[4850] in Central_America
New quotes for Mon Apr 5
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
Mon Apr 5 15:53:23 1993
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 93 15:53:06 -0400
From: root@charon.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
To: ca-mtg@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
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jcbourne (Juliet C Bourne):
he says when you gonna make up your mind when you gonna love you as much
i do when you gonna make up your mind cause things are gonna change so
fast all the white horses are still in bed i tell you that i'll always
want you near you say that things change my dear
--"Winter", _Little Earthquakes_, Tori Amos
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lsc (Lecture Series Committee):
LSC Movies for the week of Apr 9 to Apr 11
Fri. Apr 9 Unforgiven [R] 26-100 7 & 10:30
Clint Eastwood directs and stars in his latest film as a reformed
gunfighter who is drawn back into his violent past when he and his
partner (Morgan Freeman) are offered one last job. However, the sheriff
(Gene Hackman) has no intention of seeing this killing accomplished.
Fri. Apr 9 The Exterminating Angel (1962) [???] 10-250 7:30
El Angel Exterminador is a black comedy directed by Spaniard Luis
Buuel, a crony of Salvador Dali. The plot is surrealistic: a party of
socialites find themselves mysteriously unable to leave their host's
drawing room. With English subtitles.
Sat. Apr 10 Repo Man [R] 26-100 7 & 10
Ah, for the good old days, when beer was Beer, food was Food, the daily
special was the Plate O' Shrimp, and people could eat food without
paying for it. Join Otto (Emilio Estevez) in the adventure of his life
as he becomes a Repo Man, chases an alien hiding in the trunk of a
Buick, tries desperately to get laid, and discovers the secret of Pine
Tree Air Fresheners -- there's one in every car!
Sun. Apr 11 Young Sherlock Holmes [PG-13] 10-250 7 & 10
The game is afoot in this Steven Spielberg production of what might have
been had Watson and Holmes met as teen-agers. Sherlock graduates from
schoolyard hide-and-seek to his first real mystery, using everything
from hand lenses to sabres to discover who dunnit.
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For more information, call the LSC MovieLine, 258-8881,
or the LSC office, 253-3791.
MIT or Wellesley ID required, one guest allowed per ID.
Admission to movies is $1.50 and a 20-Admission
Superticket is available for $28.
Classic Movie shows end before the start of the second
show of the corresponding Friday series movie.
Problems and changes to the mailing list should be addressed to
info-lsc-request@zurich.ai.mit.edu
This service is neither maintained nor supported by the
MIT Lecture Series Committee.
To see this information again, finger -l lsc@zurich.ai.mit.edu
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sokoloff (James T Sokoloff):
Jim last logged out @ Mon Apr 5 10:34:52 EDT 1993 on host vongole...
Plan? What plan?
------ Athena hacks for April 1, 1993 ------
Two hacks, one visible (and IMHO neat) and one much less visible.
Hack #1: Changed the names in w20-575 (Student Center public cluster)
from the old w20-575-xxx to w20-<element name> Also, for cases where
elements didn't exist, they substituted other names "dilithium", etc...
Hack #2: Changed the `today` command (in the watchmaker locker) to return
a silly version of the information, as in:
Today is Thursday, the first day of April, nineteen ninety-three. The
big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the one. The Moon is
Waxing Gibbous (66% of Full).
------ Phi Delta Theta Social Events for the upcoming weeks ------
Mon April 5: 5:30PM Faculty Dinner (Cocktails @ 5:30, Dinner @ 6PM) (i)
Come have dinner and drinks with Chuck Vest...
Wed April 7: 9:30PM Wed Social (This week is Sushi!!! (Yum!))
(i) indicates that the event is (roughly) closed and invitations are available.
