Fuck the literature, it's all about the attitude
Subtle Brick
As much as I enjoy reading cyberpunk ("I'm sure they'll listen to REASON"),
it's an attitude first, genre later. Cyberpunk authors carry a certain
style in their works, a stance towards technology and society. Their
characters tend to reflect this attitude, the use of tech for your own
ends, an electronic middle finger to burecracy.
Despite what you may have heard about cyberpunk dying, and usenet roasting
it's stinking corpse over the fire, there are still plenty of people who
have the attitude in their everyday lives.
Let's break it down. C-Y-B-E-R P-U-N-K
Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
than the quietism of the hippies.
Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
reference to anything hi tech.
It's not about reading books, sitting in an air conditioned room and
masturbating into super-soft three ply toilet paper... It's about GETTING
OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES. As the punk says, "D.I.Y."
Shit, or get off the pot. Stop dreaming about how kewl it would be and do
it.
Adios.
Snoogy
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote in message .
Stop dreaming about how kewl it would be and do it.
Cheerz man, think you might have just given me a new philosophy for facing
life with.
ghost
Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
wow. Is it fall already? School must be starting up .....
Ah yes. Full of piss and vinegar, mostly vinegar.
Now, I'm not sure how long you've managed to lurk around here but ya
know, a lot of us are very DIY and have done quite a bit.
the group next door have published a book (alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
anthology), several of those members are also musicians of various kinds
- one of them an old hippie (well, he's ALMOST a hippie) with a some
kickass music (Dvusmedia) and is anything buy quiet (man, can he be long
winded)
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here? Are you saying we
should go out and live our lives? Or maybe just go break stuff so we can
"give the middle finger" to beauracracy.
Personally, I'm a little more subtle than that most times. The
occasional handgrenage is helpful, but garrot's are much more, personal.
See ... take it this way, the other side of all that literary shit in CP
is the simple task of survival. Anywhere, anyhow, do what it takes. Some
of us have dipped under the radar, put our militant tendencies into a
small locker and quietly sneak through the backhallways getting what we
need. And no one pays attention to us, and still we change a thing or
two here and there... so quiet and subtle like. You know, like the first
half of your nick.
ghost
~/~ I Am The Voices In Your Head ~/~
www.accanthology.com ~/~ www.bitstreamnet.com
Matthew Brabbin
> Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
>
> Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
> than the quietism of the hippies.
There's much more to it than that. It's a stance towards society,
sure, but mostly it's about bringing down "the establishment",
whatever that establishment might be. Right now the only
establishments I'm subjected to are the U.S. government and school.
Neither of those have really hurt me so far, so why go out creating
stuff that could potentially get me arrested? Perhaps, one day, I'll
have something worth risking my comfortable stance to fight against.
That's why cyberpunk novels in general are set in the future: you can
create corrupt establishments that give the main character a goal. In
real life, it's not always so cookie-cut.
> Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> reference to anything hi tech.
This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
> It's not about reading books, sitting in an air conditioned room and
> masturbating into super-soft three ply toilet paper... It's about GETTING
> OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES. As the punk says, "D.I.Y."
What an unusual phrase... o_o
I'm sorry, but Cyberpunk is a literary genre. Anything else is
malicious, antisocial agressive behavior. Okay, I can understand if
you live in some communist, opressed totalitarian nation, and are
using technology to fight against that. But in most of the world
that's civilized enough for you to have a computer and access to the
internet, there's NO excuse for this kind of attitude. Anyone who
thinks like that needs to grow up.
Subtle Brick
> > In article <EC7f9.4853$Y3.9...@news.xtra.co.nz>,
> > Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> >
> > Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
> > than the quietism of the hippies.
>
> There's much more to it than that. It's a stance towards society,
> sure, but mostly it's about bringing down "the establishment",
> whatever that establishment might be. Right now the only
> establishments I'm subjected to are the U.S. government and school.
> Neither of those have really hurt me so far, so why go out creating
> stuff that could potentially get me arrested? Perhaps, one day, I'll
> have something worth risking my comfortable stance to fight against.
> That's why cyberpunk novels in general are set in the future: you can
> create corrupt establishments that give the main character a goal. In
> real life, it's not always so cookie-cut.
WTF!!! If you can't find anything around you worth fighting, for or
against.... if you don't look around you and find see that things are
fucked up... if you have no sense of FUN... society is in a worse state
than some cyberpunk dystopian novel and we have 'progressed' to a Brave New
World.
Except we don't take drugs like soma. That would be bad. We full our minds
full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
> > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > reference to anything hi tech.
>
> This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise about.
Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
It doesn't mean being 31337, it means *thinking*.
> > It's not about reading books, sitting in an air conditioned room and
> > masturbating into super-soft three ply toilet paper... It's about
> > GETTING OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES. As the punk says, "D.I.Y."
>
> What an unusual phrase... o_o
>
> I'm sorry, but Cyberpunk is a literary genre. Anything else is
> malicious, antisocial agressive behavior. Okay, I can understand if
> you live in some communist, opressed totalitarian nation, and are
> using technology to fight against that. But in most of the world
> that's civilized enough for you to have a computer and access to the
> internet, there's NO excuse for this kind of attitude. Anyone who
> thinks like that needs to grow up.
Malicious... antisocial... aggressive... Oh dear, does your mom know
you're using the internet?
Now let me tell you something: You represent everything I find depressing
about society today. Comfortably obese AmeriKKKans who have nothing to
complain about but how "there's never anything good on cable" while wiping
their ass on the one page international section of their local newspaper.
I'm suprised you bother to get up in the morning.
