SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.com http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #227 New Moon of June 8, 2013 Contents copyright 2013 by Thomas G. Digby, and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See the Creative Commons site at http://creativecommons.org/ for details. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. Details of how to sign up are at the end. ********************* Summer is a-coming in, or so goes the song, in an older version of the English language that this spelling checker doesn't really care for. The official starting date is either June 20 or 21, depending on what time zone you're in. But even though we aren't yet at the longest day of this year, we're already at the time of earliest sunrise, give or take a few days depending on your exact latitude (assuming you're in the Northern Hemisphere temperate zone). For the next few weeks sunrises and sunsets will both be getting later, until we reach the latest sunset around the end of June. After that sunsets will start getting earlier even as sunrises keep getting later. Something analogous happens at the other side of the year, with earliest sunset in early December and latest sunrise in early January. And no, the two situations are not exactly symmetrical, because of how Earth's orbit is not perfectly circular. A technical explanation of why this is so is beyond the scope of this article, but can probably be found on the Internet. Technical explanations of almost anything can probably be found on the Internet. ********************* Technical explanations of just about anything can be found on the Internet, even if whatever is being explained is unexplainable. Some of those explanations may, however, be wrong. Listings of which explanations are right and which are wrong may not be findable on the Internet. Well, they may, but such listings themselves may be wrong. Likewise for lists of lists, and lists of lists of lists ... You have to be careful on the Internet. ********************* And I have a confession to make. I may have been wrong on the Internet. No, I'm not going to give any details, except to say that the XKCD people have so far not contacted me about it. ********************* Memorial Day was a couple of weeks ago, leading to thoughts of the Indianapolis 500 auto race. That came hard on the heels of some news item about those self-driving cars Google and others are experimenting with. If the self-driving car technology does pan out, fewer and fewer people will have the experience of actually manually driving cars. Will this lead to a decline in interest in auto racing? It might, although one might note that horse racing is still popular even though fewer and fewer people in industrialized nations have any in-person interaction with horses nowadays. While thinking about all this I happened to look at the Wikipedia article on the different color flags they wave at the cars at race tracks. The article described quite a few different colors and combinations of colors, many of which I didn't know they had. But they didn't describe a whole bunch of other flags that someone could conceivably sneak into the venue and hypnotize (or otherwise induce) the flag-wavers into waving at the cars. So if, for example, they start waving a purple flag or the Jolly Roger or the Confederate Battle Flag at the cars during a race the drivers won't have a clue as to how to respond. Should they speed up or slow down? Check whether they've left their parking brakes on? If the cars aren't supposed to have parking brakes, check whether some have been installed by mistake? Likewise for turn signals? Maybe they should all turn around and race in the other direction, back to the starting line? Should they all stop, get out of their cars and start playing Calvinball? Have the rules expired, so they should all stop and have a meeting in the infield to decide new rules before continuing? Or maybe something else? Whatever they decide, somebody isn't going to like it. There will probably be spirited debate over the next few weeks or months. Stay tuned. ********************* Someone on another forum posted one of those email spam messages that consist of seemingly random words and phrases, sometimes with links pointing to Web sites full of similar random-seeming garbage. Why would the spammers bother with such, she asked. Various people gave explanations involving statistics and address verification and search-engine rankings and such. But something else occurred to me. I recall that back before computerized cryptography was common, when secret agents in the movies or in spy novels would make contact they would confirm that they had the right person by saying some nonsense phrase. The correct person would know to give a specific answer that anyone else would be unlikely to stumble on by chance. Also, certain code words would have special meanings when used in certain contexts. I haven't noticed any recent examples, perhaps because computers have made that kind of thing obsolete. Then again, it may just be because I haven't seen many spy movies recently. But now with all normal computer traffic being monitored by various government agencies (perhaps including some we haven't heard of yet) the secret agents may be turning to Internet spam as a secure channel. Say Secret Agent A wants to send a message to Secret Agent B. Agent A looks