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Line Noiz Issue 19
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BEGIN LINE_NOIZ.19
I S S U E - ! ( A U G U S T 2 6 , 1 9 9 4
>LiNE NOiZ<<< >>>LiNE NOiZ<
CYbERPUNk I N f O R M A t i 0 N E - Z i N E
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< L I N E N O i Z >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I S S U E - ! ( A U G U S T 2 6 , 1 9 9 4
: File !
: Intro to Issue 19
: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>
: File @
: Randy King InterView
: Joshua Lellis <joshua@server.dmccorp.com>
: File #
: Electronic Pocket Change And The Internet
: Steven Baker <informer@cris.com>
: File #
: Sci-Fi: Square One - Part 5
: Kipp Lightburn <ah804@freenet.carleton.ca>
: File $
: Heavy Duty - Prologue and Chapter One
: C.McLean-Campbell <cmc@cs.strath.ac.uk>
: File %
: Nibbles of Information
: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>
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--<----<----<----<----L - i - N - e ----- N - o - i - Z ---->---->---->---->--
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File - !
Things are going better now... I've got alot of stuff planned for next issue
that this time WILL be there, the subscription service seems to be working
now and hopefully I will be publishing an interview with Bill Leeb & Rhys
Fulber of FLA, Delerium, Intermix etc.
-Billy Biggs, editor.
***** N o T E ******
- We have been experiencing problems with our subscription list. If you
find that the following subscription instructions are not working then
e-mail me at ae687@freenet.carleton.ca and I'll see what I can do....
=-*-= Subscription Info =-*-=
o Subscriptions can be obtained by sending mail to: dodger@fubar.bk.psu.edu
With the words: Subscription LineNoiz <your address>
In the body of the letter.
o Back Issues can be recieved by sending mail to the same address with the
words BACK ISSUES in the subject.
=-*-= Submission Info =-*-=
o Please send any submissions to me: ae687@freenet.carleton.ca
o We accept Sci-Fi, opinions, reviews and anything else of interest.
o Please submit . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--<----<----<----<----L - i - N - e ----- N - o - i - Z ---->---->---->---->--
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File - @
From: joshua@server.dmccorp.com (Joshua Lellis)
Subject: Randy King InterView
(Recently, I got a chance to talk with Randy King, aka the infamous Taran
King, ex-editor of Phrack magazine. Mr. King gave permission for it to be
published in my zine (which has since died). So it shall be published
here in Line Noiz. You'll have to notice that every time it says Joshua
Lellis said:, it was a different message. So it may get confusing here
and there, because it was message after message of questions and answers.
I've tried my best to put it all together in an interview format.)
Joshua Lellis said:
> I never understood the EFF.
> Not that that matters. Cause I never understood how all these
> Phracks can be everywhere. Sites like rutgers and (?) EFF
> all keep the Phracks without any trouble from law enforcement
> hblahblah....8-)
There's nothing illegal about Phrack. Period. It is information. Lots of
information can be used in an illegal manner, it's just a matter of whether
you apply it or not. Much of the information in Phrack can be used in a
legal manner, specifically to avoid people abusing the holes that would
allow illegal activities to occur due to them. Whatever...you'll never see
anyone getting arrested for having Phrack on their BBS though.
> Do you have any idea what happened to Prophet or Mentor?
Rob (Prophet) I have not heard from since before the indictment. Poor guy
had already been on probation before the indictment, I think twice. He was
fucked from the beginning, and he didn't plead out a good deal. He owes a
ton of money. I hope things go well for him.
Loyd (Mentor) went on to write GURPS Hacker and some other stuff. He's not
working for Steve Jackson Games any more, but he's still on the nets. I
think you can find him at mentor@io.com. Good guy...
Joshua Lellis said:
> Did he [KL] get involved with the EFF through his trial?
Yes, this was when EFF was formed, although their aim has changed greatly since
that time. He worked for EFF as an intern for a while shortly thereafter.