Wouldn't it be easier to just... die? Much less effort than actually doing
anything.
ghost
Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> Matthew Brabbin wrote:
>
> > > In article <EC7f9.4853$Y3.9...@news.xtra.co.nz>,
> > > Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
> > > than the quietism of the hippies.
> >
> > There's much more to it than that. It's a stance towards society,
> > sure, but mostly it's about bringing down "the establishment",
> > whatever that establishment might be. Right now the only
> > establishments I'm subjected to are the U.S. government and school.
> > Neither of those have really hurt me so far, so why go out creating
> > stuff that could potentially get me arrested? Perhaps, one day, I'll
> > have something worth risking my comfortable stance to fight against.
> > That's why cyberpunk novels in general are set in the future: you can
> > create corrupt establishments that give the main character a goal. In
> > real life, it's not always so cookie-cut.
>
> WTF!!! If you can't find anything around you worth fighting, for or
> against.... if you don't look around you and find see that things are
> fucked up... if you have no sense of FUN... society is in a worse state
> than some cyberpunk dystopian novel and we have 'progressed' to a Brave New
> World.
>
> Except we don't take drugs like soma. That would be bad. We full our minds
> full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
So, your solution is to fight and dismantle society. Sounds childish.
Personally, I'm all for change but I like to work through the change in
a more positive manner - makes it more socially acceptable and I really
am working for the betterment of society... mostly.
> > > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > > reference to anything hi tech.
> >
> > This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
>
> That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise about.
> Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
> ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
> ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
So, give us an example of how you use technology creatively to get what
you want/need/desire/whatever ...
Of course, you ar making a fairly common mistake. Cyberpunk was, always
has been and will continue to be a literary movement. What you think
Gibson does the shit he writes about? Fuck no. Shirley is more street
punk that anything but he's in it for the cool music. Many are simply
the academic type and wouldn't last much more than thirty three seconds
in their own creative worlds I'm sure.
Hell, about a year and some months ago several of us decided to meet F2F
in SanFran ... turns out I was pretty much the most punk looking of that
lot that showed and I'm not all that punk. Mostly we were students and
20somethings (with a few exceptions) into the literary side of life and
into computers in general.
Just because you can envision a future doesn't mean you want to be part
of it or even make it happen. Personally I wouldn't really want to live
in the future of Neuromancer, sounds too much like the average person
gets trashed even further than normal. And average people make society
turn from day to day. Visionaries are generally only good for a short
push and quick twist - at best.
alias
> Matthew Brabbin wrote:
>
> > > In article <EC7f9.4853$Y3.9...@news.xtra.co.nz>,
> > > Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
> > > than the quietism of the hippies.
> >
> > There's much more to it than that. It's a stance towards society,
> > sure, but mostly it's about bringing down "the establishment",
> > whatever that establishment might be. Right now the only
> > establishments I'm subjected to are the U.S. government and school.
> > Neither of those have really hurt me so far, so why go out creating
> > stuff that could potentially get me arrested? Perhaps, one day, I'll
> > have something worth risking my comfortable stance to fight against.
> > That's why cyberpunk novels in general are set in the future: you can
> > create corrupt establishments that give the main character a goal. In
> > real life, it's not always so cookie-cut.
>
> WTF!!! If you can't find anything around you worth fighting, for or
> against.... if you don't look around you and find see that things are
> fucked up... if you have no sense of FUN... society is in a worse state
> than some cyberpunk dystopian novel and we have 'progressed' to a Brave New
> World.
>
> Except we don't take drugs like soma. That would be bad. We full our minds
> full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
punk rock won't save the world.. at best it will save urs. but yelling
at em ain't gonna help much.. not everyones a true believer.
>
> > > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > > reference to anything hi tech.
> >
> > This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
>
> That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise about.
> Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
> ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
> ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
heh.. u know alot about those games for a guy that doesn't play em ; )
> > I'm sorry, but Cyberpunk is a literary genre. Anything else is
> > malicious, antisocial agressive behavior. Okay, I can understand if
> > you live in some communist, opressed totalitarian nation, and are
> > using technology to fight against that. But in most of the world
> > that's civilized enough for you to have a computer and access to the
> > internet, there's NO excuse for this kind of attitude. Anyone who
> > thinks like that needs to grow up.
>
> Malicious... antisocial... aggressive... Oh dear, does your mom know
> you're using the internet?
>
> Now let me tell you something: You represent everything I find depressing
> about society today. Comfortably obese AmeriKKKans who have nothing to
> complain about but how "there's never anything good on cable" while wiping
> their ass on the one page international section of their local newspaper.
> I'm suprised you bother to get up in the morning.
>
> Wouldn't it be easier to just... die? Much less effort than actually doing
> anything.
yeah, thats it.. now ur doing some good. maybe if u insult and berate
them enough they'll see the light huh? is that the plan?
get it together.. and if ur so DIY hardcore then get on with it and
recruit elsewhere.. ur not accomplishing much here.
..
alias
>
Subtle Brick
minds
> > full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
>
> So, your solution is to fight and dismantle society. Sounds childish.
> Personally, I'm all for change but I like to work through the change in
> a more positive manner - makes it more socially acceptable and I really
> am working for the betterment of society... mostly.
Why would I care about society? Is it even worth 'saving'? What I care about
is getting my kicks, and if I happen to enjoy fighting against things that
piss me off, so be it... but screw trying to take the moral high ground.
Morality is an intellectual crutch for people that don't want to face the
fact that they do stuff because they like it, and don't do stuff because
they dislike it.
> > > > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > > > reference to anything hi tech.
