Re: Things we remember...
Robert Carnegie
> In article <hd250e$1641$2...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
> Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> >In article <KspGH...@kithrup.com>,
> >Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Somewhere in the back of my brain I have a story (which I will
> >>almost certainly never write, because the necessary neurons have
> >>retired on active duty) set in a time after people have gotten so
> >>inter-connected that civilization damnear breaks down, and they
> >>splinter into small groups that communicate by word of mouth
> >>among themselves, hardly ever with other groups.
> >
> >There is a theory that says this has already happened.
>
> Heh. Not to the extent that I've been visualizing.
ObSF <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Such_a_Beautiful_Day>
(Asimov)
or <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops> (Forster)
...partly. In those scenarios, people do communicate. Also in _Ralph
124C41+_, although the international vision-radio-phone takes a long
time to make the connection and then it's a wrong number. (But
Ralphie still gets a date). Today there's Skype with video.
Also, if you have a fan interest in something then you'll meet or
communicate with other with whom you have in common only that,
mainly. You'll be taken out of your tribe. Or are you considering a
"society" - losing the right to that word - where your tribe identity
fixes all your interests?
There's another novel where the shock ending is that the alien culture
that once sent slow interstellar missiles at us has evolved away from
intelligence since their machinery for physical needs no longer
requires intelligence to use it.
Don Aitken
Another twist on communication technology; I remember a story
(probably Van Vogt, around 1940) in which the protagonist has someone
from the telephone company come round to his house to give him the
message that there is a long-distance call waiting for him, and will
he please come round to the exchange. I presumed that telephone
companies at that time actually did this, unlikely though it seems.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Robert Carnegie
> On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:45:57 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
>
>
>
>
>
> <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> >Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >> Garrett Wollman <woll...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> >> >In article <KspGHC....@kithrup.com>,
If they couldn't implement long distance to a subscriber's home - but
still kind of surprising that they don't phone him. Or, am I missing
this, he /isn't/ a telephone subscriber, but they can, I dunno,
telegraph you to gcome to the phone. And the phone may be in the next
town over. In a small town... where his neighbours either don't want
to talk to him, or they just come find him.
John
"Don Aitken" <don-a...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:a5ccf51r34o18s8fa...@4ax.com...
Wait... he *met* a *human being* from a *phone company*?
Those science fiction writers. What are they on?
cryptoguy
> "Don Aitken" <don-ait...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
>
> news:a5ccf51r34o18s8fa...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:45:57 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
> > <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >>> Garrett Wollman <woll...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> >>> >In article <KspGHC....@kithrup.com>,
Did he have a wire plugged into his heel?
Seriously, not recieving, but making LD calls has, in some times and
places, involved this kind of arrangement. Back in 1985, I visited
Estonia, then part of the USSR. Someone in our group had to make an
urgent overseas call, outside the bloc.
They had to pre-arrange it at the post office, to get a timeslot on
one of the few international lines, and make the call from there.
Presumably this also gave the PO time to schedule a KGB unit to listen
in.
pt
erilar
"John" <jo...@junk.com> wrote:
> "Don Aitken" <don-a...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
> > Another twist on communication technology; I remember a story
> > (probably Van Vogt, around 1940) in which the protagonist has someone
> > from the telephone company come round to his house to give him the
> > message that there is a long-distance call waiting for him, and will
> > he please come round to the exchange. I presumed that telephone
> > companies at that time actually did this, unlikely though it seems.
> >
>
> Wait... he *met* a *human being* from a *phone company*?
> Those science fiction writers. What are they on?
In 1940 there only WERE human beings at phone companies. Fancy
switching systems came much later.
--
Erilar, biblioholic
bib-li-o-hol-ism [<Gr biblion] n. [BIBLIO + HOLISM] books, of books:
habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire, and consume books in excess.
Garrett Wollman
erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In 1940 there only WERE human beings at phone companies. Fancy
>switching systems came much later.
In 1940? Nonsense. Step-by-step was already decades old, although
for a long time AT&T refused to license the Strowger patents. Panel
was developed in the 1920s, and the #1 crossbar was introduced in the
late 1930s.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Mike Ash
<ebbff093-bc7e-48d9...@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seriously, not recieving, but making LD calls has, in some times and
> places, involved this kind of arrangement. Back in 1985, I visited
> Estonia, then part of the USSR. Someone in our group had to make an
> urgent overseas call, outside the bloc.
>
> They had to pre-arrange it at the post office, to get a timeslot on
> one of the few international lines, and make the call from there.
> Presumably this also gave the PO time to schedule a KGB unit to listen
> in.
I'm reminded of this hilarious story, where in the protagonist has to
deal with 1960s German bureaucracy for making international phone calls,
and subsequently discovers that not all pay phones are created equal:
http://www.yarchive.net/phone/german_phone_68.html
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
Juho Julkunen
@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>, cryptoguy (treif...@gmail.com)
says...