> Well, there was Phrack #13 which was you and (I don't want to call
> him Craig because I don't really know him well) Knight Lightning
> going insane.... y'all just sat there (typical 90s term) dissing
> on phreakers and hackers that had certain terms in there names.
> Phantom PHREAKER. And all of that other stuff......
Well, some of it was good and some of it was crap. Actually, the parts you
didn't like, many people preferred to the rest of the issue and vice versa.
To each their own...
Randy
Joshua Lellis said:
> Do you still keep in touch with Knight Lightning? What's he doing nowadays?
Craig (KL) also lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area, and we are still
best friends and talk to each other usually at least once a day depending. He
is also working with wide-area networking. He can be reached via e-mail at
knight@eff.org (although he does not work at EFF any more).
> Welp, I'm not really what you'd call a hacker, or a phreaker for that matter.
> I couldn't find a good handle, still haven't. Oh, well....
> I prefer to read cyberpunk rather than involve myself.
Good call...8-) I prefer the same these days!
> I saw your picture [available at http://www.phantom.com/~king/] , and as
> usual with people who I don't know,
> it's nothing like I expected it to be.
If it makes you feel any better, when I originally got busted in 1987 for
stealing handsets from Southwestern Bell, I had hair down to my shoulders and
typical wardrobe consisted of concert shirts and torn jeans...
> What do you think about the new Phracks?
I think Erik Bloodaxe has done a decent job, although he has done things quite
differently than how I would have done them. But that's why he's who he is
and I'm who I am (and Craig's who he is, etc.). Every incarnation of Phrack
under each editorship has its plusses and minuses. The early Phracks are
certainly more silly and lacking in informmation than the latter ones, but at
the time, they were cutting edge. Some of the editors were more concerned with
simply getting issues out as opposed to getting them out looking decent and
readible, and some were concerned with having good quality information in each
issue as opposed to just information. Quite frankly, I am not on the
subscription list any more, although I have flipped through the last issue
that Bloodaxe put out. I'm just not as interested in RC commands and how to
enter them on an SCCS as I used to be...8-)
Joshua Lellis said:
> I think that Prophet didn't know what he was doing when he got the
> E911 document.
Sure he did, he just didn't think it was a big deal, neither did we. It was
some suck "filler" file...
> Did you have any say in whether or not that got
> electronically published inside Phrack? From the way Sterling
> described it inside THC:LaDotEF [The Hacker Crackdown: Law and
> Disorder on the Electronic Frontier] it sounded as
> though you weren't even an editor. It sounded as though Knight Lightning
> was the editor, and, oh yeah, don't forget Taran King, the
> co-editor.
No, I definitely had co-editorship. I did just as much in editing Phrack as
Craig did at the time, if not moreso depending on the timeframe. At that
time, though, I think Craig and Rob were talking directly through e-mail and
Rob sent it to Craig, and Craig spent the enormous amount of time it took to
make it semi-readable and formatted. I remember clearly that it was VERY
unreadable when we got it...
> What's phantom.com?
Mindvox, a public access Unix system. If you have IP connectivity, I think
you can telnet to phantom.com and login as guest to look around...
[Which, btw, I did. --JL]
> What newgroups do you read?
alt.2600, alt.2600.hope.*, alt.guitar.tab, alt.dcom.telecom, alt.dcom.isdn,
clari.living.bizarre, and dc.forsale.
Joshua Lellis said:
>
> It [the E911 document published in Phrack] was full of telco jargon and
> hard to read even as y'all
> edited it up so much. Basically all it said was that they were going
> to secure the 911 system so it was unbreakable for Phreaks, right?
No, it was an operational guide for the physics behind E911, like what happens
when a call comes in, who it goes to, that kind of thing (if I recall
correctly).
> But Prophet had so many copies of the E911 document out there
> on the internet, how did he expect not to get caught? He had,
> what, 6 copies (if I remember correctly from THC...) at one
> time.....
> Then he distrubuted it crazily through the InterNet via Phrack.
> But it was published under the psyedonym Evesdropper.