> > >
> > > This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
> >
> > That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise
about.
> > Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
> > ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
> > ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
>
> So, give us an example of how you use technology creatively to get what
> you want/need/desire/whatever ...
Heh. Let's play... "My Dick Is Bigger Than Yours".
Blueboxing, social engineering, sticking a lockpick rake to a vibrator with
duct tape. That's what interests me. Ideas in cyberpunk fiction as they can
be adapted to *real life* and used.
> Of course, you ar making a fairly common mistake. Cyberpunk was, always
> has been and will continue to be a literary movement. What you think
> Gibson does the shit he writes about? Fuck no. Shirley is more street
> punk that anything but he's in it for the cool music. Many are simply
> the academic type and wouldn't last much more than thirty three seconds
> in their own creative worlds I'm sure.
I don't disagree that it's a literary genre, I disagree that that's ALL it
is. I disagree with people posting their opinions on cyberpunk culture
without ever having done anything.
Subtle Brick
minds
> > full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
>
> punk rock won't save the world.. at best it will save urs. but yelling
> at em ain't gonna help much.. not everyones a true believer.
>
If wanted to save the world why would I waste my time on usenet?
> > > > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > > > reference to anything hi tech.
> > >
> > > This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
> >
> > That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise
about.
> > Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
> > ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
> > ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
>
> heh.. u know alot about those games for a guy that doesn't play em ; )
>
I know people who know someone who heard about this guy that played.
Let's get one thing straight. I do what I do for me. I insult and berate
because stupidity pisses me off. And as for recruiting, what am I going to
do with an army of couch zombies?
Penile Warlust
news:trminlx-1F7374...@ool-4352306a.dyn.optonline.net...
> In article <Bzsf9.5177$Y3.10...@news.xtra.co.nz>,
> Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
.
>
> So, give us an example of how you use technology creatively to get what
> you want/need/desire/whatever ...
>
Hacking up 40 1960's style TV's in your garage to play a mind-bending game
of Quake.
Writing Linux device drivers for Nintento Power-Gloves.
Using your Atari to control International telecommunications links.
Making a lock-pick gun out of britsles from a street-cleaning truck and a
vibrator. (SB's Idea)
Dismantling your key-board and making a data-glove to go with your under
$100 Wearable Computer.
Using a dictaphone to record car-wreaking machines to use in REAL industrial
music.
Modding your Web-Cam to be a night-vision system.
Exploring man-made underground tunnel systems with a modified skateboard.
That sort of thing.
Don't take the "punk" bit to seriously, the way I seen it, only certian
attutudes got absorbed from Punk,
IE: DIY, making a pair of pants out of 16 old tea-towels, that sort of
thing.
I totally agree with Subtle Brick... That's what Cyber-Punk means to me,
aswell.
ghost
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> > > Except we don't take drugs like soma. That would be bad. We full our
> minds
> > > full of American sitcoms ( Which I hold YOU personally responsible for)
> >
> > So, your solution is to fight and dismantle society. Sounds childish.
> > Personally, I'm all for change but I like to work through the change in
> > a more positive manner - makes it more socially acceptable and I really
> > am working for the betterment of society... mostly.
>
> Why would I care about society? Is it even worth 'saving'? What I care about
> is getting my kicks, and if I happen to enjoy fighting against things that
> piss me off, so be it... but screw trying to take the moral high ground.
> Morality is an intellectual crutch for people that don't want to face the
> fact that they do stuff because they like it, and don't do stuff because
> they dislike it.
Maybe I like making reality and society a better place.
> > > > > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > > > > reference to anything hi tech.
> > > >
> > > > This means being a 1337 haxxor. Give me a break.
> > >
> > > That mean getting a clue. About the technology you like to fantasise
> about.
> > > Instead of breathing heavily, rolling dice over GURPS manuals and
> > > ejacultating whenever you get a critical hit. Use technology in creative
> > > ways, ways it wasn't supposed to be used.
> >
> > So, give us an example of how you use technology creatively to get what
> > you want/need/desire/whatever ...
>
> Heh. Let's play... "My Dick Is Bigger Than Yours".
>
> Blueboxing, social engineering, sticking a lockpick rake to a vibrator with
> duct tape. That's what interests me. Ideas in cyberpunk fiction as they can
> be adapted to *real life* and used.
I'm not trying to get into a dick waving contest - I wanted some
examples of how you've applied the "cyberpunk" movement to real life.
You seem really up on convincing us that you are truly hardcore. Just
wanted to see what you've done .. I mean, are you into SRL style
extravaganza? Maybe you're writing your own OS for your home computers.
Maybe you program all your own shit for an already established OS. Maybe
you work in hardware. Maybe on cars. Maybe you've got one really tricked
out scooter. Fuck all if I know what you do, beyond shoot your mouth off.
And Blue Boxing went out in the 80s. good luck getting a Blue Box to
work on a modern ESS or through a digital PBX. Do you even know what the
Voice Range is on a modern phone line and how far above/below the Data
Range extends?
I can think of much better uses for a vibrator that creating a lockpick
with it, they all involve my girlfriend. What exactly do I need to break
into anyway? Most of us grew out of BnE a while back.
> > Of course, you ar making a fairly common mistake. Cyberpunk was, always
> > has been and will continue to be a literary movement. What you think
> > Gibson does the shit he writes about? Fuck no. Shirley is more street
> > punk that anything but he's in it for the cool music. Many are simply
> > the academic type and wouldn't last much more than thirty three seconds
> > in their own creative worlds I'm sure.
>
> I don't disagree that it's a literary genre, I disagree that that's ALL it
> is. I disagree with people posting their opinions on cyberpunk culture
> without ever having done anything.
