From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 12:16:32 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IJGWJ14906 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:16:32 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109181916.f8IJGWJ14906@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:16:31 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Regarding attacks Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Those of you who know me are no doubt clear I don't blindly follow general public opinion, so prepare for what may be some unpopular views. Think different. In no way do I condone the activities of the terrorists. I think the most important question that needs to be asked is this: why would a group of 50 or more people hate the US so much that they would wish to do this? While nuking the hell out of Afganistan might make Joe Sixpack feel avenged, the reality here is that if we do not learn our lessons from history, we are doomed to repeat it. In that vein, I offer the following links. I urge you to read them from an intellectual viewpoint, rather than an emotional one. Terrible as this tragedy is, I fear the greater tragedy is that we as a nation are not going to learn a damn thing from it, and therefore again fall victim to the derivative of our own interventionist foreign policy. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/12/163019/268 http://www.antiwar.com/orig/browne2.html http://service-net.org/ws/theme145.cfm http://www.michaelmoore.com/2001_0912.html Victory breeds hatred, for the defeated live in pain. Happily live the peaceful, giving up victory and defeat. 3.Buddhism. Dhammapada 201 Wars not make one great. Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will... (Thanks, Amanda) Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 12:16:58 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IJGwJ11666 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:16:58 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109181916.f8IJGwJ11666@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:16:57 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Re: Fwd: "Within an hour". How utterly despicable! Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: On 9/13/01 5:35 PM, ed@hintz.org thus spake: >I'm sure we all knew this would happen eventually, but sheesh, could they >have waited a /little/ longer? >http://msnbc.com/news/628230.asp?cp1=1 Believe it or not, there's actually something worse. I wouldn't have believed it was possible. Trying to make a quick buck is pretty sickening; trying to use this tragedy to foster hate in the name of religion is not only utterly despicable, completely contrary to the teachings of Christ, and horrendously irresponsible. It makes these two just as evil as the Taliban: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28620-2001Sep14.html "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Matthew 7:15, KJV Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 12:17:17 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IJHGJ00360 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109181917.f8IJHGJ00360@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:16 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] A couple of very topical reads Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: > Subject: A somewhat dense article on Pakistan and Afghanistan > > If you have any interest, the section dealing with Afghanistan and the > Taliban is mainly on page two. > The below is a link to an article published on September 2000. It is a > summary of the author's trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier that > year. It has both historical background and current reporting on the > state of that area. Its origin was the detonation by Pakistan of nuclear > weapons, but it nonetheless is a look at an area of the world that our > country is being pointed at. > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/kaplan.htm (not Ed speaking here) Dear Friends, The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T. Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? Tamim Ansary Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 12:17:40 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IJHeJ23098 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109181917.f8IJHeJ23098@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:39 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Re: Regarding attacks Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: On 9/13/01 10:40 AM, ed@hintz.org thus spake: > In no way do I condone the activities of the terrorists. I think the I've caught a bit of heat for that message, I'm not sure folks understand what I'm saying. Here's another attempt. I'm not saying the US is the great Satan. We do plenty of good deeds, and have for quite some time. Plenty of folks both here and abroad recognize that fact. There's plenty of nationalism and flag waving going on; international support has come in from such traditionally unfriendly places such as China, Pakistan and Russia. The Canadian tribute piece is popping up all over, and has been for days ( http://www.telepath.com/vinson/badger/comments/opin-15.htm if by some odd twist of fate you haven't seen it yet). We're not perfect, we make mistakes, but overall I don't think we're an evil bunch. Just like I don't think your average Afgan or Palestinian is evil. Misguided, maybe, a product of their environment, absolutely, but not inherently evil. My Grandfather, Ellert L. Anderson, wrote a book in '88 after the Challenger disaster, titled "Why they're away: the purpose of death", ISBN 053308005. The basic premise is that deaths, no matter how tragic, result in some good. Used as one of numerous examples was the death 13 year old Cari Lightner, at the hands of a drunk driver in 1980. Her Mother, Candice Lightner, as a result of the tragedy, formed Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. The number of other lives saved by MADD over the ensuing years (their website estimates 138,000) honors the memory of Cari Lightner, and the purpose of her tragic death is fulfilled. While nationalism and flag waving may help some, to me they are hollow gestures. If they make you feel better, more power to you, but they don't work for me. I really wish they did, but they don't. I think much like a scientist. I tend to detach from emotion as much as possible, and analyze situations, and respond with logic. That's what I'm trying to do here. When airplanes fall from the sky, when bridges fail, when buildings collapse, we mourn innocent victims. We also analyze the system in question for failures, and fix those failures to ensure that the tragedy does not repeat itself. What happened Tuesday was a political failure. I see no reason to treat it differently from any other failure. To analyze it, we're going to have to ask some tough questions, and we may not like the answers. We may not even agree on the answers, but the worst thing we can do is not ask the questions, for then we are doomed to relive the past, and Tuesday's dead will have died in vain. The best way I can think of to honor the victims is to analyze the failure, find the root cause(NOT the symptom-BinLaden), and eliminate or mitigate it. I'm not so naive as to believe that we will ever make everyone happy with our foreign policies. But, if we can make them just UN-happy, versus violently and irrationally opposed, that's a noble and worthy testament to the fallen. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 12:17:43 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IJHeJ28864 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109181917.f8IJHeJ28864@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:40 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Fwd: "Within an hour". How utterly despicable! Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: I'm sure we all knew this would happen eventually, but sheesh, could they have waited a /little/ longer? http://msnbc.com/news/628230.asp?cp1=1 Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 13:17:05 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8IKH5J12810 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:17:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109182017.f8IKH5J12810@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:17:05 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Administrivia: Welcome to Promotum Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Howdy all, I finally killed off my AOL account, which you may have noticed is what I've used for the visible address I send forwards to. Since I was making organizational changes anyway, I decided to setup mailing list software to handle the usual forward traffic. I have subscribed everyone who is on my usual list of suspects, so you need do nothing if you wish to continue relieving stuff. Advantages to setting up mailing list software include the following: You can now unsubscribe yourself, turn the list off when you go on vacation, get the posts in digest form, whatever. Additionally, if you forward mails to friends, they can subscribe themselves directly if they so desire. All of this is done here: http://www.hintz.org/mailman/listinfo/promotum Also, the posts will be archived, so 6 months from now, when you want to lookup the articles about those Russian Mathematicians that think history happened in parallel, you can do so. I think this will be a very nice feature, as the exact scenario listed above occurred, and I didn't remember where the links came from and wasn't able to easily find them. Anyway, here's the address for archives: http://www.hintz.org/pipermail/promotum/ Mini-FAQ: Why the name promotum? Promotum is Latin for "To push forward, move ahead, advance". That's what this list does. How do I change my list options? http://www.hintz.org/mailman/listinfo/promotum What is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything? 42 Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 18 18:09:50 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8J19oJ20061 for ; Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:09:50 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109190109.f8J19oJ20061@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:09:50 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] This page sucks Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com/ It's funnier if you're a windoze user, or at least familiar with the windoze version of Exploder... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 21 12:10:48 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8LJAlJ26589 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:10:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109211910.f8LJAlJ26589@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:10:47 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Investment tips Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: If you bought $1000 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49. If you bought $1000 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, and traded in the cans for the nickel deposit, you would have $79. My advice to you is to start drinking heavily. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 21 12:49:20 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8LJnKJ14042 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:49:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109211949.f8LJnKJ14042@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:49:20 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Who'd a thunk it? Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34799,00.html Thanks to Darryl for the link... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 21 15:13:34 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8LMDYJ06821 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:13:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109212213.f8LMDYJ06821@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:13:34 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Population Density Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Kinda cool orbital nightshot, gives a good feel for population density based on the amount of light: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg According to the website, "The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites. " http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html Makes me wanna sing the ol' Disney standard, "It's a small world"... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 21 23:19:11 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8M6JAJ18167 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:19:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109220619.f8M6JAJ18167@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:19:40 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] The Irish curse engine Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Make your own Irish curse: http://hermes.lincolnu.edu/~focal/scripts/mallacht.htm Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 21 23:35:13 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8M6ZDJ15091 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:35:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109220635.f8M6ZDJ15091@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:35:42 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Heavenly music Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: The BBC proms (sort of like what we call the pops here in the states) redid their program of 15 September to reflect the WTC. If you get a chance to check it out, by all means do. Besides a stirring and very appropriate rendition of final movement of Beethoven's 9th, Barber's Adagio for Strings was particularly touching. Seeing as how the proms are an institution dating to 1895, breaking with the usual tradition of Pomp and Circumstance and Rule Brittania is IMHO a particularly notable tribute. I caught it on BBC America, dunno when/if it will be on again, although BBC 3 will rebroadcast the radio show on 31 December. http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=94338 http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/broadcasts/index.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/broadcasts/repeats.shtml http://www.bbcamerica.com/servlet/DailySchedule On the subject of musical tributes, after watching the big telethon here in the states, I have to say that I can't possibly think of anyone better to sing Imagine in the absence of Jonn Lennon than Neil Young. Good, good, good stuff. "I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one". Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Sat Sep 22 15:29:52 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8MMTqJ15254 for ; Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:29:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109222229.f8MMTqJ15254@phil.hintz.org> Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:30:21 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Shamelessly stolen from /. Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.lego.com/studios/screening/movie.asp?title=montypython A lego adaption of the Camelot scene from the Holy Grail... Genius. Twisted, but genius. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Sun Sep 23 18:05:34 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8O15XJ21705 for ; Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:05:33 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109240105.f8O15XJ21705@phil.hintz.org> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:06:03 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Soviet grunts talk about Afganistan, so does Country Joe Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: If you read /., you've already seen this, but if you don't, the following article brings up some very interesting experiences regarding Afganistan and trying to control it via ground troops. Most interesting to me was the mindset that suffering in this life will be rewarded in the afterlife; therefore, property and even life will have little or no meaning to the Taliban forces. How do you strike against an enemy whose way of thinking essentially makes your weapons and methods useless? Personally, I think the only way it could possibly be done is with special forces, and we'll probably take some heavy losses in the process. OTOH, there are differences; the Sovs were trying to occupy, if we only make quick in/out attacks we can minimize much of the losses the Sovs faced. Anyway, here's the link, go draw your own conclusions. :-P http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000075191sep19.story While reading it, the thought did occur to me that if we do end up bogged down in a ground war like happened in 'Nam, the 'I feel like I'm fixin' to die rag' by Country Joe and the Fish back in '65 could be very easily modified to reflect Afganistan rather than Vietnam... In fact, nowadays you could probably get away the the "real" fish cheer, rather than the censored one that ended up on the record... http://www.countryjoe.com/ra/fixin.ram http://www.well.com/~cjfish/game.htm#cheer Lastly, while looking up info on Country Joe, I found a page he's setup dealing with the current situation. Personally, I found the speech of Fidel Castro and the open letter from the Dali Lama very interesting. I also note that several modified versions of the Fixin' to Die rag are already there... ;-) http://www.countryjoe.com/crisis.htm Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Mon Sep 24 14:06:12 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8OL6BJ21994 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:06:11 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109242106.f8OL6BJ21994@phil.hintz.org> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:06:10 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Nice picture Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0109/sunplume_soho_big.gif From APOD: Explanation: Our Sun is still very active. Last year, our Sun went though Solar Maximum, the time in its 11-year cycle where the most sunspots and explosive activities occur. Sunspots, the Solar Cycle, and solar prominences are all caused by the Sun's changing magnetic field. Pictured above is a solar prominence that erupted on May 15, throwing electrons and ions out into the Solar System. The image was taken in the ultraviolet light emitted by a specific type of ionized helium, a common element on the Sun. Particularly hot areas appear in white, while relatively cool areas appear in red. Our Sun should gradually quiet down until Solar Minimum occurs in 2007. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Mon Sep 24 14:48:28 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8OLmRJ16546 for ; Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:48:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109242148.f8OLmRJ16546@phil.hintz.org> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:48:28 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] q33 ny looks like urban legend Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Making the rounds lately: Go to MSWord Open "New Document" Select Font Times New Roman Select Font Size 72 Type: Q33 (space) NY (Note Q33 is [supposedly] the official flight number of one of the planes that crashed into the trade towers...) Select: Q33 NY and change font to Wingdings We can all agree the resulting symbols are somewhat errie. So, is the q33ny claim accurate? Nope, according to snopes... http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/wingding.htm Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 25 11:06:48 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8PI6lJ28622 for ; Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:06:47 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109251806.f8PI6lJ28622@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:06:46 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Millitary Codename Generator Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.ubique.ch/ Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Tue Sep 25 12:14:47 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8PJElJ00845 for ; Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:14:47 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109251914.f8PJElJ00845@phil.hintz.org> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:14:47 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Fellowship of the Rings trailer Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: The much ballyhooed trailer for the upcoming movie has been released. I've got it mirrored here: http://nc.flyingbuttmonkeys.com/~ehintz/fellowshipoftherings_fs.mov Note this is a quicktime movie, and it's a whopping 30 megs in size, so if you're on a dialup you'd be better off going to Apple's website to view one of the smaller ones. However, if you've got the bandwidth, this server should be able to serve it to you pretty quickly, unlike Apple's server which is currently toast... Enjoy. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Wed Sep 26 11:33:35 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8QIXZJ13678 for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:33:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109261833.f8QIXZJ13678@phil.hintz.org> Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:33:35 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] big brother Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: As if we needed any more proof that our news media are incresingly feeding us propaganda... http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000076753sep25.story?c oll=la%2Dnews%2Da%5Fsection Wouldn't want the media showing pictures of dead people would we? After all, that's not what war is all about, is it? It's a very expensive nintendo game with no consequences, right? I feel so much better knowing that while we go to war to defend "freedom" I won't have my "freedom" abused by being subjected to disturbing images of carnage. Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Wed Sep 26 23:02:19 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8R62JJ23185 for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:02:19 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109270602.f8R62JJ23185@phil.hintz.org> Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:02:53 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] The Onion does it again... Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: "Hijackers surprised to find selves in Hell" http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/hijackers_surprised.html Gotta love The Onion... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Thu Sep 27 14:51:44 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8RLpiJ02844 for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:51:44 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109272151.f8RLpiJ02844@phil.hintz.org> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:52:16 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Afghan/OBL errata Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Thanks to all who contributed to this one... First, the humor: For the ladies, here's something you can do to help weed out the terrorists(Dirty Ol' Uncle Sam wants YOU!) : ---------------- Do your part: The President has asked that we unite for a common cause. As the hardline Islamic fundamentalists can not stand nudity, and consider it a sin to see a naked woman that is not their wife, tomorrow at noon, all women should run out of their homes and offices naked to help weed out the terrorists. The United States appreciates your efforts, and applauds you. God Bless America! ----------------- Next, a couple of amusing morphs of OBL with Rowan Atkinson: http://www.hintz.org/media/OsamaBeanLaden.jpg http://www.hintz.org/media/BeanLaden.jpg ----------------- Finally, an extremely long essay on the Afgan situation by a West Point grad who spent many years in Afghanistan with the UN. While I admit to having some reservations with funding and supporting the Northern Alliance (that sort of thinking is what got us into this mess to begin with), his humanitarian points are spot on, whether you're a peacenik or military fan. Reservations aside, I'm not sure I see a better answer, perhaps the humanitarian aid would keep the Northern Alliance folks from turning into the terrorists of 10-20 years from now. Dear Classmates: Many of you are probably not aware that I was one of the last American citizens to have spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan. I was first there in 1993 providing relief and assistance to refugees along the Tajik border and in this capacity have traveled all along the border region between the two countries. In 1998 and 1999 I was the Deputy Program Manager for the UN's mine action program in Afghanistan. This program is the largest civilian employer in the country with over 5,000 persons clearing mines and UXO. In this later capacity, I was somewhat ironically engaged in a "Holy War" as decreed by the Taliban, against the evil of landmines, and by a special proclamation of Mullah Omar, all those who might have died in this effort were considered to "martyrs" even an "infidel" like myself. The mine action program is the most respected relief effort in the country and because of this I had the opportunity to travel extensively, without too much interference or restriction. I still have extensive contacts in the area and among the Afghan community and read a great deal on the subject. I had wanted to write earlier and share some of my perspectives, but quite frankly I have been a bit too popular in DC this past week and have not had time. Dr. Tony Kern's comments were excellent and I would like to use them as a basis for sharing some observations. First, he is absolutely correct. This war is about will, resolve and character. I want to touch on that later, but first I want to share some comments about our "enemy." Our enemy is not the people of Afghanistan. The country is devastated beyond what most of us can imagine. The vast majority of the people live day-to-day, hand to mouth in abject conditions of poverty, misery and deprivation. Less than 30% of the men are literate, the women even less. The country is exhausted, and desperately wants something like peace. They know very little of the world at large, and have no access to information or knowledge that would counter what they are being told by the Taliban. They have nothing left, nothing that is except for their pride. Who is our enemy? Well, our enemy is a group of non-Afghans, often referred to by the Afghans as "Arabs" and a fanatical group of religious leaders and their military cohort, the Taliban. The non-Afghan contingent came from all over the Islamic world to fight in the war against the Russians. Many came using a covert network created with assistance by our own government. OBL (as Osama bin Laden was referred to by us in the country at the time) restored this network to bring in more fighters, this time to support the Taliban in their civil war against the former Mujehdeen. Over time this military support along with financial support has allowed OBL and his "Arabs" to co-opt significant government activities and leaders. OBL is the "inspector general" of Taliban armed forces, his bodyguards protect senior Talib leaders and he has built a system of deep bunkers for the Taliban, which were designed to withstand cruise missile strikes (uhm, where did he learn to do that?). His forces basically rule the southern city of Kandahar. This high-profile presence of OBL and his "Arabs" has, in the last 2 years or so, started to generate a great deal of resentment on the part of the local Afghans. At the same time the legitimacy of the Taliban regime has started to decrease as it has failed to end the war, as local humanitarian conditions have worsened and as "cultural" restrictions have become even harsher. It is my assessment that most Afghans no longer support the Taliban. Indeed the Taliban have recently had a very difficult time getting recruits for their forces and have had to rely more and more on non-Afghans, either from Pushtun tribes in Pakistan or from OBL. OBL and the Taliban, absent any US action were probably on their way to sharing the same fate that all other outsiders and outside doctrines have experienced in Afghanistan-defeat and dismemberment. During the Afghan war with the Soviets much attention was paid to the martial prowess of the Afghans. We were all at West Point at the time and most of us had high-minded idealistic thoughts about how we would all want to go help the brave "freedom fighters" in their struggle against the Soviets. Those concepts were naive to the extreme. The Afghans, while never conquered as a nation, are not invincible in battle. A "good" Afghan battle is one that makes a lot of noise and light. Basic military skills are rudimentary and clouded by cultural constraints that no matter what, a warrior should never lose his honor. Indeed, firing from the prone is considered distasteful (but still done). Traditionally, the Afghan order of battle is very feudal in nature, with fighters owing allegiance to a "commander" and this person owing allegiance upwards and so on and so on. Often such allegiance is secured by payment. And while the Taliban forces have changed this somewhat, many of the units in the Taliban army are there because they are being paid to be there. All such groups have very strong loyalties along ethnic and tribal lines. Again, the concept of having a place of "honor" and "respect" is of paramount importance and blood feuds between families and tribes can last for generations over a perceived or actual slight. That is one reason why there were 7 groups of Mujehdeen fighting the Russians. It is a very difficult task to form and keep united a large bunch of Afghans into a military formation. The "real" stories that have come out of the war against the Soviets are very enlightening and a lot different from our fantastic visions as cadets. When the first batch of Stingers came in and were given to one Mujehdeen group, another group-supposedly on the same side, attacked the first group and stole the Stingers, not so much because they wanted to use them, but because having them was a matter of prestige. Many larger coordinated attacks that advisers tried to conduct failed when all the various Afghan fighting groups would give up their assigned tasks (such as blocking or overwatch) and instead would join the assault group in order to seek glory. In comparison to Vietnam, the intensity of combat and the rate of fatalities were lower for all involved. As you can tell from above, it is my assessment that these guys are not THAT good in a purely military sense and the "Arabs" probably even less so than the Afghans. So why is it that they have never been conquered? It goes back to Dr. Kern's point about will. During their history the only events that have managed to form any semblance of unity among the Afghans, is the desire to fight foreign invaders. And in doing this the Afghans have been fanatical. The Afghans' greatest military strength is the ability to endure hardships that would, in all probability, kill most Americans and enervate the resolve of all but the most elite military units. The physical difficulties of fighting in Afghanistan, the terrain, the weather and the harshness are all weapons that our enemies will use to their advantage and use well. (NOTE: For you military planner types and armchair generals--around November 1st most road movement is impossible, in part because all the roads used by the Russians have been destroyed and air movement will be problematic at best). Also, those fighting us are not afraid to fight. OBL and others do not think the US has the will or the stomach for a fight. Indeed after the absolutely inane missile strikes of 1998, the overwhelming consensus was that we were cowards, who would not risk one life in face to face combat. Rather than demonstrating our might and acting as a deterrent, that action and others of the not so recent past, have reinforced the perception that the US does not have any "will" and that were are morally and spiritually corrupt. Our challenge is to play to the weaknesses of our enemy, notably their propensity for internal struggles, the distrust between the extremists/Arabs and the majority of Afghans, their limited ability to fight coordinated battles and their lack of external support. More importantly through is that we have to take steps not to play to their strengths, which would be to unite the entire population against us by increasing their suffering or killing innocents, to get bogged down trying to hold terrain, or to get into a battle of attrition chasing up