> So this Evesdropper chap has got to have the original copy,
> thinks an officer. So if Prophet has 6 copies sitting around
> his computer, are they going to arrest him? hmmmm.......
Not sure what you're getting at, but hackers are notorious for thinking they're
indestructable and immune to getting busted. Some seem to be...
> You play the guitar?
> Or do you just like reading the tabs? :-)
These days, it's more to find a song that I like the riff in that I haven't
been able to figure out. Usually, I just skip the whole thing. I just don't
have the time to play as much as I like to these days...
> About mentor@io.com, he's never logged in, and there's an address
> for him at Austin. He's apparently in a grunge band right now.
> And I couldn't finger knight@eff.org, probably some problem that I had
> with my computer. Darn bugs. Always get in the way. :-)
Nah, I think mentor@io.com has a .forward file or something, he should
eventually get the mail. You can't finger knight@eff.org because they're
filtering fingers nowadays. You can still mail him...
Joshua Lellis said:
> What music do you listen to?
Whatever sounds good, although it tends to be guitar-oriented stuff (not like
thrash metal or anything any more, but I do like the newer heavy metal stuff,
grunge, etc.). But then again, I like Peter Gabriel and Sting too, I just
don't play along when I listen to that...8-)
> EFF is paranoid, or something?
>
Nah, you'll notice many, many sites on the Internet now disabling finger. It
is a security precaution.
[That was the end of the mailing chat I had between Randy King and I.
Look for my upcoming column in Line Noiz.]
Joshua Lellis (joshua@server.dmccorp.com) is the author of _The_Alaskan_,
a novel about the electronic frontier and hackers. It is available via
request to the address.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Lellis -- joshua@server.dmccorp.com -- Joshua Lellis ..............
FidoNet: 1:106/6073 Joshua Lellis Other InterNet: ..............
joshua.lellis@yob.com ..............
..............
Instructions: find the hidden picture in the dots ..............
(Cheap imitation of a real .sig) ..............
(But who said Ascii Art had to be pretty) ..............
- - ..............
|*| |*| The Eyes Seem To Follow You, if you stare long ..............
- - enough. ..............
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----------------------L - i - N - E ----- N - o - i - Z ----------------------
File - #
From: informer@cris.com (Steven Baker)
Electronic Pocket Change And The Internet
by
Steven Elmer Baker
The Internet can be compared to a virtual community existing
half in our minds, and half on our monitors. Every day, we trade
ideas and make friends with people that we may never meet in the
real world. The similarities of the Internet community and our
physical neighborhoods ends somewhere around the time when we sleep
and eat. With the appearance of electronic cash (NetCash), the
list of things that we can do in both worlds we live in is getting
longer.
NetCash is distributed by The NetBank, which provides an
electronic payment system for merchants on the information
superhighway. Online Services, BBSes, and Shareware authors have
been limited in how they can accept payment because they cannot
easily accept cash. They can accept credit cards, bank account
debits, and prepayments. A few require you to call a 1-900 number
and repeat the code that you obtained from your call. These
methods all lack one aspect, the deal can only go one way. NetCash
allows people to trade virtual money for services, and receive
change back to spend elsewhere on the Net. NetBank feels that
since we carry Deutsche marks when we visit Germany, travelers of
the Net need to carry NetCash.
You start by calling 1-900-933-Cash with your modem and
agreeing to accepting the ten-dollar charge on your phone bill.
You are then given a coupon equal to a ten-dollar bill in NetCash.
A ten-dollar charge appears on your phone bill, and you have ten-
dollars worth of NetCash in exchange. Via Email, you can change
that ten-dollar bill into two fives, or ten ones. You can even
change down into quarters, providing the virtual equivalent of
electronic pocket change. The merchant that accepts the NetCash
eventually cashes it in for real money, and that is when a
surcharge is seen. NetBank attributes this surcharge (currently
around 20% for the vendor) to losing a little money due to exchange
rate differences.