And herein lies the fundanmental problem. No one left in here is really
into the "Cyberpunk Culture" .. we're into the Literature. We've long
since all gone off in our own cultural preferences - some of which might
have labels applied to them, some may not see readily identified. Some
might overlap the sense of what Cyberpunk might be, or was.
So what do you do with your life? Got any hobbies?
Subtle Brick
> Maybe I like making reality and society a better place.
Good luck, sincerely. Personally I have too low opinion of society to
bother.
> >
> > Blueboxing, social engineering, sticking a lockpick rake to a vibrator
with
> > duct tape. That's what interests me. Ideas in cyberpunk fiction as they
can
> > be adapted to *real life* and used.
>
> I'm not trying to get into a dick waving contest - I wanted some
> examples of how you've applied the "cyberpunk" movement to real life.
> You seem really up on convincing us that you are truly hardcore. Just
> wanted to see what you've done .. I mean, are you into SRL style
> extravaganza? Maybe you're writing your own OS for your home computers.
> Maybe you program all your own shit for an already established OS. Maybe
> you work in hardware. Maybe on cars. Maybe you've got one really tricked
> out scooter. Fuck all if I know what you do, beyond shoot your mouth off.
Current long term project is making a 3D VR style security pentration
interface. Why? Because it's cool. Then I can release it and watch the
resulting chaos from software that really does turn cracking into a game.
> And Blue Boxing went out in the 80s. good luck getting a Blue Box to
> work on a modern ESS or through a digital PBX. Do you even know what the
> Voice Range is on a modern phone line and how far above/below the Data
> Range extends?
Do you have any idea what you are fucking talking about? DO YOU?
Jesus christ, not every country has has a digital exchange, e.g. Guam or the
Cook Islands. Direct dial to guam, get the Guam operator, break the trunk.
Don't believe everything you read in TIME:: The cyberpunk issue. ESS and
Common Channel Interoffice Signaling only prevents blueboxing where it is
implemented.
Off hand I have no idea "what the Voice Range is on a modern phone line and
how far above/below the Data Range extends", nor do I need to know. What I
do know is that ~2600 is not out of band and you can still break old trunks
with it.
> I can think of much better uses for a vibrator that creating a lockpick
> with it, they all involve my girlfriend. What exactly do I need to break
> into anyway? Most of us grew out of BnE a while back.
Obviously you've missed the point. The fact that you have no locks you want
to open is exactly the problem. Besides, the great thing about duct tape as
that you can take the rake off and use it for both. Or leave it on,
whichever you prefer.
> > I don't disagree that it's a literary genre, I disagree that that's ALL
it
> > is. I disagree with people posting their opinions on cyberpunk culture
> > without ever having done anything.
>
> And herein lies the fundanmental problem. No one left in here is really
> into the "Cyberpunk Culture" .. we're into the Literature. We've long
> since all gone off in our own cultural preferences - some of which might
> have labels applied to them, some may not see readily identified. Some
> might overlap the sense of what Cyberpunk might be, or was.
And I believe there are still quite a few people that identify with
cyberpunk as a culture. A large number of my friends, as it happens.
> So what do you do with your life? Got any hobbies?
Infilitration, urban spelunking, cracking, coding, opengl. Bookswise, I'll
take William Burroughs and Hakim Bey. To pay the bills I'm a web designer /
web application coder / php monkey / troubleshooter. What about yourself,
beyond chatsubo?
ghost
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> > And Blue Boxing went out in the 80s. good luck getting a Blue Box to
> > work on a modern ESS or through a digital PBX. Do you even know what the
> > Voice Range is on a modern phone line and how far above/below the Data
> > Range extends?
>
> Do you have any idea what you are fucking talking about? DO YOU?
>
> Jesus christ, not every country has has a digital exchange, e.g. Guam or the
> Cook Islands. Direct dial to guam, get the Guam operator, break the trunk.
> Don't believe everything you read in TIME:: The cyberpunk issue. ESS and
> Common Channel Interoffice Signaling only prevents blueboxing where it is
> implemented.
>
> Off hand I have no idea "what the Voice Range is on a modern phone line and
> how far above/below the Data Range extends", nor do I need to know. What I
> do know is that ~2600 is not out of band and you can still break old trunks
> with it.
I only deal with domestic (US) phone line systems ... dnt really give a
fuck what Guam uses. And some of Cananda, but not much.
> > So what do you do with your life? Got any hobbies?
>
> Infilitration, urban spelunking, cracking, coding, opengl. Bookswise, I'll
> take William Burroughs and Hakim Bey. To pay the bills I'm a web designer /
> web application coder / php monkey / troubleshooter. What about yourself,
> beyond chatsubo?
I dunno, maybe the luster of criminal activity has just worn off for me.
I sit on the directoral board for a Japanese Anime/Culture convention
for one. I get paid to mess around with phone lines for a security
company - though admittedly most of that time is spent explaining to
phone companies how to fix their own equipment. Oh yeah - that security
gig, which is what I do for a living means I get paid to prevent
fuckheads like you from going where they are not welcome. It comes down
to respecting other people - which you don't. Which then means you are
no longer worth my time.
And Urban Spelunking is fun sometimes, but I'm to tall for many of the
tunnels in my area.
cheers.
alias
> Let's get one thing straight. I do what I do for me. I insult and berate
> because stupidity pisses me off. And as for recruiting, what am I going to
> do with an army of couch zombies?
my bad.. i thought u were something i'd recognize.
when u were reading up on punkrock buzzwords did u happen across Unity? or
did that one slip by?
be good.