and down mountain valleys. I have been asked how I would fight the war. This is a big question and well beyond my pay grade or expertise. And while I do not want to second guess current plans or start an academic debate I would share the following from what I know about Afghanistan and the Afghans. First, I would give the Northern Alliance a big wad of cash so that they can buy off a chunk of the Taliban army before winter. Second, also with this cash I would pay some guys to kill some of the Taliban leadership making it look like an inside job to spread distrust and build on existing discord. Third I would support the Northern alliance with military assets, but not take it over or adopt so high a profile as to undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of most Afghans. Fourth would be to give massive amounts of humanitarian aid and assistance to the Afghans in Pakistan in order to demonstrate our goodwill and to give these guys a reason to live rather than the choice between dying of starvation or dying fighting the "infidel." Fifth, start a series of public works projects in areas of the country not under Taliban control (these are much more than the press reports) again to demonstrate goodwill and that improvements come with peace. Sixth, I would consider vary carefully putting any female service members into Afghanistan proper-sorry to the females of our class but within that culture a man who allows a women to fight for him has zero respect, and we will need respect to gain the cooperation of Afghan allies. No Afghan will work with a man who fights with women. I would hold off from doing anything to dramatic in the new term, keeping a low level of covert action and pressure up over the winter, allowing this pressure to force open the fissions around the Taliban that were already developing. I expect that they will quickly turn on themselves and on OBL. We can pick up the pieces next summer, or the summer after. When we do "pick-up" the pieces I would make sure that we do so on the ground, "man to man." While I would never want to advocate American causalities, it is essential that we communicate to OBL and all others watching that we can and will "engage and destroy the enemy in close combat." As mentioned above, we should not try to gain or hold terrain, but Infantry operations against the enemy are essential. There can be no excuses after the defeat or lingering doubts in the minds of our enemies regarding American resolve and nothing, nothing will communicate this except for ground combat. And once this is all over, unlike in 1989 the US must provide continued long-term economic assistance to rebuild the country. While I have written too much already, I think it is also important to share a few things on the subject of brutality. Our opponents will not abide by the Geneva conventions. There will be no prisoners unless there is a chance that they can be ransomed or made part of a local prisoner exchange. During the war with the Soviets, videotapes were made of communist prisoners having their throats slit. Indeed, there did exist a "trade" in prisoners so that souvenir videos could be made by outsiders to take home with them. This practice has spread to the Philippines, Bosnia and Chechnya were similar videos are being made today and can be found on the web for those so inclined. We can expect our soldiers to be treated the same way. Sometime during this war I expect that we will see videos of US prisoners having their heads cut off. Our enemies will do this not only to demonstrate their "strength" to their followers, but also to cause us to overreact, to seek wholesale revenge against civilian populations and to turn this into the world wide religious war that they desperately want. This will be a test of our will and of our character. (For further collaboration of this type of activity please read Kipling). This will not be a pretty war; it will be a war of wills, of resolve and somewhat conversely of compassion and of a character. Towards our enemies, we must show a level of ruthlessness that has not been part of our military character for a long time. But to those who are not our enemies we must show a level of compassion probably unheard of during war. We should do this not for humanitarian reasons, even though there are many, but for shrewd military logic. For anyone who is still reading this way to long note, thanks for your patience. I will try to answer any questions that may arise in a more concise manner. Thanks, Richard Kidd(USMA '86) Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Thu Sep 27 15:01:24 2001 Received: from [192.168.49.2] (adsl-63-203-57-42.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.203.57.42]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8RM1NJ07542 for ; Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:01:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109272201.f8RM1NJ07542@phil.hintz.org> Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:01:57 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Hope you don't mind... Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: I have a small favor to ask. I have friends from overseas who are camping their way around the states and several European countries. They have asked me if I know where they might be able to go without spending large amounts of money. I said I would try my friends and family for accommodations. They travel light and bring all their own camping gear, and only require a small place to set up. I have given them your name and address anyway in anticipation that you won't mind. I have posted a picture to help in identification if they turn up. Thanks in advance. Here's that picture: http://www.hintz.org/media/Visiting_Friends.jpg Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 28 14:54:23 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8SLsMJ32539 for ; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:54:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109282154.f8SLsMJ32539@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:54:22 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Pit yourself against Miss America Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.brunching.com/toys/pageantquiz.html I did OK, although I missed 2 (I don't really follow what celebrities have diabetes, and just guessed on the supreme court justice one...) Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 28 17:24:55 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8T0OsJ14854 for ; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:24:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109290024.f8T0OsJ14854@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:24:55 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Fuel cells starting to pop up Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/2 8/BU122253.DTL&type=business Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Fri Sep 28 17:51:44 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f8T0piJ25735 for ; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:51:44 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200109290051.f8T0piJ25735@phil.hintz.org> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:51:44 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] UK paper-The Guardian-sings praises of The Onion Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,559304,00.html Truth is stranger than fiction... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Mon Oct 1 14:23:07 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f91LN7J25863 for ; Mon, 1 Oct 2001 14:23:07 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200110012123.f91LN7J25863@phil.hintz.org> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 14:23:08 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Fwd: CRYPTO-GRAM SPECIAL ISSUE, September 30, 2001 Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Bruce Schneier is one of the world's best known Cryptographers. He has a regular monthly email newsletter (Crypto-Gram) which discusses security in general, with a strong emphasis on digital security. I've personally attended talks presented by him twice, and continue to respect his incredible analysis and insight. In light of the 11th, he's issued a Crypto-Gram devoted to the issues at hand; his analysis of the new FAA regulations are excellent(he calls 'em snake oil, and I can't think of a more accurate description). He also covers the call for restriction of civil liberties, ways to improve intelligence gathering, and lots more. It's a lot of reading, but it's well worth it for some incredibly intelligent insight to the security angles and challenges ahead. ---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ---------------- Date: 9/30/01 6:10 PM Received: 10/1/01 9:00 AM From: Bruce Schneier, schneier@counterpane.com To: crypto-gram@chaparraltree.com CRYPTO-GRAM September 30, 2001 by Bruce Schneier Founder and CTO Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. schneier@counterpane.com A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on computer and network security. Back issues are available at . To subscribe, visit or send a blank message to crypto-gram-subscribe@chaparraltree.com. Copyright (c) 2001 by Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* This is a special issue of Crypto-Gram, devoted to the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. Please distribute this issue widely. In this issue: The Attacks Airline Security Regulations Biometrics in Airports Diagnosing Intelligence Failures Regulating Cryptography Terrorists and Steganography News Protecting Privacy and Liberty How to Help ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* The Attacks Watching the television on September 11, my primary reaction was amazement. The attacks were amazing in their diabolicalness and audacity: to hijack fuel-laden commercial airliners and fly them into buildings, killing thousands of innocent civilians. We'll probably never know if the attackers realized that the heat from the jet fuel would melt the steel supports and collapse the World Trade Center. It seems probable that they placed advantageous trades on the world's stock markets just before the attack. No one planned for an attack like this. We like to think that human beings don't make plans like this. I was impressed when al-Qaeda simultaneously bombed two American embassies in Africa. I was more impressed when they blew a 40-foot hole in an American warship. This attack makes those look like minor operations. The attacks were amazing in their complexity. Estimates are that the plan required about 50 people, at least 19 of them willing to die. It required training. It required logistical support. It required coordination. The sheer scope of the attack seems beyond the capability of a terrorist organization. The attacks rewrote the hijacking rule book. Responses to hijackings are built around this premise: get the plane on the ground so negotiations can begin. That's obsolete now. They rewrote the terrorism book, too. Al-Qaeda invented a new type of attacker. Historically, suicide bombers are young, single, fanatical, and have nothing to lose. These people were older and more experienced. They had marketable job skills. They lived in the U.S.: watched television, ate fast food, drank in bars. One left a wife and four children. It was also a new type of attack. One of the most difficult things about a terrorist operation is getting away. This attack neatly solved that problem. It also solved the technological problem. The United States spends billions of dollars on remote-controlled precision-guided munitions; al-Qaeda just finds morons willing to fly planes into skyscrapers. Finally, the attacks were amazing in their success. They weren't perfect. We know that 100% of the attempted hijackings were successful, and 75% of the hijacked planes successfully hit their targets. We don't know how many planned hijackings were aborted for one reason or another. What's most amazing is that the plan wasn't leaked. No one successfully defected. No one slipped up and gave the plan away. Al-Qaeda had assets in the U.S. for months, and managed to keep the plan secret. Often law enforcement has been lucky here; in this case we weren't. Rarely do you see an attack that changes the world's conception of attack, as these terrorist attacks changed the world's conception of what a terrorist attack can do. Nothing they did was novel, yet the attack was completely new. And our conception of defense must change as well. ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Airline Security Regulations Computer security experts have a lot of expertise that can be applied to the real world. First and foremost, we have well-developed senses of what security looks like. We can tell the difference between real security and snake oil. And the new airport security rules, put in place after September 11, look and smell a whole lot like snake oil. All the warning signs are there: new and unproven security measures, no real threat analysis, unsubstantiated security claims. The ban on cutting instruments is a perfect example. It's a knee-jerk reaction: the terrorists used small knives and box cutters, so we must ban them. And nail clippers, nail files, cigarette lighters, scissors (even small ones), tweezers, etc. But why isn't anyone asking the real questions: what is the threat, and how does turning an airplane into a kindergarten classroom reduce the threat? If the threat is hijacking, then the countermeasure doesn't protect against all the myriad of ways people can subdue the pilot and crew. Hasn't anyone heard of karate? Or broken bottles? Think about hiding small blades inside luggage. Or composite knives that don't show up on metal detectors. Parked cars now must be 300 feet from airport gates. Why? What security problem does this solve? Why doesn't the same problem imply that passenger drop-off and pick-up should also be that far away? Curbside check-in has been eliminated. What's the threat that this security measure has solved? Why, if the new threat is hijacking, are we suddenly worried about bombs? The rule limiting concourse access to ticketed passengers is another one that confuses me. What exactly is the threat here? Hijackers have to be on the planes they're trying to hijack to carry out their attack, so they have to have tickets. And anyone can call Priceline.com and "name their own price" for concourse access. Increased inspections -- of luggage, airplanes, airports -- seem like a good idea, although it's far from perfect. The biggest problem here is that the inspectors are poorly paid and, for the most part, poorly educated and trained. Other problems include the myriad ways to bypass the checkpoints -- numerous studies have found all sorts of violations -- and the impossibility of effectively inspecting everybody while maintaining the required throughput. Unidentified armed guards on select flights is another mildly effective idea: it's a small deterrent, because you never know if one is on the flight you want to hijack. Positive bag matching -- ensuring that a piece of luggage does not get loaded on the plane unless its owner boards the plane -- is actually a good security measure, but assumes that bombers have self-preservation as a guiding force. It is completely useless against suicide bombers. The worst security measure of them all is the photo ID requirement. This solves no security problem I can think of. It doesn't even identify people; any high school student can tell you how to get a fake ID. The requirement for this invasive and ineffective security measure is secret; the FAA won't send you the written regulations if you ask. Airlines are actually more stringent about this than the FAA requires, because the "security" measure solves a business problem for them. The real point of photo ID requirements is to prevent people from reselling tickets. Nonrefundable tickets used to be regularly advertised in the newspaper classifieds. Ads would read something like "Round trip, Boston to Chicago, 11/22 - 11/30, female, $50." Since the airlines didn't check ID but could notice gender, any female could buy the ticket and fly the route. Now this doesn't work. The airlines love this; they solved a problem of theirs, and got to blame the solution on FAA security requirements. Airline security measures are primarily designed to give the appearance of good security rather than the actuality. This makes sense, once you realize that the airlines' goal isn't so much to make the planes hard to hijack, as to make the passengers willing to fly. Of course airlines would prefer it if all their flights were perfectly safe, but actual hijackings and bombings are rare events and they know it. This is not to say that all airport security is useless, and that we'd be better off doing nothing. All security measures have benefits, and all have costs: money, inconvenience, etc. I would like to see some rational analysis of the costs and benefits, so we can get the most security for the resources we have. One basic snake-oil warning sign is the use of self-invented security measures, instead of expert-analyzed and time-tested ones. The closest the airlines have to experienced and expert analysis is El Al. Since 1948 they have been operating in and out of the most heavily terroristic areas of the planet, with phenomenal success. They implement some pretty heavy security measures. One thing they do is have reinforced, locked doors between their airplanes' cockpit and the passenger section. (Notice that this security measure is 1) expensive, and 2) not immediately perceptible to the passenger.) Another thing they do is place all cargo in decompression chambers before takeoff, to trigger bombs set to sense altitude. (Again, this is 1) expensive, and 2) imperceptible, so unattractive to American airlines.) Some of the things El Al does are so intrusive as to be unconstitutional in the U.S., but they let you take your pocketknife on board with you. Airline security: FAA on new security rules: A report on the rules' effectiveness: El Al's security measures: More thoughts on this topic: Two secret FAA documents on photo ID requirement, in text and GIF: Passenger profiling: A CATO Institute report: "The Cost of Antiterrorist Rhetoric," written well before September 11: I don't know if this is a good idea, but at least someone is thinking about the problem: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Biometrics in Airports You have to admit, it sounds like a good idea. Put cameras throughout airports and other public congregation areas, and have automatic face-recognition software continuously scan the crowd for suspected terrorists. When the software finds one, it alerts the authorities, who swoop down and arrest the bastards. Voila, we're safe once again. Reality is a lot more complicated; it always is. Biometrics is an effective authentication tool, and I've written about it before. There are three basic kinds of authentication: something you know (password, PIN code, secret handshake), something you have (door key, physical ticket into a concert, signet ring), and something you are (biometrics). Good security uses at least two different authentication types: an ATM card and a PIN code, computer access using both a password and a fingerprint reader, a security badge that includes a picture that a guard looks at. Implemented properly, biometrics can be an effective part of an access control system. I think it would be a great addition to airport security: identifying airline and airport personnel such as pilots, maintenance workers, etc. That's a problem biometrics can help solve. Using biometrics to pick terrorists out of crowds is a different kettle of fish. In the first case (employee identification), the biometric system has a straightforward problem: does this biometric belong to the person it claims to belong to? In the latter case (picking terrorists out of crowds), the system needs to solve a much harder problem: does this biometric belong to anyone in this large database of people? The difficulty of the latter problem increases the complexity of the identification, and leads to identification failures. Setting up the system is different for the two applications. In the first case, you can unambiguously know the reference biometric belongs to the correct person. In the latter case, you need to continually worry about the integrity of the biometric database. What happens if someone is wrongfully included in the database? What kind of right of appeal does he have? Getting reference biometrics is different, too. In the first case, you can initialize the system with a known, good biometric. If the biometric is face recognition, you can take good pictures of new employees when they are hired and enter them into the system. Terrorists are unlikely to pose for photo shoots. You might have a grainy picture of a terrorist, taken five years ago from 1000 yards away when he had a beard. Not nearly as useful. But even if all these technical problems were magically solved, it's still very difficult to make this kind of system work. The hardest problem is the false alarms. To explain why, I'm going to have to digress into statistics and explain the base rate fallacy. Suppose this magically effective face-recognition software is 99.99 percent accurate. That is, if someone is a terrorist, there is a 99.99 percent chance that the software indicates "terrorist," and if someone is not a terrorist, there is a 99.99 percent chance that the software indicates "non-terrorist." Assume that one in ten million flyers, on average, is a terrorist. Is the software any good? No. The software will generate 1000 false alarms for every one real terrorist. And every false alarm still means that all the security people go through all of their security procedures. Because the population of non-terrorists is so much larger than the number of