Lets pretend you have decided to send me a one dollar bill in
NetCash. You would send me an electronic mail message with a
NetCash coupon that represents a one dollar bill:
------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Steven Baker
From: Loyal Fan
Subject: Donation of Admiration
Dear Steven,
Here is a tip for writing that hilariously funny article
in the National Review.
NetCash $ 1.00 E1234H5678W
Signed-
Loyal Fan
-------------------------------------------------------------------
After receiving the message from Loyal Fan, I would make
careful note of the NetCash coupon ID, keeping it secret from
anyone else who might decide to cash it in before I could. I would
then prepare an electronic message to send to NetBank, securing the
dollar bill that Loyal Fan sent me. If I trusted Loyal Fan, then
I could keep the same NetCash coupon he sent me -- but you should
never trust anyone with your NetCash unless you trust them with
your paper money. The person holding the current NetCash coupon is
responsible for its safety. NetBank supports PGP encryption to
secure the electronic funds from the prying eyes of Alt.2600 types.
The message I would send to NetBank would look like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To: NetBank
From: Steven Baker
Subject: Make it Mine
NetCash $ 1.00 E1234H5678W /Accept
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The NetBank will complete the transaction by confirming that
the NetCash coupon was valid. If the coupon you sent was good,
NetBank will record that this coupon has been spent and not allow
it to be used again. NetBank will issue a new NetCash coupon worth
one dollar and issue it to the merchant in a NetBank receipt.
There are no fees incurred by trading NetCash, as NetBank does not
charge for transactions processing.
To convert NetCash into spendable currency that we can use at
the shopping malls, we have to mail our NetCash coupons to a
NetBank merchant account. Anyone can establish a merchant account,
no matter why they are accepting NetCash. Once a month NetBank
will issue you a check for whatever amount has been deposited in
your merchant account. Once the money is cashed out of the
merchant account, a surcharge is charged for the use of the 1-900
number.
NetCash opens up a wide door of possibilities when it comes to
our electronic society. Shareware authors can receive payment through
email, and reply with a registered version of the program [a]ttached to
the message. Online services could offer yet one more alternative to
credit cards and account debiting. BBS Sysops could charge users on a
per-file basis, and with the upcoming project between CRIS and AT&T
(see next months article) -- electronic pocket change to spend on huge
multi-line nationwide BBS systems could be handy for the average user.
Instead of paying for access to ten different boards under a rigid level
system, a user could arm himself with ten dollars of NetCash. Some of
the money could be spent on adult GIFs, some on the latest game from ID,
and the rest spent on a chat-line. All of these services acquired on
different systems, but with the same ten-dollar bill being interchanged.
NetCash can be bought by check or money order, which
substantially reduces the amount of the surcharge. Once the check has
cleared, NetBank will electronically mail you your NetCash coupons.
Using the 1-900 number provides instant access to your money, but
prepaying by check or money order means that the draft has to clear
before the coupons are issued.
The Internet is a growing marketplace for information
providers. NetCash is an important, although not final step
towards bringing the world closer to a virtual online community.
For more information on NetCash and the NetBank program, send email
to Info@Agents.Com.
----------------------L - i - N - E ----- N - o - i - Z ----------------------
File - #
From: ah804@freenet.carleton.ca (Kipp Lightburn)
Square One - Pt.5
-----------------
The scent of blood pulls me out of confusion, and into instinct.
The flashes from their gunfire illuminate Goldie's shocked face
before it's torn in half. His bullet ridden body slumps to the floor. The
noise of metal on wood rings out over the gunshots, as the cyberware in
his head hits the ground.
I use the couch as a trampoline to compensate for my cumbersome,
metal, leg brace. My body finds its way on top of one of them. And the two
of us fall to the floor as I take him down for a death roll.
I throw my body weight behind my punch and find my hand sneaking
under his vest, and into his stomach. My fist swims through warm,
tranquil blood, and squeezes the heart into submission. The faceplate on
his helmet, frames his last look of confusion.
One of them looks across and down at us. He doubles over to the
ground, his helmet fills with vomit, and his body heaves.