..
alias
Hagdrisil
> "ghost" <trm...@bitstreamnet.com> wrote in message
> news:trminlx-1F7374...@ool-4352306a.dyn.optonline.net...
> I totally agree with Subtle Brick... That's what Cyber-Punk means to me,
> aswell.
Thats probably the best part about Cyberpunk. The definition is so
flexible, that no single one is the hard and fast one. It would
probably take a book the size of the unabridged Oxfards to hold all
the different sub meanings to it.
So that leads to the personal question, "what is Cp to me?"
CP means, making do with whatever you have. Scrounging up what ever is
needed to finish whatever your doing by what ever means you can. (the
cheeper and more inovative the better)
As far as society is concerned, I see it not so much as something to
be saved, as something to be twisted into my own ends. You've heard of
social hacking haven't you?
Hagdrisil
--
¯`°¤.¸_¸.¤°´¯`°¤.¸_¸. 'o' <=- Orbiting Chibisat
Linux: gawk, date, finger, wait, unzip, touch, nice,
suck, strip, mount, fsck, umount, make clean, sleep.
(Who needs porn when you have /usr/bin?)
- stolen from usenet
Monkey Doctor
wrote:
>Let's get one thing straight. I do what I do for me. I insult and berate
>because stupidity pisses me off.
You must have alot to say to mirrors then....
MD
--
I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this...
--
MD Hub page: www.beresfordj.freeserve.co.uk
Follow the #ACC link for stories and the #ACC Character Database
Penile Warlust
> CP means, making do with whatever you have. Scrounging up what ever is
> needed to finish whatever your doing by what ever means you can. (the
> cheeper and more inovative the better)
That's very cool.
(Reading that sentence kind-of reminded me of a scene in a movie called
"A.I" where a group of rejected robots are scrounging around in this heap
of old robot parts, looking for arms and legs that will fit them.)
Hagdrisil
Well, I wouldn't call it cool, per-say. I just have this thing I do,
taht has for the longest time been known as "kit-bashing". Now its
called "Doin' the Junkyard Wars thing." (see my massively outdated web
page below)
I find it kind of funny that the way I lived my life, and the root
cause of my I teeching myself the skills I need is now a game show (a
cool game show)
I should see A.I. some time. One of my room-mates works at a vid
rental store, I'll get him to bring it home some time.
Hagdrisil
--
(http://www.magma.ca/~hagdrsil/) (updated: Mar/26/2001)
Penile Warlust
>
> Well, I wouldn't call it cool, per-say. I just have this thing I do,
> taht has for the longest time been known as "kit-bashing". Now its
> called "Doin' the Junkyard Wars thing." (see my massively outdated web
> page below)
>
Why not? Your obviously interested in it, it's one of your hobbies.
I think it's cool. Not call in a "look, I got a pair of $300 shoes"
way, in a -cool- way.
I created my first home-network in 1997 in my garage with the help of
friends and the "junk-yard" - we call them "tips" or "rubbish tips" in
New Zealand - and Dumpster-Diving ("trashing" or "skipping") I guess
that's along the same lines - building something useful out of other
peoples waste.
> I should see A.I. some time. One of my room-mates works at a vid
> rental store, I'll get him to bring it home some time.
Ah, I guess it would be worth while - I didn't think it was that flash, but
I liked that scene. ;)
-Warlust
Subtle Brick
> fuck what Guam uses. And some of Cananda, but not much.
That's like someone saying that no car can go over 100kmh and then
qualifying it by saying "I meant cars built before 1914".
> I dunno, maybe the luster of criminal activity has just worn off for me.
>
> I sit on the directoral board for a Japanese Anime/Culture convention
> for one. I get paid to mess around with phone lines for a security
> company - though admittedly most of that time is spent explaining to
> phone companies how to fix their own equipment. Oh yeah - that security
> gig, which is what I do for a living means I get paid to prevent
> fuckheads like you from going where they are not welcome. It comes down
> to respecting other people - which you don't. Which then means you are
> no longer worth my time.
"Fuckheads like me - going where they're not welcome", I like that, I might
turn it into a t-shirt. As for respect, that's too precious a commodity to
give a way to any Tom, Dick or Harry. I'm not about to start walking down
the street and hugging random people, "Hey man, I respect you". Respect must
be EARNED. If someone respected me for no reason I'd think something was up.
This isn't a camp fire sing-a-long circle jerk group therapy session.
Everybody is NOT a winner. There are very few people I respect in this
world, and every goddamn last one of them *deserves* the respect they get.
> And Urban Spelunking is fun sometimes, but I'm to tall for many of the
> tunnels in my area.
Harden up and crawl.
Subtle Brick
"Penile Warlust" <war...@phreaker.net> wrote in message
news:10317830...@nntp.win.co.nz...
> Hagdrisil wrote:
>
> >
> > Well, I wouldn't call it cool, per-say. I just have this thing I do,
> > taht has for the longest time been known as "kit-bashing". Now its
> > called "Doin' the Junkyard Wars thing." (see my massively outdated web
> > page below)
> >
>
> Why not? Your obviously interested in it, it's one of your hobbies.
> I think it's cool. Not call in a "look, I got a pair of $300 shoes"
> way, in a -cool- way.
> I created my first home-network in 1997 in my garage with the help of
> friends and the "junk-yard" - we call them "tips" or "rubbish tips" in
> New Zealand - and Dumpster-Diving ("trashing" or "skipping") I guess
> that's along the same lines - building something useful out of other
> peoples waste.
Have to agree with Warlust, building your own stuff out of junk rocks. I
remember that garage well.
