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1994 Fools: CPSR/PDX 7 #3: Clipper, InfoBahn, SCN, Victoria
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 03:56:50 -0800 Reply-to: erikn@goldfish.mitron.tek.com From: erikn@goldfish.mitron.tek.com (Erik Nilsson) To: Multiple recipients of list <cpsr-announce@cpsr.org> Subject: CPSR/PDX 7 #3: Clipper, InfoBahn, SCN, Victoria ________________________________________________ ______________________________________________ /______________________________ /________________________________ __ ___ ___ ___ ___ __ / | | | | | / | | | \ \ / | |___| |___ |___| / |___| | | \/ | | | | \ / | | | /\ \__ | ___| | \ / | |__/ / \ _____________________________________ ___________________________________ /_________________________________________ Volume 7, #03 /___________________________________________ April 1, 1994 Table of Contents: Section a: National/World News [a 1] Clipper Chip to Be Made Mandatory for All Calling Cards, FBI Says [a 2] Intel Announces New Processor [a 3] New Programming Language Touted [a 4] Hazardous Cargo to Be Regulated on InfoBahn Section b: Metro/Northwest [b 1] SCN Will be Required to Pay Local Access Charges, PUC Rules [b 2] U S West Unveils New Service Section c: Commentary [c 1] Queen Victoria Got a Bum Rap _________________________ ________________________ /____________________________________________________ ___ /______________________________________________________ ___| CPSR/PDX | | Section a: |__/| National/World News [a 1] CLIPPER CHIP TO BE MADE MANDATORY FOR ALL CALLING CARDS, FBI SAYS FBI Agent Clement Samuals announced today the Clipper Chip Mark II, which, in FBI-proposed legislation, will be required in all Calling Cards. The new Clipper Chip has drastically lower power requirements, enabling it to be embedded into "Smart" cards. Microtrunx spokesperson Joyce James explained that a complete redesign of the Clipper Chip allows the Clipper Chip Mark II (CCM2) to perform at twice the speed of the original Clipper, in half the space with half the power. With "floating-point performance that is superior to Pentium," according to Ms. James. Why require CCM2 in calling cards? "Frankly, we see lost or stolen Calling Cards as one of the fastest-growing crime segments in America," said Mr. Samuals. "With the Clipper LEAF, we can electronically read the owner right off of the card, so we don't even need a search warrant to determine who a Calling Card belongs to. Lost Calling Cards can be mailed back to their owners before they even know they are missing," Mr. Samuals stated. "Also, it makes it a lot easier to track down illegal aliens, drug dealers, and child pornographers," Mr. Samuals added. CCM2 will have a different key escrow scheme than regular Clipper. Responding to criticism that the existing escrow agents are little more than NSA patsies, the escrow agents for CCM2 will be the Franciscan Friars. Under a program known as Automatic Locator Value Immediate Name Service (ALVINS), the "Chip Monks" will provide law enforcement personnel with binary keys from two separate monesteries. __________________________ /____________________________________________________ [a 2] INTEL ANNOUNCES NEW PROCESSOR Intel today announced what the company referred to as "the last member of the 486 family," the 486 RU. Increasing the trend toward more highly-integrated processors, the 486 RU has an unprecedented ability to regulate its own functions, and includes a novel "undo" feature, clearly aiming the processor at embedded applications. "Putting some redundancy at the hardware level allows for poor decision-making in higher-level functions, which can't always be relied on," said Intel spokesperson Tomson Hunter. "At Intel, we want to preserve designer's options. Maybe now just isn't the right time for you to start a Pentium-based product family. We understand." __________________________ /____________________________________________________ [a 3] NEW PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE TOUTED Dr. Ibanez Gibson of the California Institute of Technology (CIT) today announced a revolutionary new programming language called Suede. Suede is the first commercial programming language to incorporate ambiguity at a fundamental level. "Call it fuzzy logic, or what-have-you, Suede can express vague, poorly thought out, and downright ambiguous designs with unprecedented precision and power," said Dr. Gibson. Suede accomplishes this feat by using an inference engine that incorporates a "genderless connection model." This model allows what is called "homogeneous inheritance," allowing any object to establish a relationship with any other object. Controversy has sprung up around Suede almost immediately. "Suede is a fraud, and not a very clever one," claimed noted neural net expert Dr. Paul Lees. "Once a design is committed to code, the die is cast. No amount of learning can fundamentally change the structure. Sure a net will refine its behavior, but you can't turn vague feelings into a working thermostat," Dr. Lees fumed. Other concerns about Suede have focused on more mundane issues, such as limited platform support and a lack of good debugging tools. "A variety of platform ports are currently underway, and a powerful, graphical debugger will be standard with the upcoming professional edition that we are calling Ultrasuede," Dr. Gibson said. __________________________ /____________________________________________________ [a 4] HAZARDOUS CARGO TO BE REGULATED ON INFOBAHN Vice President Gore's office recently announced that "Commercial Hauler" licenses will be required to transport certain types of hazardous data on the Information Superhighway. Under the plan, the Transportation Department will license transporters of encryption tools, CAD systems capable of supporting more than 16 simultaneous users, and other, unspecified, items. "These items pose a special hazard to InfoBahn users," said Gore spokesperson Mitch James-Knerr. "We want to make sure a family out for a Sunday Internet spin isn't forced off the road by a high-bandwith application that requires special training to safely operate." Some items may not be permitted at all. "We're looking now at an outright ban on the transportation of Virus code," Mr. James-Knerr continued. Enforcement will be via a special endorsement to licensed hauler's IP packets, called the owner-extensions field (OX