terrorists, the test is useless. This result is counterintuitive and surprising, but it is correct. The false alarms in this kind of system render it mostly useless. It's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" increased 1000-fold. I say mostly useless, because it would have some positive effect. Once in a while, the system would correctly finger a frequent-flyer terrorist. But it's a system that has enormous costs: money to install, manpower to run, inconvenience to the millions of people incorrectly identified, successful lawsuits by some of those people, and a continued erosion of our civil liberties. And all the false alarms will inevitably lead those managing the system to distrust its results, leading to sloppiness and potentially costly mistakes. Ubiquitous harvesting of biometrics might sound like a good idea, but I just don't think it's worth it. Phil Agre on face-recognition biometrics: My original essay on biometrics: Face recognition useless in airports: According to a DARPA study, to detect 90 per cent of terrorists we'd need to raise an alarm for one in every three people passing through the airport. A company that is pushing this idea: A version of this article was published here: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Diagnosing Intelligence Failures It's clear that U.S. intelligence failed to provide adequate warning of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and that the FBI failed to prevent the attacks. It's also clear that there were all sorts of indications that the attacks were going to happen, and that there were all sorts of things that we could have noticed but didn't. Some have claimed that this was a massive intelligence failure, and that we should have known about and prevented the attacks. I am not convinced. There's a world of difference between intelligence data and intelligence information. In what I am sure is the mother of all investigations, the CIA, NSA, and FBI have uncovered all sorts of data from their files, data that clearly indicates that an attack was being planned. Maybe it even clearly indicates the nature of the attack, or the date. I'm sure lots of information is there, in files, intercepts, computer memory. Armed with the clarity of hindsight, it's easy to look at all the data and point to what's important and relevant. It's even easy to take all that important and relevant data and turn it into information. And it's real easy to take that information and construct a picture of what's going on. It's a lot harder to do before the fact. Most data is irrelevant, and most leads are false ones. How does anyone know which is the important one, that effort should be spent on this specific threat and not the thousands of others? So much data is collected -- the NSA sucks up an almost unimaginable quantity of electronic communications, the FBI gets innumerable leads and tips, and our allies pass all sorts of information to us -- that we can't possibly analyze it all. Imagine terrorists are hiding plans for attacks in the text of books in a large university library; you have no idea how many plans there are or where they are, and the library expands faster than you can possibly read it. Deciding what to look at is an impossible task, so a lot of good intelligence goes unlearned. We also don't have any context to judge the intelligence effort. How many terrorist attempts have been thwarted in the past year? How many groups are being tracked? If the CIA, NSA, and FBI succeed, no one ever knows. It's only in failure that they get any recognition. And it was a failure. Over the past couple of decades, the U.S. has relied more and more on high-tech electronic eavesdropping (SIGINT and COMINT) and less and less on old fashioned human intelligence (HUMINT). This only makes the analysis problem worse: too much data to look at, and not enough real-world context. Look at the intelligence failures of the past few years: failing to predict India's nuclear test, or the attack on the USS Cole, or the bombing of the two American embassies in Africa; concentrating on Wen Ho Lee to the exclusion of the real spies, like Robert Hanssen. But whatever the reason, we failed to prevent this terrorist attack. In the post mortem, I'm sure there will be changes in the way we collect and (most importantly) analyze anti-terrorist data. But calling this a massive intelligence failure is a disservice to those who are working to keep our country secure. Intelligence failure is an overreliance on eavesdropping and not enough on human intelligence: Another view: Too much electronic eavesdropping only makes things harder: Israel alerted the U.S. about attacks: Mostly retracted: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Regulating Cryptography In the wake of the devastating attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Senator Judd Gregg and other high-ranking government officials quickly seized on the opportunity to resurrect limits on strong encryption and key escrow systems that ensure government access to encrypted messages. I think this is a bad move. It will do little to thwart terrorist activities, while at the same time significantly reducing the security of our own critical infrastructure. We've been through these arguments before, but legislators seem to have short memories. Here's why trying to limit cryptography is bad for Internet security. One, you can't limit the spread of cryptography. Cryptography is mathematics, and you can't ban mathematics. All you can ban is a set of products that use that mathematics, but that is something quite different. Years ago, during the cryptography debates, an international crypto survey was completed; it listed almost a thousand products with strong cryptography from over a hundred countries. You might be able to control cryptography products in a handful of industrial countries, but that won't prevent criminals from importing them. You'd have to ban them in every country, and even then it won't be enough. Any terrorist organization with a modicum of skill can write its own cryptography software. And besides, what terrorist is going to pay attention to a legal ban? Two, any controls on the spread of cryptography hurt more than they help. Cryptography is one of the best security tools we have to protect our electronic world from harm: eavesdropping, unauthorized access, meddling, denial of service. Sure, by controlling the spread of cryptography you might be able to prevent some terrorist groups from using cryptography, but you'll also prevent bankers, hospitals, and air-traffic controllers from using it. (And, remember, the terrorists can always get the stuff elsewhere: see my first point.) We've got a lot of electronic infrastructure to protect, and we need all the cryptography we can get our hands on. If anything, we need to make strong cryptography more prevalent if companies continue to put our planet's critical infrastructure online. Three, key escrow doesn't work. Short refresher: this is the notion that companies should be forced to implement back doors in crypto products such that law enforcement, and only law enforcement, can peek in and eavesdrop on encrypted messages. Terrorists and criminals won't use it. (Again, see my first point.) Key escrow also makes it harder for the good guys to secure the important stuff. All key-escrow systems require the existence of a highly sensitive and highly available secret key or collection of keys that must be maintained in a secure manner over an extended time period. These systems must make decryption information quickly accessible to law enforcement agencies without notice to the key owners. Does anyone really think that we can build this kind of system securely? It would be a security engineering task of unbelievable magnitude, and I don't think we have a prayer of getting it right. We can't build a secure operating system, let alone a secure computer and secure network. Stockpiling keys in one place is a huge risk just waiting for attack or abuse. Whose digital security do you trust absolutely and without question, to protect every major secret of the nation? Which operating system would you use? Which firewall? Which applications? As attractive as it may sound, building a workable key-escrow system is beyond the current capabilities of computer engineering. Years ago, a group of colleagues and I wrote a paper outlining why key escrow is a bad idea. The arguments in the paper still stand, and I urge everyone to read it. It's not a particularly technical paper, but it lays out all the problems with building a secure, effective, scalable key-escrow infrastructure. The events of September 11 have convinced a lot of people that we live in dangerous times, and that we need more security than ever before. They're right; security has been dangerously lax in many areas of our society, including cyberspace. As more and more of our nation's critical infrastructure goes digital, we need to recognize cryptography as part of the solution and not as part of the problem. My old "Risks of Key Recovery" paper: Articles on this topic: Al-Qaeda did not use encryption to plan these attacks: Poll indicates that 72 percent of Americans believe that anti-encryption laws would be "somewhat" or "very" helpful in preventing a repeat of last week's terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. No indication of what percentage actually understood the question. ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Terrorists and Steganography Guess what? Al-Qaeda may use steganography. According to nameless "U.S. officials and experts" and "U.S. and foreign officials," terrorist groups are "hiding maps and photographs of terrorist targets and posting instructions for terrorist activities on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites." I've written about steganography in the past, and I don't want to spend much time retracing old ground. Simply, steganography is the science of hiding messages in messages. Typically, a message (either plaintext or, more cleverly, ciphertext) is encoded as tiny changes to the color of the pixels of a digital photograph. Or in imperceptible noise in an audio file. To the uninitiated observer, it's just a picture. But to the sender and receiver, there's a message hiding in there. It doesn't surprise me that terrorists are using this trick. The very aspects of steganography that make it unsuitable for normal corporate use make it ideally suited for terrorist use. Most importantly, it can be used in an electronic dead drop. If you read the FBI affidavit against Robert Hanssen, you learn how Hanssen communicated with his Russian handlers. They never met, but would leave messages, money, and documents for one another in plastic bags under a bridge. Hanssen's handler would leave a signal in a public place -- a chalk mark on a mailbox -- to indicate a waiting package. Hanssen would later collect the package. That's a dead drop. It has many advantages over a face-to-face meeting. One, the two parties are never seen together. Two, the two parties don't have to coordinate a rendezvous. Three, and most importantly, one party doesn't even have to know who the other one is (a definite advantage if one of them is arrested). Dead drops can be used to facilitate completely anonymous, asynchronous communications. Using steganography to embed a message in a pornographic image and posting it to a Usenet newsgroup is the cyberspace equivalent of a dead drop. To everyone else, it's just a picture. But to the receiver, there's a message in there waiting to be extracted. To make it work in practice, the terrorists would need to set up some sort of code. Just as Hanssen knew to collect his package when he saw the chalk mark, a virtual terrorist will need to know to look for his message. (He can't be expected to search every picture.) There are lots of ways to communicate a signal: timestamp on the message, an uncommon word in the subject line, etc. Use your imagination here; the possibilities are limitless. The effect is that the sender can transmit a message without ever communicating directly with the receiver. There is no e-mail between them, no remote logins, no instant messages. All that exists is a picture posted to a public forum, and then downloaded by anyone sufficiently enticed by the subject line (both third parties and the intended receiver of the secret message). So, what's a counter-espionage agency to do? There are the standard ways of finding steganographic messages, most of which involve looking for changes in traffic patterns. If Bin Laden is using pornographic images to embed his secret messages, it is unlikely these pictures are being taken in Afghanistan. They're probably downloaded from the Web. If the NSA can keep a database of images (wouldn't that be something?), then they can find ones with subtle changes in the low-order bits. If Bin Laden uses the same image to transmit multiple messages, the NSA could notice that. Otherwise, there's probably nothing the NSA can do. Dead drops, both real and virtual, can't be prevented. Why can't businesses use this? The primary reason is that legitimate businesses don't need dead drops. I remember hearing one company talk about a corporation embedding a steganographic message to its salespeople in a photo on the corporate Web page. Why not just send an encrypted e-mail? Because someone might notice the e-mail and know that the salespeople all got an encrypted message. So send a message every day: a real message when you need to, and a dummy message otherwise. This is a traffic analysis problem, and there are other techniques to solve it. Steganography just doesn't apply here. Steganography is good way for terrorist cells to communicate, allowing communication without any group knowing the identity of the other. There are other ways to build a dead drop in cyberspace. A spy can sign up for a free, anonymous e-mail account, for example. Bin Laden probably uses those too. News articles: My old essay on steganography: Study claims no steganography on eBay: Detecting steganography on the Internet: A version of this essay appeared on ZDnet: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* News I am not opposed to using force against the terrorists. I am not opposed to going to war -- for retribution, deterrence, and the restoration of the social contract -- assuming a suitable enemy can be identified. Occasionally, peace is something you have to fight for. But I think the use of force is far more complicated than most people realize. Our actions are important; messing this up will only make things worse. Written before September 11: A former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Laden has little to fear from American intelligence. And a Russian soldier discusses why war in Afghanistan will be a nightmare. A British soldier explains the same: Lessons from Britain on fighting terrorism: 1998 Esquire interview with Bin Ladin: Phil Agre's comments on these issues: Why technology can't save us: Hactivism exacts revenge for terrorist attacks: FBI reminds everyone that it's illegal: Hackers face life imprisonment under anti-terrorism act: Especially scary are the "advice or assistance" components. A security consultant could face life imprisonment, without parole, if he discovered and publicized a security hole that was later exploited by someone else. After all, without his "advice" about what the hole was, the attacker never would have accomplished his hack. Companies fear cyberterrorism: They're investing in security: Upgrading government computers to fight terrorism: Risks of cyberterrorism attacks against our electronic infrastructure: Now the complaint is that Bin Laden is NOT using high-tech communications: Larry Ellison is willing to give away the software to implement a national ID card. Security problems include: inaccurate information, insiders issuing fake cards (this happens with state drivers' licenses), vulnerability of the large database, potential privacy abuses, etc. And, of course, no trans-national terrorists would be listed in such a system, because they wouldn't be U.S. citizens. What do you expect from a company whose origins are intertwined with the CIA? ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* Protecting Privacy and Liberty Appalled by the recent hijackings, many Americans have declared themselves willing to give up civil liberties in the name of security. They've declared it so loudly that this trade-off seems to be a fait accompli. Article after article talks about the balance between privacy and security, discussing whether various increases of security are worth the privacy and civil-liberty losses. Rarely do I see a discussion about whether this linkage is a valid one. Security and privacy are not two sides of a teeter-totter. This association is simplistic and largely fallacious. It's easy and fast, but less effective, to increase security by taking away liberty. However, the best ways to increase security are not at the expense of privacy and liberty. It's easy to refute the notion that all security comes at the expense of liberty. Arming pilots, reinforcing cockpit doors, and teaching flight attendants karate are all examples of security measures that have no effect on individual privacy or liberties. So are better authentication of airport maintenance workers, or dead-man switches that force planes to automatically land at the closest airport, or armed air marshals traveling on flights. Liberty-depriving security measures are most often found when system designers failed to take security into account from the beginning. They're Band-aids, and evidence of bad security planning. When security is designed into a system, it can work without forcing people to give up their freedoms. Here's an example: securing a room. Option one: convert the room into an impregnable vault. Option two: put locks on the door, bars on the windows, and alarm everything. Option three: don't bother securing the room; instead, post a guard in the room who records the ID of everyone entering and makes sure they should be allowed in. Option one is the best, but is unrealistic. Impregnable vaults just don't exist, getting close is prohibitively expensive, and turning a room into a vault greatly lessens its usefulness as a room. Option two is the realistic best; combine the strengths of prevention, detection, and response to achieve resilient security. Option three is the worst. It's far more expensive than option two, and the most invasive and easiest to defeat of all three options. It's also a sure sign of bad planning; designers built the room, and only then realized that they needed security. Rather then spend the effort installing door locks and alarms, they took the easy way out and invaded people's privacy. A more complex example is Internet security. Preventive countermeasures help significantly against script kiddies, but fail against smart attackers. For a couple of years I have advocated detection and response to provide security on the Internet. This works; my company catches attackers -- both outside hackers and insiders -- all the time. We do it by monitoring the audit logs of network products: firewalls, IDSs, routers, servers, and applications. We don't eavesdrop on legitimate users or read traffic. We don't invade privacy. We monitor data about data, and find abuse that way. No civil liberties are violated. It's not perfect, but nothing is. Still, combined with preventive security products it is more effective, and more cost-effective, than anything else. The parallels between Internet security and global security are strong. All criminal investigation looks at surveillance records. The lowest-tech version of this is questioning witnesses. In this current investigation, the FBI is looking at airport videotapes, airline passenger records, flight school class records, financial records, etc. And the better job they can do examining these records, the more effective their investigation will be. There are copycat criminals and terrorists, who do what they've seen done before. To a large extent, this is what the hastily implemented security measures have tried to prevent. And there are the clever attackers, who invent new ways to attack people. This is what we saw on September 11. It's expensive, but we can build security to protect against yesterday's attacks. But we can't guarantee protection against tomorrow's attacks: the hacker attack that hasn't been invented, or the terrorist attack yet to be conceived. Demands for even more surveillance miss the point. The problem is not obtaining data, it's deciding which data is worth analyzing and then interpreting it. Everyone already leaves a wide audit trail as we go through life, and law enforcement can already access those records with search warrants. The FBI quickly pieced together the terrorists' identities and the last few months of their lives, once they knew where to look. If they had thrown up their hands and said that they couldn't figure out who did it or how, they might have a case for needing more surveillance data. But they didn't, and they don't. More data can even be counterproductive. The NSA and the CIA have been criticized for relying too much on signals intelligence, and not enough on human intelligence. The East German police collected data on four million East Germans, roughly a quarter of their population. Yet they did not foresee the peaceful overthrow of the Communist government because they invested heavily in data collection instead of data interpretation. We need more intelligence agents squatting on the ground in the Middle East arguing the Koran, not sitting in Washington arguing about wiretapping laws. People are willing to give up liberties for vague promises of security because they think they have no choice. What they're not being told is that they can have both. It would require people to say no to the FBI's power grab. It would require us to discard