Dumpster Diving tip. Never... EVER... trash at a supermarket when they've
thrown out meat.
Subtle Brick
"Monkey Doctor" <james@no_spam_it_tastes_funny_beresfordj.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote in message news:f4fvnu8gvbm3512bk...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:25:19 +1200, "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Let's get one thing straight. I do what I do for me. I insult and berate
> >because stupidity pisses me off.
>
> You must have alot to say to mirrors then....
A cutting ad hominem attack. Is this supposed to be witty? Relevant?
Coherent? Let me guess, you were the guy in class who got picked on, and
then muttered "Your're a dick" when the bully was well out of ear shot.
Make some sort of point or fuck off.
Subtle Brick
> > because stupidity pisses me off. And as for recruiting, what am I going
to
> > do with an army of couch zombies?
>
> my bad.. i thought u were something i'd recognize.
> when u were reading up on punkrock buzzwords did u happen across Unity?
or
> did that one slip by?
>
> be good.
If I was authentic british punk I'd be sitting on my ass all day swilling
beer and waiting for my next dole cheque. Cyberpunk borrowed from punk, but
it is not punk.
Zaren Ankleweed
ghost <trm...@bitstreamnet.com> wrote:
> > Shit, or get off the pot. Stop dreaming about how kewl it would be and do
> > it.
> >
> > Adios.
>
> wow. Is it fall already? School must be starting up .....
Zaren looks up from the hammock he has slung alongside the Rancho between a
pair of large oak trees in the side yard. "Yep, school's back in session,
and the n00bs are stretching their legs... Can't fault 'em for trying,
ghost!"
He pauses to stroke the wisps of grey filtering into his virtual beard. He
then chuckles, signals one of the daemons for another cold bottle of water
from the fridge, and pulls his hat back over his eyes, settling in to enjoy
the cool evening breeze.
--
"It's the information age -- +------------------------------------+
everything gets saved |UCE/UBE not welcome at this address |
except for the human soul." |see http://tinyurl.com/11xy for info|
Rev. Matthew Carey, Vision Temple +------------------------------------+
Subtle Brick
a
> pair of large oak trees in the side yard. "Yep, school's back in session,
> and the n00bs are stretching their legs... Can't fault 'em for trying,
> ghost!"
N00b. Heh. I guess you know you're getting old when you're balls atrophy
huh? It's a pity there's no cure for dementia except euthanasia. Come on
pops, I'm putting you out to pasture. It's for a good cause, you're going to
make enough gelatin for a thousand jellies.
Let's do it for the kids.
> He pauses to stroke the wisps of grey filtering into his virtual beard.
He
> then chuckles, signals one of the daemons for another cold bottle of water
> from the fridge, and pulls his hat back over his eyes, settling in to
enjoy
> the cool evening breeze.
"Virtual Beard"... I don't know what virtual skunk you're virtually smoking,
but last time I checked they hadn't coded virtual breeze in any of the OSI
layers. Maybe it's a custom packet header my kernel doesn't support.
Hagdrisil
>>>Well, I wouldn't call it cool, per-say. I just have this thing I do,
>>>taht has for the longest time been known as "kit-bashing". Now its
>>>called "Doin' the Junkyard Wars thing." (see my massively outdated web
>>>page below)
>>Why not? Your obviously interested in it, it's one of your hobbies.
>>I think it's cool. Not call in a "look, I got a pair of $300 shoes"
>>way, in a -cool- way.
Put that way, PW, I agree. I see it as the smart thing to do. It
combines that 'h@xor' edge with meeting nescesity. Every time someone
has given me that look that just says 'your a freak for doing that' I
quickly comback with the Yoda line "Do or do not, there is no try."
CP, in a sence, is making do with style. Bonus points for havign fun
while you do it. ;-)
>>I created my first home-network in 1997 in my garage with the help of
>>friends and the "junk-yard" - we call them "tips" or "rubbish tips" in
>>New Zealand - and Dumpster-Diving ("trashing" or "skipping") I guess
>>that's along the same lines - building something useful out of other
>>peoples waste.
> Have to agree with Warlust, building your own stuff out of junk rocks. I
> remember that garage well.
My first network was moving files between a pair of win95 boxes with a
parrallel cable. I think the two machines are now combined into one case.
Then I went to ethernet and haven't looked back yet.
Hagdrisl
Zaren Ankleweed
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> N00b. Heh. I guess you know you're getting old when you're balls atrophy
> huh? It's a pity there's no cure for dementia except euthanasia. Come on
> pops, I'm putting you out to pasture. It's for a good cause, you're going to
> make enough gelatin for a thousand jellies.
Seems to me there was someone squawking earlier in this thread about ad
hominem attacks... wonder who that was... oh, it was you!
n00b.
If you're gonna make your own rules, then play by your own rules. If you're
gonna cry about personal attacks, don't make them youself. If you're gonna
come in here swinging your dick around, be prepared to get it caught on a
few sharp metal bits of reality. And as for putting me out to pasture?
Sorry kiddo, I've been in pastures, and this ain't one.
Oh, BTW, it's "your", not "you're"... hope this helps.
> Let's do it for the kids.
You bet. I'll do it for my two kids, and you... you're gonna do it for
yourself, right?
> "Virtual Beard"... I don't know what virtual skunk you're virtually smoking,
> but last time I checked they hadn't coded virtual breeze in any of the OSI
> layers. Maybe it's a custom packet header my kernel doesn't support.
