup (and people who post to it) must receive similar scrutiny. p.s. I do not believe the computer science community will be able to change the current negative perception of people labeled "hackers" by refusing to accept the common usage of the term. I will refrain from posting what may seem to be inflamatory remarks about "hackers" based on the more common usage of the term. However, anyone who may attempt to publish a definition of the term "hacker" will have to at least put in some acknowledgement of current public usage. The best definition may provide the term hacker is defined as (1) the way computer science would like the term to be used and (2) the way it is used by the public. Furthermore, whether or not anyone else remembers the term being used in the late 1960's to early 1970's I do clearly remember the people who broke into systems being called hackers during that period of time. I also remember quickly written code being refered to as a hack during the same time period. The two terms hacker (system cracker) and hack (code that was written too quickly but achieved a desired result) were never mutually exclusive. ob.hack.rpt: Computer Modeling Exercise: Take some lithium-6 deuteride, completely wrap in uranium-238 blanket, set of nearby fission device, do a step by step analysis (time increment about .1 usec) of the conversion of Li6D to tritium-deuterium, fast fission energy liberation in the U-238, shock compression and heating of the T-D core, consequent fusion reaction, liberation of fast neutrons by T-D fusion, capture of fast neutrons by the U-238 wrapper, additional fast fissions in the U-238 wrapper, and further shock compression and heating of the T-D core. This is a fully recursive fission->fusion->fission reaction. Now, for extra credit, perform similar modeling of a device with a much thinner blanket of U-238. Does this kind of device yield a much larger number of neutrons while sacrificing yield? Does a larger amount of waste tritium eventually escape from the device? Congratulations, you are now an honorary nuclear device computer modeler!!! I developed this model in about three weeks in 1977 because I was working in a science library, Phoenix was very very boring, and some kid back at Princeton (who developed a similar model of a fission device [using an HP calculator]) claimed this problem was too difficult to solve. If you are bored, take a look at the history of the manhattan project, the "super" project, thermonuclear microfission, intertial confinement fusion devices, and the biographies of oppenheimer and ulam. Be the first kid on your block to get a good working model, submit it to the US Department of Energy, get it classified, and call up the J. Carson show for an interview. This beats the hell out of hacking computer systems. Plus, if you believe the Princeton kid, not a few governments may call you for some consulting advice about how to develop their own thermonuclear devices. Pakistan was high on the list of potential buyers in the mid 1970's.
g7ahn@cc.imperial.ac.UK ("K. Krallis") (05/29/90)
Yes, he is watching! Over here I never receive postings to "alt.sex.pictures", only cross-postings. And I know very well it's not our local news administartor who causes the problem. Most likely it's "ukc" but I cannot blame anybody without proof. Costas Krallis <g7ahn@cc.ic.ac.uk> Imperial College London, UK