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| J.E. Costigan |
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BREAKING SURF
Security Back Door in Windows for US Intelligence Agencies?
A potential explosion of outrage is brewing over the discovery of a secret key within the Windows operating system. The key allows a third party to install security modules in the operating system, and the cryptographers who discovered it allege that it would allow the US National Security Agency to more easily break into Windows computers. Microsoft denies that this is so, claiming that the key is just code that certifies that the operating system has passed US crypto export regulations, and that it's just a coincidence that the key is called "_NSAKEY". Needless to say, the crypto establishment is skeptical. The cryptographers uncovered the key because Microsoft made a mistake in a recent release of some patch software to Windows NT. The press release from the cryptographers has a compelling overview and further technical details, while Wired has some context and statements from Microsoft.Cryptographers: http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21577.html
Not a good week for Microsoft on the security front, was it? The only thing preventing this item from ranking number one on the ol' Netsurferometer is that fact that we have the above issue to cover and that it fell into the cracks in our schedule. If you've read our Letters to the Editor in the past, you'll have noticed a certain antipathy on our part toward Hotmail, at least since Microsoft started futzing with it. With empathy toward its subscribers and - we must admit - an occasional chuckle, we learned this week that hackers had found a way to bypass Hotmail password protection and had set up a Web page that would allow anyone to read e-mail meant for any Hotmail account, a feat that apparently had been known about in cracker circles for months. When Microsoft discovered this, they shut down Hotmail access, which left legitimate Hotmailers without access and in the dark. Problem was that the hackers still had access and were then ironically the only people in the world who could read Hotmail mail. Wired has the story. Robert X. Cringely has a good column on Microsoft's futzing.
Hotmail: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19990826.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/21490.html
Cringely: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19990826.html
Hiding True Names: Secure Alternatives to Hotmail
One of the more enduring mythos of Cyberspace is that the knowledge of your True Name enables your enemies to do you evil - as elequently demonstrated by the Hotmail fiasco. Thus we bring you secure alternatives for anonymous e-mail. The two top contenders are Anonymizer, a Web-based service, and Zero-Knowledge, which is now shipping free beta software for its anonymous surfing/e-mail service. Both are easy to use and recommended for beginners. More advanced users will want to delve into the worldwide network of anonymous remailers based on the open-source Mixmaster program, the choice of skittish hackers everywhere. Check out the Mixmaster anonymous remailer FAQ for further information. If going the Mixmaster route, be prepared to do a bit of semi-technical setup work. Nobody said hiding your True Name was easy.Anonymizer: http://www.anonymizer.com/
Zero-Knowledge: http://www.zeroknowledge.com/
Mixmaster: http://www.obscura.com/~loki/remailer/mixmaster-faq.html
Our own Bay Area lies wreathed in a brown haze, and not all of it can be attributed to the choking fumes ejaculated by the phallically significant SUVs driven by the Valley's Net millionaires. Some of the worst fires of the decade are sweeping through California forests, and the resulting smoke makes its way into our backyards. Those curious how firefighters deal with wildfires will want to check out Wildland Firefighter magazine's site. Even if you don't subscribe, you ought to check out the messages on the Firefighters discussion forum at their Web site. Smokejumpers, who parachute into the infernos, are the glamour guys/girls of the wildland firefighter set and, sure enough, they too have a site. The FAQ tells you how to become a smokejumper - it's not physically easy, and you have to fill out a government form (shudder!). (Note: the Smokejumper site may crash your browser.)