Seems the n00b has never done a lick of creative writing, or ANY research
into the history of this newsgroup. He just waltzes in, swinging his
l33tness around, completely failing to recognize silly little things like
history and tradition, and then gets all defensive when someone blows him
off. Sorry, that's not the way it works around here.
Subtle Brick
"Zaren Ankleweed" <hold...@umich.edu> wrote in message
news:holdthis-ABB941...@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu...
> In article <nGSf9.5605$Y3.11...@news.xtra.co.nz>,
> "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
>
> > N00b. Heh. I guess you know you're getting old when you're balls atrophy
> > huh? It's a pity there's no cure for dementia except euthanasia. Come on
> > pops, I'm putting you out to pasture. It's for a good cause, you're
going to
> > make enough gelatin for a thousand jellies.
>
> Seems to me there was someone squawking earlier in this thread about ad
> hominem attacks... wonder who that was... oh, it was you!
>
> n00b.
>
> If you're gonna make your own rules, then play by your own rules. If
you're
> gonna cry about personal attacks, don't make them youself. If you're
gonna
> come in here swinging your dick around, be prepared to get it caught on a
> few sharp metal bits of reality. And as for putting me out to pasture?
> Sorry kiddo, I've been in pastures, and this ain't one.
I enjoy a good ad hominem. Done with style. "You must talk to a lot of
mirrors" doesn't qualify.
> Oh, BTW, it's "your", not "you're"... hope this helps.
Great, just what the world needs, another spelling pendant. Oops,
p-e-d-a-n-t.
> > Let's do it for the kids.
>
> You bet. I'll do it for my two kids, and you... you're gonna do it for
> yourself, right?
>
> > "Virtual Beard"... I don't know what virtual skunk you're virtually
smoking,
> > but last time I checked they hadn't coded virtual breeze in any of the
OSI
> > layers. Maybe it's a custom packet header my kernel doesn't support.
>
> Seems the n00b has never done a lick of creative writing, or ANY research
> into the history of this newsgroup. He just waltzes in, swinging his
> l33tness around, completely failing to recognize silly little things like
> history and tradition, and then gets all defensive when someone blows him
> off. Sorry, that's not the way it works around here.
Frankly writing cyberpunk fiction qualifies you to talk about... writing
cyberpunk fiction.. Cyberpunk fiction != cyberpunk.
Fuck history.
Fuck tradition.
And fuck the medium, give me content.
What I recognise is ability. Last I heard this was alt.cyberpunk, not
alt.wank.wank.wank. Cyberpunk fiction is one, ONE, aspect of cyberpunk. Or
do you think that love only exists in Mills & Boons novels?
I respect a good writer, but I respect someone who codes their own tools
more.
ghost
<holdthis-ABB941...@visonmassif.rs.itd.umich.edu>,
Zaren Ankleweed <hold...@umich.edu> wrote:
ghost sips on a lemonade as he watches the sun disappear over the
horizon. "Ineed, he seems to have done about zero research and probably
lurked for an entire forty-four seconds or so."
ghost ponders things for a second "Yeah, he has no idea where this group
came from or what it was trying to do. Or the Chatsubo either for that
matter. Liralen would weep I think, or shake her head and ignore him.
Like I'm about to do."
ghost
(and i personally thought the mirror comment was funny)
ghost
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> Frankly writing cyberpunk fiction qualifies you to talk about... writing
> cyberpunk fiction.. Cyberpunk fiction != cyberpunk.
>
> Fuck history.
>
> Fuck tradition.
>
> And fuck the medium, give me content.
This coming from a guy who started a topic that might as well be phrased
"Style over Substance" .. isn't that the second rule in CP2.0.2.0.? or
was it the first? Can't remember at the moment... not that it matters.
> What I recognise is ability. Last I heard this was alt.cyberpunk, not
> alt.wank.wank.wank. Cyberpunk fiction is one, ONE, aspect of cyberpunk. Or
> do you think that love only exists in Mills & Boons novels?
>
> I respect a good writer, but I respect someone who codes their own tools
> more.
Did you ever stop to think that a good writer was someone who simply
coded in language instead of bits? Probably not, it's much harder to
write a good story than code some program somewhere. I mean shit, look
at M$ .. coding all day long and still a top seller. Fuck, if they wrote
novels they'd be out of business. Maybe this is the place where we hack
language and parse words instead of writing some nifty-neato 'puter tool.
Besides, not everyone is a coder. I'm not. I don't program shit. I've
got other things to contribute. It's like any community - everyone has a
something different to put into the pile. If everyone did the same thing
it'd get boring. I respect anyone who creates, in any medium. You seem a
little more short sighted than that.
and about that fucking of tradition and hisotry ... beyond the chafing
you'll get ... did it ever occur to you that this place has been around
long before you and will be around long after you?
what, did you think you'd come in here and shout some Manifesto style BS
about how fucking cool you are for being so Punk with your Cyber? We've
spent the last decade plus going over what CP is ... and bigger minds
than you still haven't answered the question. Did you expect everyone to
go "OH SHIT, he's right, oh he's soo fsking cool and l33t an' shit, we
GOTTA, JUST GOTTA, be like him and follow his lead."
This place was founded on the concept of virtual communities before all
the fucking web shit with 3D interface style BS came around .. we had to
invent a reality out of words and ideas - which took a fuck load more
creativity than you've managed to manifest. Some of us do some very real
"CP" things in our personal lives, one of them is this. A virtual
community made from the ideas and sharing of thoughts of people from all
over the world. If all of us congregating into one place to try and
create a shared reality, even if only in text, isn't a part of CP then
nothing is. If you don't respect what we've done here, we won't respect
you and then you'll be shouting to empty space as you end up in our k/f
bins ... forgotten with the rest of the trash.