field). InfoBahn users who are caught transporting forbidden items without an OX field may be subject to fines, according to written material supplied by Mr. James-Knerr. "When will the outrage end!" asked privacy expert Allan Pohdgar. The OX is built-in government surveillance, and is completely unacceptable. I'm very disappointed with the Clinton administration's caving-in to spook interests. With great reluctance, I must attribute the OX to Gore." ______________________________ _____________________________ /_______________________________________________ /_________________________________________________ | CPSR/PDX |___ | | Section b: |___| Metro/Northwest [b 1] SCN WILL BE REQUIRED TO PAY LOCAL ACCESS CHARGES, PUC RULES The Washington Public Utility Commission (WPUC) has determined that as an "Interexchange Digital Common Carrier," Seattle Community Network (SCN) will have to pay local access charges to U S West for each caller, much like the charges long-distance companies pay. In addition, under the "Commercial Bypass" provision of the WPUC's tariffs, SCN will have to pay a lesser charge to U S West for each on-line user at the Seattle Public Library. U S West spokesperson Mark Edsaud described the ruling as "Fair, principled, visionary, and brilliant." Mr. Edsaud explained that the charges of $0.25/minute will compensate U S West for lost long-distance access fees resulting from SCN's users communicating with people outside of Washington. "This will help make sure we can afford to provide lifeline fiber service moving forward," Mr. Edsaud stated. _______________________________ /_______________________________________________ [b 2] U S WEST UNVEILS NEW SERVICE U S West today announced a new service called Community Network. Community Network will "allow people to form on-line communities in the privacy of their own homes," according to U S West spokesperson Paul Johnson-Sauk. Based on CLASS services, Community Network allows people to log in to an "on-line virtual information-highway cyberspace mall" via a low cost terminal. Purchases will appear automatically on users' monthly phone bill. The system is designed to be easy to use. "For example," said Mr. Johnson-Sauk, "no passwords are required, since your login is your billing name, cross-referenced via CNI, the same information used for Caller-ID." There is also a toll-free voice-response help system users can call if they have problems. "This is our way of giving back to the community," stated Mr. Johnson-Sauk. "We understand two strip-malls that were to have blighted Lynnwood have been canceled already." ____________________________________ __________________________________ /__________________________________________ /____________________________________________ ___ CPSR/PDX | Section c: |___ Commentary [c 1] QUEEN VICTORIA GOT A BUM RAP Queen Victoria's reputation as a humorless prude has been weighing on my mind. That wasn't the way it was at all. Now, I'm going to tell you about the real Victoria. Full of lust for life, she married Prince Albert, a vigorous man whose organ of generation was so enormous, he had it pierced to prevent its interference with horsemanship, in a manner that bears his name to this day. Victoria's days were spent with the dashing Albert, attending the affairs of state or riding magnificent mounts in the pursuit of foxes. In the evenings, they attended the theater and stupendous parties. Victoria's nights were consumed by another kind of mounting, wherein she and Albert practiced the amorous arts. His ring-crowned member undoubtedly gave her great pleasure, as the procedure has remained popular only for this reason. They slept in late, wore great clothes, and reigned over the most powerful nation on earth. They lived the lives of rockstar industrialist demigods. Without question, Victoria and Albert _ruled_. How cruel was fate to have taken her prince, when so much of her life was still before her! Victoria built Albert a memorial concert hall, so he would be remembered forever by smartly dressed concertgoers. In front of the hall, she built a great fountain. Well-endowed, bare-breasted maidens representing the corners of the British Empire bore gifts to the massive central column, forever looking up in adoration at it. After Albert died, Victoria took the captain of the guard as lover, He was anything but Albert's equal, although he was a decent horseman. She dressed like a gothic, surrounded herself with musicians and moody artists, and spent her days with her girlfriends in gloomy games and sexual experiments. When presented with a law outlawing homosexuality, she without hesitation rewrote it to exempt women. Victoria drank heavily, and developed a nasty laudanum jones. Her caustic wit and commanding presence never left her though, and made her the terror of court: a mere glance could cause grown men to lose bowel control. She had mostly contempt for the inadequate creatures around her. They tried to find her new husbands, but Victoria owed her heart to a dead man, and her body's hungers were sated by arrangements she chose for herself. If life mocked her, she would mock life back, a black-swathed, free-living pleasure junkie presiding sarcastically over the most morally narcissic nation on earth at that time. Victoria screwed them all, in the end. She lived as she pleased, if not as she wanted. And that's pretty much how it happened, at least as well as I can remember. ____________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ /_________________________ /___________________________ Editor: Erik Nilsson Contributing Editors: Copy Editor: Andrea Rodakowski Winston Smith Mabel Humbert _______________________________________________ Helen Bach _____________________________________________ /_______________________________ CPSR/PDX is published approximately monthly /_________________________________ by CPSR/Portland. Subscription to CPSR/PDX Copyright 1994, CPSR/Portland. is free. No advertising is accepted. For Permission to reproduce part or all correspondence or subscription requests, of CPSR/PDX is granted to non-profit send e-mail to erikn@cpsr.org publishers, as long as material is ______________________________________ properly attributed to CPSR/PDX. ____________________________________ /________________________________________ /__________________________________________
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