Other events are "open" to all friends of the house and guests
Any questions, don't call me, call the house number (247-8691) and ask for
Pat Baker or Zack Johnson... Thanks... ---Jim Sokoloff
------ Social Events List Last Updated on Mon Apr 5 01:13:24 EST 1993 ------
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starflt (Derrick Kong):
The Answer Is Yes
The FBI is opening dossiers on citizens who write to the FBI to ask
whether it is keeping dossiers on them.
from No Comment
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therese (Therese):
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star
Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are
How fragile we are..
-- Sting
Nothing Like the Sun
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vajordan (Valarie Ann Jordan):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
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warlord (Derek Atkins):
From: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: FBI traces Les Earnest as 1943 spy, due to childhood crypto
Date: 5 Apr 93 04:11:50 GMT
Organization: Cygnus Support, Palo Alto
This is also available as sail.stanford.edu:/pub/les/spy.
Thanks to hoffmann@urzdfn.kartographie.tu-dresden.dbp.de and
Gerard Van der Leun for pointing it out.
Your tax dollars at work -- imprisoning Japanese citizens and searching
out kids with an interest in cryptography!
John Gilmore
.\" This is a troff -s file.
.de cb \"center bold
.ie \\n(nl-9.5i .sp 200
.el .sp .4v
.B
.ce 1
\\$1
.R
..
.DS C
.ps 14
.B "e-t-a-o-n-r-i Spy and the F.B.I."
.ps 10
.I "Les Earnest"
.DE
.PP
Reading a book got me into early trouble with the
F.B.I., giving me a record by age twelve.
This bizarre incident caused a problem much later when I needed a
security clearance. I learned that I could obtain one only by concealing
my sordid past.
.2C
.PP
Bob Bond was my best friend through much of grammar school and junior high.
In our first year of junior high, he bought a book on codes and ciphers called
.I "Secret and Urgent"
by Fletcher
Pratt [Blue Ribbon Books; Garden City, NY; 1942] and we both read it.
The book showed how to use letter
frequencies to break ciphers and reported that the most frequently
occurring letters in typical English text are e-t-a-o-n-r-i, in that
order. (The letter frequency order of the story you are now reading is
e-t-a-i-o-n-r. The higher frequency of ``i'' probably reflects the fact
that I use the first person singular a lot.) Pratt's book also
treated more advanced cryptographic schemes.
.PP
Bob and I decided that we needed to have a secure way to communicate with
each other, so we put together a rather elaborate jargon code based on the
principles described in the book. I don't remember exactly why we thought
we needed it \(em we spent much of our time outside of school together, so
there was ample time to talk privately. Still, you never could tell when
you might need to send a secret message!
.PP
We typed up the code key (a description of how to encrypt and
decrypt our messages) on single sheet of paper with a carbon copy and each
took one.
We carried it on our persons at all times when we wore clothes.
.PP
I actually didn't wear clothes much. I spent nearly all my time outside
school wearing just a baggy pair of maroon swimming trunks. That wasn't
considered too abnormal in San Diego.
.PP
I had recently been given eyeglasses but didn't like to wear them, so I
kept them in a hard case in the pocket of the trousers that I wore to
school. I figured that this was a good place to hide my copy of the code
key, so I carefully folded it to one-eighth of its original size and stuck
it at the bottom of the case, under my glasses.
.PP
Every chance I got, I went body surfing at Old Mission Beach. I usually
went by streetcar and, since I had to transfer Downtown, I wore clothes.
Unfortunately, while I was riding the trolley home from the beach one
Saturday the case carrying my glasses slipped out of my pocket unnoticed.
I reported the loss to my mother that night.
She called the streetcar company to see if they had been turned in;
unfortunately, they hadn't.
.PP
After a few weeks of waiting in vain for the glasses to turn up, we began
to lose hope. My mother didn't rush replacing them in view of the fact
that I hadn't worn them much and they cost about $8, a large sum at that
time. (To me, $8 represented 40 round trips to the beach by streetcar, or
80 admission fees to the movies.)