> They had to pre-arrange it at the post office, to get a timeslot on
> one of the few international lines, and make the call from there.
> Presumably this also gave the PO time to schedule a KGB unit to listen
> in.
Ah, those more innocent times. In a couple of weeks Swedes will start
to monitor all electronic communications through Sweden. Most Finnish
telecom goes that way, and not a little of Russian.
That's right: in Sweden, the email reads KGB. And you.
--
Juho Julkunen
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, I'd rather be read by the Swedes than the KGB.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Juho Julkunen
(djh...@kithrup.com) says...
> In article <MPG.25682bb83...@news.kolumbus.fi>,
> Juho Julkunen <giao...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >In article <ebbff093-bc7e-48d9-a356-f30c3d4b2468
> >@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>, cryptoguy (treif...@gmail.com)
> >says...
> >
> >> They had to pre-arrange it at the post office, to get a timeslot on
> >> one of the few international lines, and make the call from there.
> >> Presumably this also gave the PO time to schedule a KGB unit to listen
> >> in.
> >
> >Ah, those more innocent times. In a couple of weeks Swedes will start
> >to monitor all electronic communications through Sweden. Most Finnish
> >telecom goes that way, and not a little of Russian.
> >
> >That's right: in Sweden, the email reads KGB. And you.
>
> Well, I'd rather be read by the Swedes than the KGB.
Hey, just send me (or any Swede or Finn) an email in December and
you've got it.
--
Juho Julkunen
Don Aitken
In the course of the great "cable-vetting" scandal, back in the 1970s,
it emerged, not only that the British government was routinely keeping
copies of *all* international cable traffic from to or via the UK, but
also that it had *always* done so, as far back as anybody could
discover. There was speculation that the practice went back to the
laying of the first cross-channel cable, in the 1840s. There never
were any "innocent times"; when governments have the ability to
accumulate information about things, they do.
Garrett Wollman
Juho Julkunen <giao...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Hey, just send me (or any Swede or Finn) an email in December and
>you've got it.
You're not allowed to use STARTTLS?
Juho Julkunen
(wol...@bimajority.org) says...
> In article <MPG.2568a5f3a...@news.kolumbus.fi>,
> Juho Julkunen <giao...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Hey, just send me (or any Swede or Finn) an email in December and
> >you've got it.
>
> You're not allowed to use STARTTLS?
Oh, sure. No need to make things easy on them. Got to keep that new
supercomputer of theirs busy.
--
Juho Julkunen
Szymon Sokół
You seriously believe the Swedes have thrown more computing power at that
than NSA has? :-) Or do you believe there are some backdoors in popular
ciphers (those used in SSL/TLS protocols) that the Swedish government knows
about, but the general audience doesn't?
--
Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B
Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O
http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F
Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H
Juho Julkunen
Sok=C3=B3=C5=82?= (szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl) says...
> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:45:40 +0200, Juho Julkunen wrote:
>
> > In article <hdmp02$1r4q$2...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>, Garrett Wollman
> > (wol...@bimajority.org) says...
> >> In article <MPG.2568a5f3a...@news.kolumbus.fi>,
> >> Juho Julkunen <giao...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>Hey, just send me (or any Swede or Finn) an email in December and
> >>>you've got it.
> >>
> >> You're not allowed to use STARTTLS?
> >
> > Oh, sure. No need to make things easy on them. Got to keep that new
> > supercomputer of theirs busy.
>
> You seriously believe the Swedes have thrown more computing power at that
> than NSA has? :-) Or do you believe there are some backdoors in popular
> ciphers (those used in SSL/TLS protocols) that the Swedish government knows
> about, but the general audience doesn't?
No, but they are right next to me, sitting on the internet backbone
virtually all my net traffic goes through, and have openly expressed
their intent to (potentially) keep tabs on it. I don't really need a
Swedish storebror, even if I'm not likely to be high on their list.
And I would have hoped that my government would be better able to put
pressure on Sweden than on USA, but they apparently didn't even bother
to try, even though the Swedes said they wouldn't share the data with
Finnish officials.
Well, for now, anyway.
--
Juho Julkunen
Szymon Sokół
> No, but they are right next to me, sitting on the internet backbone
> virtually all my net traffic goes through, and have openly expressed
> their intent to (potentially) keep tabs on it. I don't really need a
> Swedish storebror, even if I'm not likely to be high on their list.
If I understand correctly, "storebror" is Swedish for "Big Brother", right?
> And I would have hoped that my government would be better able to put
> pressure on Sweden than on USA, but they apparently didn't even bother
> to try, even though the Swedes said they wouldn't share the data with
> Finnish officials.
>
> Well, for now, anyway.