the easy answers in favor of thoughtful answers. It would require structuring incentives to improve overall security rather than simply decreasing its costs. Designing security into systems from the beginning, instead of tacking it on at the end, would give us the security we need, while preserving the civil liberties we hold dear. Some broad surveillance, in limited circumstances, might be warranted as a temporary measure. But we need to be careful that it remain temporary, and that we do not design surveillance into our electronic infrastructure. Thomas Jefferson once said: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Historically, liberties have always been a casualty of war, but a temporary casualty. This war -- a war without a clear enemy or end condition -- has the potential to turn into a permanent state of society. We need to design our security accordingly. The events of September 11th demonstrated the need for America to redesign our public infrastructures for security. Ignoring this need would be an additional tragedy. Quotes from U.S. government officials on the need to preserve liberty during this crisis: Quotes from editorial pages on the same need: Selected editorials: Schneier's comments in the UK: War and liberties: More on Ashcroft's anti-privacy initiatives: Editorial cartoon: Terrorists leave a broad electronic trail: National Review article from 1998: "Know nothings: U.S. intelligence failures stem from too much information, not enough understanding" A previous version of this essay appeared in the San Jose Mercury News: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* How to Help How can you help? Speak about the issues. Write to your elected officials. Contribute to organizations working on these issues. This week the United States Congress will act on the most sweeping proposal to extend the surveillance authority of the government since the end of the Cold War. If you value privacy, there are three steps you should take before you open your next email message: 1. Urge your representatives in Congress to protect privacy. - Call the White House switchboard at 202-224-3121. - Ask to be connected to the office of your Congressional representative. - When you are put through, say "May I please speak to the staff member who is working on the anti-terrorism legislation?" If that person is not available to speak with you, say "May I please leave a message?" - Briefly explain that you appreciate the efforts of your representative to address the challenges brought about by the September 11th tragedy, but it is your view that it would be a mistake to make any changes in the federal wiretap statute that do not respond to "the immediate threat of investigating or preventing terrorist acts." 2. Go to the In Defense of Freedom web site and endorse the statement: 3. Forward this message to at least five other people. We have less than 100 hours before Congress acts on legislation that will (a) significantly expand the use of Carnivore, (b) make computer hacking a form of terrorism, (c) expand electronic surveillance in routine criminal investigations, and (d) reduce government accountability. Please act now. More generally, I expect to see many pieces of legislation that will address these matters. Visit the following Web sites for up-to-date information on what is happening and what you can do to help. The Electronic Privacy Information Center: The Center for Democracy and Technology: The American Civil Liberties Union: ** *** ***** ******* *********** ************* CRYPTO-GRAM is a free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on computer security and cryptography. Back issues are available on . To subscribe, visit or send a blank message to crypto-gram-subscribe@chaparraltree.com. To unsubscribe, visit . Please feel free to forward CRYPTO-GRAM to colleagues and friends who will find it valuable. Permission is granted to reprint CRYPTO-GRAM, as long as it is reprinted in its entirety. CRYPTO-GRAM is written by Bruce Schneier. Schneier is founder and CTO of Counterpane Internet Security Inc., the author of "Secrets and Lies" and "Applied Cryptography," and an inventor of the Blowfish, Twofish, and Yarrow algorithms. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). He is a frequent writer and lecturer on computer security and cryptography. Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. is the world leader in Managed Security Monitoring. Counterpane's expert security analysts protect networks for Fortune 1000 companies world-wide. Copyright (c) 2001 by Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. ----------------- End Forwarded Message ----------------- Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Wed Oct 3 13:12:20 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f93KCKJ14068 for ; Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:12:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200110032012.f93KCKJ14068@phil.hintz.org> Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:12:21 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] Virus/urban legend warning tips Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Howdy all, Many of you are no doubt familiar with the form of interent noise masquerading as Terribly Important Virus Warnings. In IT we often get several of them per week, generally with a note at the top saying something like "I don't know if this is true or not, so I figured I'd send it to you". Allow me to pass on a few tips which may help you to ascertain the legitimacy of these messages. By and large, any message which implores you to forward it to everyone you know, should set off alarm bells in your mind. I can't recall the last time I received such a message that was legitimate, they are pretty much always a hoax. And I've been on the net using email since 1991, so there's plenty of history there... "How can I tell the difference", you might ask. Well, here's a very simple technique which you can use to identify nearly all of them in about 10 seconds: Lets say you get a mail saying that there's a new virus out which will leave smelly socks on your coffee table and drink the last beer in your 'fridge, just by opening a message with the subject "I Love your Llama". To find out in 10 seconds or less if this really will leave smelly socks on the coffee table and drink all your beer(a very serious consequence, I admit), open your web browser and proceed to your favorite search engine. Mine is http://www.google.com, but any search engine will do. Since this hypothetical example uses "I Love your Llama" as a subject, you would search for this text. In the event of it being a hoax, you will see page after page of links with titles like "I Love your Llama - virus Hoax". By and large, it will take you less time to debunk the hoax than it will to send a note to everyone you know and type the disclaimer ("I don't know if it's real, but I thought I'd send it anyway"). As a practical example of this, here is the google search result page for "an internet flower for you", a well known hoax: http://www.google.com/search?q=an+internet+flower+for+you Note the considerable number of links containing the word "hoax". This is a very good sign that this can be safely deleted rather than forwarded to everyone you've ever met, along with your congressional representatives and the email address for the local newspaper. On a more global scale, things to watch for in supposed virus warnings are: >Forward me to everyone! Trying to spread the hoax. >This was just discovered ten minutes ago! Trying to instill a sense of urgency: they want you to think it's Very Important so that you will quickly forward it instead of thinking about it or using your search engine. Don't let them do the thinking for you. >The Liberian Department of Defense says this is the worstest ever! Using some supposed authority to lend credence to the claim. If the message doesn't come with a link to the Liberian Department of Defense website (or Microsoft, or Symantec, or whomever is supposedly making the claim), it's likely bogus. Time to apply the search engine rule. >LOTS OF CAPITOL LETTERS!!!! LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! Real virus warnings are short on hype and long on details. Hoaxes are short on details and long on hype. Real virus warnings also tend to come with links to authoritative websites such as Symantec and McAfee. Should you get a message which manages to pass all of the above tests (won't happen very often, I assure you), feel free to forward them to your local IT desk or your local tech support guru for verification. I would recommend against forwarding them anywhere else until you've positively verified their accuracy. It's like the old adage about teaching a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig... Feel free to forward this message to anyone you want: consider it a public service announcement... Peace, Edmund A. Hintz **|** "You may say I'm a dreamer, Mac Techie, Unix Geek, * | * But I'm not the only one... Mac/Unix Consultant * /|\ * I hope someday you'll join us, */ | \* And the world will live as one. '78 Westy ***** Imagine." http://www.hintz.org From ed@hintz.org Wed Oct 3 16:16:57 2001 Received: from [192.168.10.40] (harshaw.natusmed.com [12.152.176.20]) by phil.hintz.org (8.10.1/8.10.1) with SMTP id f93NGvJ08535 for ; Wed, 3 Oct 2001 16:16:57 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200110032316.f93NGvJ08535@phil.hintz.org> Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 16:16:57 -0700 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: "Edmund A. Hintz" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Subject: [Promotum] WTC foodworkers relief effort-eat out on 10-11-01 Sender: promotum-admin@hintz.org Errors-To: promotum-admin@hintz.org X-BeenThere: promotum@hintz.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Latin: To push forward, move ahead, advance List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.windowsofhope.org What: Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund will provide aid to the families of victims of the World Trade Center tragedy who worked in the foodservice profession throughout the entire complex. David Emil, owner of Windows on the World, the restaurant's executive chef, Michael Lomonaco, Tom Valenti, Chef/Owner Ouest Restaurant, Waldy Malouf, Chef/Owner, Beacon Restaurant established the fund to be administered by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and David Berdon & Co. LLP. When: On Thursday, October 11, 2001, restaurants and food establishments throughout the world are asked to donate at least ten (10) percent of their evening's sales to the Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund. Any food service establishment, company or organization affiliated with the food and beverage industry, is welcome and encouraged to participate in this initiative, which will continue to provide support as long as needed for all families in the foodservice