it up in their code book and finds the appropriate nonsense-sounding phrase with the meaning they want. They then send copies of that nonsense phrase out to millions of people, including Secret Agent B. Most people just ignore the message as spam. But since Secret Agent B's computer is programmed to be on the lookout for that specific phrase (among others) it notifies Agent B of the arrival of the message. Various counter-spies may have the network under surveillance, and may also pick up the message, but they have the needle-in-a-haystack problem. They have no way to tell which of the millions of junk messages flying hither and yon are significant. And even if they do trace a message back to Secret Agent A's computer, it could have been sent by a virus or something without Agent A's knowledge. So Internet spam becomes a relatively secure channel for secret messages. Have the people who make spy movies picked up on this yet? ********************* Something reminded me of the 1950's science fiction movie "This Island Earth". One of the gimmicks in that film was a communication device called an "interocitor". It looked sort of like an office desk with a triangular Yield sign sticking up out of the back. It was a video communicator, with the triangular thing being the screen. It may seem big and clunky by today's standards, but that was the technology they had in 1950's science fiction movies. One interesting feature was that the screen was equipped with something like death rays, whereby the person you were talking to could shoot at you. Now you might think that you could use one of these for when those annoying marketing people call about carpet cleaning or whatever. Just hit the button and Zap! No more annoying telemarketing calls. But look more closely at the description. In order for you to be able to shoot at telemarketers they would have to have an interocitor with the death-ray hardware. Just getting one for yourself would let others shoot at you, but wouldn't by itself let you shoot at anyone else. So why would anyone want one of these things? Maybe in a world with a strict code of honor like "No fair shooting at people if they can't shoot back" everyone would feel sort of obligated to have one and very few people would actually do anything drastic with it. Or maybe people would develop workarounds like standing off to the side of the screen when talking, perhaps using mirrors to make it look like they're front and center where they're supposed to be. This is assuming the death rays or whatever they are don't reflect off of mirrors. In the movie some of the people using the things weren't aware of the danger. Others were in a situation where they had no choice. And some may have figured that the people they would be talking with wouldn't want to harm them. So no, I don't think I would want an interocitor for telemarketers to call me on. But it would be tempting to pass a law requiring them to have something like it: "... to make an appointment to have your carpets cleaned, press 1. To get taken off our list, press 3. To zap us with death rays, press 5." That's something I'd like to see. But I'm not holding my breath. ********************* SORRY, RIGHT NUMBER In the dead of night The phone rings... And rings... And rings... "Hello?" Bright cheery voice: "Good morning! This is your three a.m. wake-up call." Not quite awake, I still manage to say That I didn't order any Three a.m. wake-up call. "We know that, but for only ten dollars a month You can cancel it." I thought I'd sent my money in for that already, But no, That had been to cancel Their two a.m. wake-up call. The three a.m. call was a new item Just added to their list Of "services". And they were planning others for the future At other hours of the night Along with don't-stay-in-the-shower-too-long calls Plus physical-fitness calls To keep you jogging Between the dinner table And the phone. I mumble something About answering machines And the voice grows angry: "That's...that's...restraint of trade! Listen, buster, you try that And we'll get an injunction so fast It'll make your head swim. And don't try anything funny Like letting it ring, either!" My mention of the bit In the Eighth Amendment about Cruel and unusual punishment Brings only scornful laughter: "We're exempt from all that stuff." My patience nears its end: "Law or no law, if this phone rings one more time I'm gonna rip it out by the roots And mail it to Timbuktu." SLAM!!! Ten minutes later Some delivery service calls With a special deal On mailing phones to Timbuktu In the middle of the night. So, the next time they call They'll get a recording: "The number you have reached Has been ripped out by the roots And mailed to Timbuktu. All of our overseas circuits are busy And calling Timbuktu is too expensive anyway But if you insist You may hold the line Until something becomes available." Only my friends will know That it's really An answering machine. Thomas G. Digby Entered 2345hr 2/22/84 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU There are two email lists, one that allows reader comments and one that does not. Both are linked from http://www.plergb.com/Mail_Lists/Silicon_Soapware_Zine-Pages.html and should be self-explanatory. If you are already receiving Silicon Soapware you can tell which list you are on by looking at the email headers. 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