Gun.
I take the gun from this ones hand. The gun levels itself at the
one doubled over and tears a hole from his hip to his shoulder. The
heaving stops.
The third corpse lets me know that Spiro isn't useless. I spin to
face the fourth as he and Spiro exchange ammunition. Two screams. Two
shots. Two corpses.
The smell of blood hangs rank in the air. The ceiling fans waft
the scent at me. They taunt me.
Calm.
The sound of bleeding is drowned out by the squeak of the front
door. She slowly steps in.
"When I said you guys could shack here, I should have said no
parties..." She grins slightly as she surveys the damage. I watch her
like a child watches his mother. Love and curiousity.
She walks toward me and stops as she sees the body I'm kneeling on
top of. Her eyes squeal with illness, but her body stands strong.
Confident.
She's standing in a pool of mismatched blood in hiking boots and a
white summer dress. "I guess this means I'm screwed if I want my damage
deposit back."
I strain to see her through these eyes that I'm still trying to get
used to. In a sea of death she stands confident.
"Who am I?" I give her my second thought.
"Kyle Raimi."
"Who are you?" I give her my first.
She tilts her head in confusion, the ceiling fan sits behind her
like a halo. Her hand extends in front of her to help me to my feet.
Touch. Skin. Warmth. Ecstasy.
"The street calls me Stick." Her head goes upright and her eyes
lock with mine. "Goldie said you'd be out of it, but I didn't think it'd
be this bad."
She looks back to see his body. Then to Spiro.
Her lips form the words, "Sweet Jesus".
We both hear the sudden rush of heavy boots and the creak of body
armor rushing up the stairs. Her eyes and lips go into a formation of
panic. I point to the bloody heap that was once a man named Goldie.
"Grab his computer," I say, "What floor are we on?"
She looks back at me astonished as her boots wade through the
blood, "The third." She scrapes up the keyboard and slings it over her
shoulder.
I limp to the window, dragging my brace behind me.
The crackle of a radio joins the footsteps as the cavalry gets
closer. The beast in me begs for the kills, craves the sweet aroma of
fresh spilt blood.
She rushes to my side and looks down. Her face calms pumping
adrenaline. Then she looks up at me her eyes shocked.
"You don't think I'm going to.." she manages before I wrap my
arms around her and push off with my good leg.
"Don't worry I've done this before."
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
|/ | [ email at ] -------------
|\IPP |_IGHTBURN [ ah804@freenet.carleton.ca ] -------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------L - i - N - E ----- N - o - i - Z ----------------------
File - $
From: cmc@cs.strath.ac.uk
HEAVY DUTY
C.McLean-Campbell
Series Editor: Peaches
Copyright 1994 Toaster Books. All Rights Reserved.
PROLOGUE: APRIL 30TH, 2013.
Heavy rain spattered the windscreen as Mr Taro Anzai parked the phone
company truck next to the big memorial bell.
He was in the centre of the wide concourse at the point where the
Kiryu Highway abruptly terminated. The sun was still low on the horizon and
the dawn was washed in sickly orange. He waited until the rain had stopped.
It was another cold bleary morning, much wetter and colder than the
mornings he remembered as a child. Further out, beyond the horizon, there
was a new volcano, near where the island of Kozu shima used to be. For the
first eight months of zero five the towering ash plume had been visible
from this spot. It was one of hundreds of volcanoes around the Pacific rim
that had spewed out vast quantities of ash into the atmosphere, drastically
affecting the climate.
Before he stepped out of the van, he took a last sip of Pansiron and
placed the empty bottle neatly in the dashboard. He hated the taste.
Seirogan was the hangover cure he usually bought but his local store was
all out. He rubbed his head and looked out across the Bay of Sadness. About
one hundred kilometres further out and half a kilometre down was the
drowned city of Tokyo.
Eight years was a long time but Mr Anzia still tried not to think
about the Big One, the series of earthquakes that had devastated the
Pacific Rim in zero five. Half the South Island of Japan was down there
beneath the Pacific. It wasn't alone. A bit of New Zealand was down there
too, but New Zealand had, like California across the Pacific Ocean, ended
up slightly bigger afterwards. Just to confound the experts.