Wildland Firefighter: http://www.wildlandfirefighter.com/
Smokejumpers: http://www.nwlink.com/~rhubble/smokejumpers/nav_header.htm
Fatbrain, Fat Wallet through Online Self Publishing
Publish your work online and every time it's downloaded and/or read you get a small royalty. It's not a new idea (see Ted Nelson's Xanadu project in our last issue), but Fatbrain, the computer-centric online bookstore, is giving the idea a go under the eMatter moniker. eMatter will serve as a repository of online publishing, and claims it will soon release technology that will encrypt your work in a way that will assure you get your cut whenever somebody wants to read it no matter where they are. For now, the encryption remains vaporware - and we're skeptical about its uncrackability - but we're reporting the site because it offers a decent deal to authors who upload content by October 15. If you do so, you get to keep 100% of any proceeds paid for your work until January 1, 2000. After that, Fatbrain gets to keep a usurious 50% of the sale price - another reason for skepticism.http://www.fatbrain.com/ematter/home.html
Larry Wall's Third Annual State of the Perl Onion Speech
On August 23, Larry Wall, the author of Perl, laid yet another entertaining rant on a rapt audience. For the uninitiated, Larry is an immensely entertaining speaker and a philosopher of life, programming, and the Perl language in particular. His past talks have been a joy to read, but frankly this time he's gone a bit off the deep end, God bless him - you'll need a degree in molecular chemistry to follow his still amusing discourse. The transcript is full of huge picture files of very pretty molecules, so surf it with images turned off in your browser if load time is an issue. Minor griping aside, it's still a fun read.http://kiev.wall.org/~larry/onion3/talk.html
Mouth-Watering Culinary Seminar Series Online
Publisher John Wiley has a marketing promotion aimed at people who love fine cooking. The series ties in with four new publications from Wiley: "Foie Gras... A Passion", "The Making of a Pastry Chef", "Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen", and "Chocolate Passion". The online seminars run August 30 through December 10. Subscribe to the eGroups mailing list for more information on the seminars and how to participate.http://www.egroups.com/group/wileycooks/info.html
Bank Code and E-Commerce Cryptography Broken
This press release documents the successful effort of a Dutch-led group to factor a 512-bit prime number, thus breaking a coding scheme used worldwide to protect secure data such as your banking records. The approach resembled past successful efforts to break crypto keys, using a distributed array of computers in six countries. It took about seven months on computers that ran only overnight and on weekends. The group estimates a more focused effort could do the same thing in a week of computer time, putting the 512-bit crypto key within easy reach of any competent criminal organization. A more technical account of the project has been posted to the sci.crypt newsgroup. Look for a thread entitled "512-bit RSA key factored".http://www.cwi.nl/~kik/persb-UK.html
Fix Available for Windows Java Security Problem
We reported this bug in our last issue - basically hackers can take control of your Windows computer through a malicious Java applet. Microsoft has just released a fix, which we strongly encourage everyone to download and install.http://www.microsoft.com/Security/Bulletins/MS99-031.asp
ONLINE CULTURE
Ah, those crazy auction kids. One auctioned off a kidney on eBay and attracted a winning bid of over $5.7 million. Naturally, eBay shut down that auction post-haste since trafficking in human organs is illegal in the US. Oddly, it's not illegal to traffic in complete human beings, as shown by the proliferation of job recruiting sites. Taking this trend to the obvious extreme, we confidently predict that soon we'll see a Web site where people will prostitute themselves to the highest bidder. Indeed, not too long ago another jokester tried to auction off his virginity on eBay. Going one step further: given the large sub-population of S/M devotees online, some of them will sell themselves into voluntary slavery to the highest bidder. Thus we arrive right back to the aforementioned job recruiting sites, feeling like rodents on the great wheel of life.eBay: http://www.ebay.com/
Slavery: http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm
Jobs: http://www.monsterboard.com/
Some very talented writers do not appear the least bit talented when you read their online copy. Writing for the Net requires an approach that is substantially different from one appropriate for paper. The growth of the Net has seen a concomitant proliferation of online technical experts in a wide range of fields. These experts publish their thoughts and ideas on the Internet, for which we're grateful, but too often they turn out dreadfully turgid prose that sits lifeless on a monitor. That ever-useful resource, the Web Developers Virtual Library, has tried to address this problem with a well written (duh!), interesting, and understandable series of articles on writing for the Web. A must read for all netsurfers, online journalists, and white paper producers.
http://wdvl.com/Internet/Writing/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
So This Is What Math Looks Like
Using complex algorithms, Stephen Linhart has created digital collages with bits of photography and other elements. Eight of them are showcased on his Web site; a mouseover on most images reveals the intricacies of the art in all its close-up glory. If you really like his work, you can pony up $400 to $700 for a piece. These limited edition prints raise the bizarre poststructuralist conundrum of a copy without a physical original. If you follow the Other Works link, you can visit the Mondrimat or download some of the screensavers Linhart has developed over the years.http://www.stephen.com/fragments/
If you shriek every time you spot a microphone boom in a movie or know for certain that "Exit" signs should not have appeared in "The Phantom Menace", you'll love the gang at Nitpickers. Nitpickers, by definition, take joy in spotting the continuity or factual errors so often visible in our freeze-frame video world. The site highlights hundreds such mistakes, all contributed by regular folks blessed with good video playback and a keen eye for big-screen foibles. You can even sign up to be a Nitpicker yourself. We just recommend you keep it to yourself, or your friends will never invite you to a movie again.
http://www.nitpickers.com/
Let's call this "A Portrait of an Artist who Lives Life to the Fullest". Husain, a respected and revered artist in his homeland of India, takes great pride in stirring up controversy. Some observers are convinced that he "plays gimmicks" in order to attract media attention and to some extent that is no doubt true; he refuses to wear footwear and more recently has become a companion to a much-younger screen star. But there is certainly no denying his art. Much like Dali, it is for the art that he shall be remembered. This official site offers many fine examples of his compelling work.