Ah... I would actually be more scared if they promised to share the data
with my government.
erilar
wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
> In article <drache-D6B432....@news.eternal-september.org>,
> erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> >In 1940 there only WERE human beings at phone companies. Fancy
> >switching systems came much later.
>
> In 1940? Nonsense. Step-by-step was already decades old, although
> for a long time AT&T refused to license the Strowger patents. Panel
> was developed in the 1920s, and the #1 crossbar was introduced in the
> late 1930s.
Must have been in bigger places than I lived in until many years later.
We always had to go through an operator. Maybe she had switches? And
it was always a "she".
cryptoguy
> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:52:17 +0200, Juho Julkunen
>
> >says...
>
> >> They had to pre-arrange it at the post office, to get a timeslot on
> >> one of the few international lines, and make the call from there.
> >> Presumably this also gave the PO time to schedule a KGB unit to listen
> >> in.
>
> >Ah, those more innocent times. In a couple of weeks Swedes will start
> >to monitor all electronic communications through Sweden. Most Finnish
> >telecom goes that way, and not a little of Russian.
>
> >That's right: in Sweden, the email reads KGB. And you.
>
> In the course of the great "cable-vetting" scandal, back in the 1970s,
> it emerged, not only that the British government was routinely keeping
> copies of *all* international cable traffic from to or via the UK, but
> also that it had *always* done so, as far back as anybody could
> discover. There was speculation that the practice went back to the
> laying of the first cross-channel cable, in the 1840s. There never
> were any "innocent times"; when governments have the ability to
> accumulate information about things, they do.
I can think of one counterexample; though its dated, and noted mainly
for its singularity
From Wikipedia "Black Chamber":
- start quote -
The Black Chamber, otherwise known as MI-8 or Cipher Bureau, was the
United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization, and a
forerunner of the National Security Agency.
[...]
Headed by Herbert O. Yardley (1889–1958), it was founded immediately
following World War I.
[...]
In 1929, the State Department withdrew its share of the funding, the
Army declined to bear the entire load, and the Black Chamber closed
down MI-8. In his much later memoirs, then new Secretary of State
Henry L. Stimson said that: "Gentlemen do not read each other's
mail."
- end quote -
pt
Juho Julkunen
Sok=C3=B3=C5=82?= (szy...@bastard.operator.from.hell.pl) says...
> On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:01:04 +0200, Juho Julkunen wrote:
>
> > No, but they are right next to me, sitting on the internet backbone
> > virtually all my net traffic goes through, and have openly expressed
> > their intent to (potentially) keep tabs on it. I don't really need a
> > Swedish storebror, even if I'm not likely to be high on their list.
>
> If I understand correctly, "storebror" is Swedish for "Big Brother", right?
Right.
>
> > And I would have hoped that my government would be better able to put
> > pressure on Sweden than on USA, but they apparently didn't even bother
> > to try, even though the Swedes said they wouldn't share the data with
> > Finnish officials.
> >
> > Well, for now, anyway.
>
> Ah... I would actually be more scared if they promised to share the data
> with my government.
Me too. But since they didn't, I almost expected my government to care
about my privacy as they had no contrary interest. I really should have
known better by now.
There is once again the problem whether I should attribute their
inaction to incompetence or malice. I mean, they just might not know
what to do. Or then they might figure the big companies use encryption
anyway so their financial interests aren't threatened, small fry and
citizens don't count, and there's at least a possibility of information
sharing somewhere down the road.
--
Juho Julkunen
Don Aitken
<dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In article <hdkdr7$140g$1...@grapevine.csail.mit.edu>,
> wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>
>> In article <drache-D6B432....@news.eternal-september.org>,
>> erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> >In 1940 there only WERE human beings at phone companies. Fancy
>> >switching systems came much later.
>>
>> In 1940? Nonsense. Step-by-step was already decades old, although
>> for a long time AT&T refused to license the Strowger patents. Panel
>> was developed in the 1920s, and the #1 crossbar was introduced in the
>> late 1930s.
>
>Must have been in bigger places than I lived in until many years later.
>We always had to go through an operator. Maybe she had switches? And
>it was always a "she".
It was "she" right from the beginning of public telephony, which
provided a great expansion of employment opportunities for women. The
fact which made it acceptable was that the parents of the young women
concerned could be assured that they never actually met the customers.
John F. Eldredge
I have read that the earliest telephone operators were teenaged boys,
many of whom had formerly served as telegraph couriers. The phone
company soon replaced them with young women, however, as the boys were
prone to playing practical jokes with the equipment.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
William December Starr
"John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com> said:
> I have read that the earliest telephone operators were teenaged
> boys, many of whom had formerly served as telegraph couriers. The
> phone company soon replaced them with young women, however, as the
> boys were prone to playing practical jokes with the equipment.
Also, the young women were more fun to sexually harass.
-- wds (for the mean and/or median sexual harasser)