The great bell had been cast in metal retrieved from Tokyo railway
after the quake. It was a simple design, spartan, without decoration other
than the large ideograph that meant 'sadness'. It was a memorial for the
dead, rung every year on the anniversary of the quake.
Taro could see the manhole cover at the side of the street. He'd
worked for NTT, the Japanese telephone company, for twenty two years, half
that time in this district alone, but he had never serviced the optical
ports in this section. He pulled on the thick gauntlets and flipped the
protective face mask down. He picked up the toolkit and held the spray can
at the ready. Old ducts often housed Onco-mice and he had no intention of
being bitten by one of those vicious little brutes. Onco-mice were
pandemic. They used to belong to some gaijin pharmaceutical company until
they'd escaped and carved a niche in the technical ductings throughout the
developed world. Passenger aircraft were a favourite habitat, but the
airlines would launch a PR offensive if an accusing finger ever pointed in
their direction. The hairless-mice were guaranteed to develop cancer. Out
in the nothing, that guarantee hadn't seemed to impair their ability to
breed like flies.
He turned the key and lifted the cover up. The interior lit up, and
Taro was cheered to see that the light still worked. He looked at the big
coils of optical cables. They were each five inches thick, old technology
just as he'd expected. At the bottom of the square hole there were some
mouse droppings, but no sign of mice. He fitted the long plastic tube to
the nozzle of the aerosol and then primed it with the integral pump. Using
the spray he sealed all four entrances into the duct with the formaldehyde
foam. No more mice for the moment, it would be a while before they chewed
their way back in. Each of the four cables met at the junction box where
they inserted into a large black optical switching unit. Each cable could
theoretically support half a million independent telephone calls both ways
and there could be at least two million connections in the duct. Since it
wasn't possible to check each individual telephone line, at least not
within Taro's lifetime, the company policy was to replace the old junction
box with a new one when the number of service complaints reached a specific
level. To the relief of the local customers, the district pareto-optimal
had occurred early that morning. The company now knew it was cost effective
to replace the junction.
He unpacked a new smaller model and put it down in a clear space
inside the duct while he released the lugs on the old one. As he wriggled
the old unit free, some stray yellow laser light flickered across his hand.
He looked at the two cables that clearly headed out under the bay towards
Tokyo. Most of the cables must be connected to phones and equipment that
had long ago succumbed to the deluge but somewhere some of the lines must
branch back into the north island or it could not have remained active.
Whatever it was, he wouldn't disconnect them without a clear instruction to
do so. If it ain't broke don't fix it, he thought. He finished the work
and, satisfied, locked the duct back in place. He climbed back into the van
and searched through the dashboard for the other bottle of Pansiron.
Twenty eight seconds later a telephone rang on the other side of the
planet.
HEAVY DUTY
Part one
In the text
of
the elephant's game
"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty
Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."
CHAPTER ONE.
"Don't tell God what to do." (Niels Bohr's retort to
Einstien's claim that, "God does not play dice."
Captain George Burns liked looking at hardcopy, especially diagrams. And
Lieutenant Schumacher always provided a neatly printed piece of hardcopy no
matter what the subject was. But hardcopy or not, Burns still had to hide
his disinterest when Schumacher knocked on his door and stepped in carrying
a sheaf of the stuff. Schumacher sometimes couldn't grasp that things he
found captivating were often dull and inconsequential to his colleagues.
He was the kind of frail skinny guy only useful to America's finest
as a SkyWatch analyst; he was too much of a nerd to be a marine. Nervous
and twitchy, Schumacher had been enough of an oddity for Burns to request
his record. It was hard to believe that the little guy had passed the
programme and was a fully qualified U.S. marine.
SkyWatch was similar to the old NORAD operation that the command
centre had originally been built for, except that it worked for the UN's
Globank and provided treaty monitoring. But it had muscle. And missiles. If
Skywatch said you couldn't fly then you couldn't fly.