http://www.mfhusain.com/
Costigan's career spanned some 50 years and covered oils, watercolors and lithographs. A member of the National Academy of Design, he won his first art prize in 1922, and his last 50 years later, a few months before his death. This site offers more info and a gallery of work. If you have a Costigan or two hanging in your rec room, check out a pricing guide based on recent auctions to find out what they're worth.
http://members.aol.com/negitsoc/jec.html
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Strikingitrich.com (Striking It Rich.com): Profiles of 23 Incredibly Successful Websites You've Probably Never Heard Of
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition)
Blues
Millennium 2000 Countdown Screen Saver v1.3B for Win3.X/95/98/NTBOOKS & E-ZINES
Anything that markets itself with the line "pure and simple like a hammer to the brain" better back that up. This e-zine, The Brunching Shuttlecocks, does. Few things can reduce a cynical, old netsurfer to a state of hysteric-induced paralysis. This did. Film reviews, quizzes ("Are puree settings on blenders good or bad?"), rankings for everything from Australian candy to God's more vengeful Old Testament moments, and the Alanis Morissette lyric generator. Could you ask for any more? And all for the price of a small banner ad.http://www.brunching.com/
You're in for a shock if you equate Washington Post and New York Times economic reporting with Biblical inerrancy. (On second thought, maybe you're not.) The Preamble Center's Economic Reporting Review takes to task assumptions and biases in the world's two most influential newspapers, for example that opening world markets will pull American farmers out of their depression; that American-style capitalism is the best way for emerging nations to prosper; and that the ominous wave of baby-boomer retirees will stall the economy. Have you been bothered by citations of America's unbelievably fabulous manufacturing productivity growth in the 1990s? Preamble does the math and comes up with more believable figures. Even more interesting is the list of the best economic newspaper stories of late.
http://www.fair.org/err/
Byte magazine's former editor-in-chief Fred Langa has written a two-part retrospective on this mag, starting with the aptly titled "Part One: The First Decade", which began in 1975. Among Byte's claims to fame is the coinage of several now-commonplace terms such as hacker, PC, and WYSIWYG. To join in this celebration of Byte, you can even join a chat area to share your fond, or not so fond, memories of the once-paper publication.
http://www.byte.com/columns/monitor/1999/05/0524langa.html
James and the Giant Roll of Barbed Wire
If you a) read the tales of Dr. Suess, Roald Dahl, and others when you were a child, and b) think violence is amusing, then you might (and we use the qualifier advisedly) enjoy "Curious George and the Power Line". Or maybe "Horton Hires a Whore". Be warned: this is a very twisted version of the life and times of that e'er so cute monkey and his confreres. Seriously, folks: do not show this one to children.http://www.xvt.com/users/kevink/storytime/
SURFING SCIENCE
Revenge of the Hot-Headed Naked Ice Borer
As we've moved into our air-conditioned, TV-equipped houses, imaginary species have undergone an impoverishment comparable to real ones. Dragons, mermaids, and centaurs, with all of their stories, have fallen by the wayside. In their place are tales of things like sea monsters and prosaic Hairy Hominids such as Bigfoot or even the ludicrous Goatman, who pesters young couples making out in cars in Maryland. The Cryptozoology site does its best with the mythic leavings, giving links to all relevant modern beasts, from the Lake George Monster to hot-headed naked ice borers, which supposedly infest the Antarctic ice cap and devour Emperor Penguins.http://www.syntac.net/hoax/cryptozoo.html
The atomic bomb used to be a much-dreaded creature. It seems, now, to have been domesticated, and our one-time anxieties forgotten in favor of flesh-eating bacteria and loss of rain forest. The Atomic Age site wants to reverse the trend. Among other things, it provides a sort of bestiary of radioactive isotopes, along with the various ways they may be misused, and a harrowing if somewhat fliply presented analysis of the effects of a small atomic bomb detonating in downtown Manhattan, everyone's favorite disaster target - after Tokyo. You'll also find a wealth of original documentation of the early Atomic Age, including no fewer than six first-person accounts of the Trinity detonation, which the scientists involved called the Gadget.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/
It's not a goofy B-movie hyperbole; killer bees do actually sting people to death. The aggressive Africanized variety of honeybee, first found in the US in Hildago, Tex. in 1990, has been known to go collectively ballistic at the slightest intrusion in the hive area. So stay clear. Loud noise or just walking around a hive has been known to send them swarming. Find out what specific counties in Texas, Nevada, Arizona and California have been colonized and how to take precautions against attack.
http://www.stingshield.com/!ahbtitl.htm!ahbtitl.htm