.PP
Unknown to us, the case had been found by a patriotic citizen who opened
it, discovered the code key, recognized that it must belong to a
Japanese spy and turned it over to the F.B.I. This was in 1943, just
after citizens of Japanese descent had been forced off their property and
taken away to concentration camps. I remember hearing that a local grocer
was secretly a Colonel in the Japanese Army and had hidden his uniform in
the back of his store. A lot of people actually believed these things.
.PP
About ten weeks later, my mother got got a mysterious telephone call
at work; she was Vice Principal at Rosevelt Junior High.
The caller said, ``I want an appointment with you at once.''
She said, ``Come right over to my office.''
``No, we must see you in your home,'' was the reply.
She went home and waited for a substantial period.
I happened to be off on another escapade, so wasn't aware of all this.
.PP
Eventually a black limosine rolled up in front of the house.
Two men sat in it reading notes, then eventually came up the steps.
As my mother let them in the living room, each rolled back his coat lapel
to flash identification and said something like, ``I'm XYZ of the F.B.I.''
One of them then threw my glasses on the coffee table and said, ``Have you
seen these before?''
My mother quickly replied, ``Those are my son's glasses, which he lost
a little while ago.''
``They are your son's alright,'' said one of them.
.PP
They wanted to know why there was a code key in the case with the glasses.
My mother explained that we had been studying cryptography and that this
was no doubt something that we had put together for fun.
At first they refused to believe her, arguing that the code sheet
could not have been compiled by kids, but after awhile, one of the two
began to be a bit friendlier.
.PP
My mother told the investigators how glad she was to get the glasses back,
considering that they cost $8. The sourpuss did a slow burn, then said
``Lady, this case has cost the government thousands of dollars. It has
been the top priority in our office for the last eight weeks. We traced the
glasses to your son from the prescription by examining the files of nearly
every optometrist in San Diego.'' He went on to say that they had been
interviewing our friends and neighbors for about six weeks.
.PP
The friendlier one eventually described how much it had
cost to investigate another recent case where a person was reported to
have pulled down an American flag and stepped on it.
Only after the investigation was well under way did they learn that
the perpetrator of this nefarious act was four years old.
.PP
The colder one of the two apparently remained convinced to the end that
I really was a Japanese spy.
He insisted on keeping the code key ``for our
records.'' He apparently wanted to be in a position to decode any of
our secret communications if they should find any.
.PP
Since our communication scheme had been compromised, Bob and I devised a
new key. I started carrying it in my wallet, which I thought was more
secure. I don't remember ever exchanging any cryptographic messages.
I was always ready, though.
.cb "Naval maneuver"
.PP
A few years later when I was in college, I got a summer job at the Naval
Electronics Lab, which required a security clearance. One of the
questions on the application form was ``Have you ever been investigated by
the F.B.I.'' Naturally, I checked ``Yes.'' The next question was, ``If so,
describe the circumstances.'' There was very little space on the form, so
I answered simply and honestly, ``I was suspected of being a Japanese spy.''
.PP
When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned it quickly,
looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this'' \(em pointing at the F.B.I.
question. I described what had happened. He got very agitated, picked up
my form, tore it in pieces, and threw it in the waste basket.
.PP
He then got out a blank form and handed it to me, saying ``Here, fill it
out again and don't mention that. If you do, I'll make sure that you
.I never
get a security clearance.''
.PP
I did as he directed and was shortly granted the clearance. I never again
disclosed that incident on security clearance forms.
--
John Gilmore gnu@toad.com -- gnu@cygnus.com -- gnu@eff.org
I agree it is a very good document, and I envy it - the country I live
in doesn't have such a constitution. I just wish you guys would _use_
it. Your assertion about "the freest country" fails because you don't
- it would perhaps be true if the system would work according to the
constitution. But it does no good to have such a document just
rotting away locked up somewhere, after even banning the material it's
printed on. //Jyrki Kuoppala, jkp@cs.HUT.FI
--- End of Central America ---