"Yes lieutenant?" asked Burns looking at the piece of copy in
Schumacher's hands. Schumacher placed the photograph down on the desk.
"I guessed you'd definitely want to hear about this." he said,
trembling a little as he leaned over the desk, his voice losing the lower
octave at the end of the sentence. It was a picture of some land mass taken
from one of the satellites.
"It's a nice picture Schumacher. Is that it?"
"No sir, this is a picture requested by the department in Sweden to
monitor crop failure in the old Gold Coast. You know, the WarZone."
"Schumacher, I know where the 'Zone is."
The lieutenant leaned back a little but carried on speaking.
"Well, yesterday, ..uuh, that's when they requested it, there was a
four minute delay for the data. So I did a little checking this morning and
came up with some figures." Schumacher shuffled another piece of hardcopy
from the pile under his arm and spread it out onto the table. It was a
table of numbers.
"Schumacher if this is important just gimme the bottom line right
away, I don't know what I'm supposed to see in all these figures". Burns
reached under the paper and retrieved a pack of gum from its midst.
"Well, sir," began Schumacher," that's a table of the look positions
of all the satellites on that hemisphere and it turns out that not even one
of them was looking at the Gold Coast in that time period."
"So what's the big deal?" Burns lazily chewed on a stick of gum and
looked at the table. Schumacher drew a pen from his pocket and pointed to
the satellite photo.
"Well sir, maybe I should have said this first, but this print is a
full latitude box, see, fifteen degrees either side sir." He drew a line
with the pen.
"Okay, so it's a big picture? What of it?"
Schumacher glanced away and nervously touched his collar.
"Eh.. well sir, eh.. you see an area of that size is never out of
shot sir, it's always in the field of at least eighteen satellites,
geosynchronous or orbital." Schumacher looked at Burns waiting for another
interruption. Burns signalled him to hurry up.
"Eh.. well sir...ah um, you realise that it's physically impossible
for this section of the planet to ever be out of shot. I worked out the
probability of it occurring naturally and it turns out to be more than one
hundred million to one. I have the figures on that too, if you want to see
them?"
"I'll take your word for that Schumacher. Can you get on with it? How
can the satellites not be looking at an area they should be looking at?"
Schumacher looked around the room and out through the glass partition
at one of the women officers in the command area. Then he flicked his
fingers through his hair and spoke as quickly as he could. "Well it means
that someone made the satellites look away for four minutes. Someone
doesn't want us to look there, someone doesn't want us to see whatever it
is that's down there."
Burns stopped chewing, looked at the photo, then at the figures in
the table and then back at Schumacher. After a long period of silent
thought he said, "You're trying to tell me that someone is fucking with
eight hundred million dollars worth of communications equipment?" He didn't
wait for Schumacher to answer but continued, "Because if you want me to
believe it you're going to have to come up with something better than a
couple of sheets of paper and a mountain of numbers." He pushed the papers
back at Schumacher.
"But..but.." the lieutenant protested. Burns shook his head and
chewed the gum a little faster.
"No buts, lieutenant. Take it to Johnstone in security, just to cover
our asses. Unless you have something more substantial?"
Schumacher hesitated for a second then gathered up the papers,
saluted, and marched briskly from the office.
----------------------L - i - N - E ----- N - o - i - Z ----------------------
File - %
... n i b b l e s of information /by billy biggs
From: JeanBernard_Condat@Email.FranceNet.fr (JeanBernard Condat)
Subject: Forum Internet, Paris, 25 Octobre 1994
SEND ALL OVER THE NET -- SEND ALL OVER THE NET -- SEND ALL OVER THE NET
Forum Internet [Transpac]
Paris (France), October 25th, 1994
For the first time in the French history, you can assist at a major
event related to Internet in France. All the major people in the French
Internet community will assist to this day with a lot of incredible
new ideas like:
- the future of the most known W3 in the world (WebLouvre) with at this
time more than 310,000 connexions pro week;
- the developement of the first French CommerceNet service with free
Internet company descriptions and documentation request forms, etc.;
- the presentation of some Internet solutions for information providers
to paid all services with anonymous access;
- the *first international presentation* of CERN/MIT Web Protocol that
will unify worldwide writing of applications;
- all HTTP-secured solution and/or other security aspects of Internet;
- and major people live interviews...
If you need more informations, don't hesitate to send me an info request.
A brief book giving all publications/speacking/datas, etc. will be available
for this event.
--
| o \ o / _ o __| \ / |__ o _ \ o / o |
| /|\ | /\ ___\o '\o | o/` o/__ /\ | /|\ |
| /'\ /'\ | \ /) | ( \ /o\ / ) | (\ / | /'\ /`\ |
Jean-Bernard Condat, 47 rue des Rosiers, 93404 St-Ouen Cedex, France
Tel: +33147874083, Fax: +33149450129, Alphapage: +3336605050 code 0030006
Email: JeanBernard_Condat@Email.FranceNet.FR *or* an113309@anon.penet.fi
From: atomrec@primus.COM (Atomic Records)
Subject: RMI CD #2: now for sale!!!
First, for those of you who have no idea what the RMI Mind/Body
CD Project is...
The first Mind/Body CD project was a compilation of industrial
music by artists with access to the Internet. It featured 31
artists (one song each) for a total of 2 1/2 hours of music. 10
hours of submissions were received, and 12 people who
volunteered to be judges picked the top songs, which made it
onto the 2-CD set. That project has now sold out its initial
pressing of 1000 sets. It was written up in CD Review magazine,
will soon be written up in Jam and Alternative Press, and is
being played on national public radio in Canada (the "Brave New
Waves" program), among other radio stations, mostly college. It
may even get repressed: there's still a lot of interest in it.
Volume 2 is underway! 73 artists submitted 125 songs for a
total of 10 hours 15 minutes of music. 32 judges (with more to
come) will pick not only the music that will appear on the disc,
but the cover artwork too! 26 pieces of cover art were
submitted. The review period ends October 15th, and the CDs
will be pressed and shipped by late November or early December.
And now, for those of you who know what it is (i.e. everybody,
now that you've read the above paragraphs)...
Volume 2 is now for sale! The price is $10 per 2-CD set. For
that you will get:
o A beautiful color booklet, with the winners from the artwork
contest on the cover (and possibly inside)
o 2 CDs of the top picks. 2 1/2 hours of music!
o A groovy slimline jewel case
o The chance to support your friendly neighborhood net.artists
o Um... uh... shrinkwrap? Yeah.
As with the first Mind/Body project (and with
negativconcertland) (and every other net.project I've done) I
need money up front to pay for the pressing. That's why it's
for sale now, instead of late November when the CDs are expected
to be pressed and ready to ship. The idea is to get enough
money together by then (what, with procrastination and all) so
that the CD can be pressed as soon as the reviewers have made
their selections and the final master DATs have been put
together.
Let me know if you're interested, and how many sets you want,
and I'll calculate shipping and send you a total.
Steve Boswell
atomrec@primus.com
"Yo Chuck, I don't understand this, man! You gotta slow down, you're
losin' 'em! C'mon!" "Radio, suckers they won't play me!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--<----<----<----<----L - I - N - e ----- N - o - i - Z ---->---->---->---->--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Scheduled 4 upcomming issues: <<
<< >>
>> Interview: Bill Leeb & Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly, Delerium and <<
<< Intermix etc >>
>> Sci-Fi : Continuation of Heavy Duty <<
>> : Watch for a new section of Line Noiz devoted to cyberpunk >>
<< Sci-Fi <<
>> Story : The Church of the Cyber-Spiritualists ?!? >>
END LINE_NOIZ.19
--
+ Billy Biggs Ottawa, Canada | =itwouldbetheultimatetriumphofhumanreason=
+ ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca | =forthenwewouldknowthemindofGOD= S.Hawking