"So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
palours..."
ghost
Karma Yoga
ways according to each individuals persona soup. It can be expressed in
literate form ,in technical form or in its crudest manifestations the
stylistic form
(generic fashion trend,attitude,pose) .Above all that ,
it can be registered as a 'State of mind'. Ranging from mind tripping amidst
the commuting mass/underground metro/dark hallways cinematographic stuff
emerged from our everyday lives to garage-tongue-in-cheek technological
tinkerings.Luckilly for us the 'whole cyberpunk thing' is not something that
can be fully qualified as a record in a dictionary but instead it acts more
of as a Path.
Of course ,this is only my opinion.
globalhead.
Zaren Ankleweed
"Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> Great, just what the world needs, another spelling pendant. Oops,
> p-e-d-a-n-t.
What the world needs is more people who use the written medium to
communicate and know how to spell properly.
> Fuck history.
Which is where you find the genesis of cyberpunk.
> Fuck tradition.
Which defined what cyberpunk is, or at least was...
> And fuck the medium, give me content.
Which totally negates your initial topic, "Fuck the literature, it's all
about the attitude". Literature = content, after all...
Congratulations, you've talked yourself in a complete circle, and managed to
bite yourself on the ass.
> What I recognise is ability. Last I heard this was alt.cyberpunk, not
> alt.wank.wank.wank. Cyberpunk fiction is one, ONE, aspect of cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk fiction is the *cornerstone* of cyberpunk, it's where the bloody
term came from, son. You can't dismiss the writing, it's where you draw
your inspiration, your foundation, your black demin and safety pins!
> I respect a good writer, but I respect someone who codes their own tools
> more.
I'll defer to ghost's commentary on this topic, as anything I'd say would
just be repitition.
Some People
> Did you ever stop to think that a good writer was someone who simply
> coded in language instead of bits? Probably not, it's much harder to
> write a good story than code some program somewhere.
Mmmmm. ghost. A most interesting thought there, especially to those who
walk both worlds.
I have to agree with you there, though not as easily. Coding and writing
stories feel a lot alike if you're doing them "wholeheartedly", i.e. not
just mechanically. Both are about giving a shape to an otherwise
intangible idea by writing up constructs which just *feel* right in a
certain constellation. And even in the calculated and logical world of
programming, there is beauty and style (not just talking about naming
conventions and indentation here) and joy for those who know where to look.
And still - coding is easier because the ideas are much more concret,
more easily to be grasped by means of the mind rather than the
emotionally involved truth which fights its way through the pen of a writer.
> "So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
> palours..."
A yeah - had me wondering about this line for a while. I still remember
hearing the voice "singing" it but couldn't make the connection to the
title - "One Night in Bangkok" (friend helped me out there.. :)
#done by Some extraterritorial People
Subtle Brick
> > Fuck history.
> >
> > Fuck tradition.
> >
> > And fuck the medium, give me content.
>
> This coming from a guy who started a topic that might as well be phrased
> "Style over Substance" .. isn't that the second rule in CP2.0.2.0.? or
> was it the first? Can't remember at the moment... not that it matters.
Of course, cyberpunk 2020 *defines* cyberpunk. My social control implants
must be playing up. Let's just roll some 20 sided dice to decide who wins.
Style is great, style is cool, but if you don't have the substance behind
it doesn't mean shit. Wanking on about surfing the edge, jacking in and
using technology in cool ways doesn't make you cyberpunk unless you
actually do it.
> > What I recognise is ability. Last I heard this was alt.cyberpunk, not
> > alt.wank.wank.wank. Cyberpunk fiction is one, ONE, aspect of cyberpunk.
> > Or do you think that love only exists in Mills & Boons novels?
> >
> > I respect a good writer, but I respect someone who codes their own tools
> > more.
>
> Did you ever stop to think that a good writer was someone who simply
> coded in language instead of bits? Probably not, it's much harder to
> write a good story than code some program somewhere. I mean shit, look
> at M$ .. coding all day long and still a top seller. Fuck, if they wrote
> novels they'd be out of business. Maybe this is the place where we hack
> language and parse words instead of writing some nifty-neato 'puter tool.
Sure it's harder to write a good story than good code... but which is more
effective? One badly writtern worm affects more people than a good
cyberpunk story with a limited audience that will probably never get
published. And if it does no one will read it. A shitty worm can beat a
good writer, through probably not a great one.
And a *good* worm... well...
> Besides, not everyone is a coder. I'm not. I don't program shit. I've
> got other things to contribute. It's like any community - everyone has a
> something different to put into the pile. If everyone did the same thing
> it'd get boring. I respect anyone who creates, in any medium. You seem a
> little more short sighted than that.
I respect people who write cyberpunk. But I don't think of them AS
cyberpunk.
> and about that fucking of tradition and hisotry ... beyond the chafing
> you'll get ... did it ever occur to you that this place has been around
> long before you and will be around long after you?
So? Christianity was around before me, will be around after me... do I have
to follow it's traditions? Do I have to even respect it?
An argument from authority is a stupid argument., you gotta justify the
authority first.
My balls are more wrinkled than yours is not evidence of authority.
> what, did you think you'd come in here and shout some Manifesto style BS
> about how fucking cool you are for being so Punk with your Cyber? We've
> spent the last decade plus going over what CP is ... and bigger minds
> than you still haven't answered the question. Did you expect everyone to
> go "OH SHIT, he's right, oh he's soo fsking cool and l33t an' shit, we
> GOTTA, JUST GOTTA, be like him and follow his lead."
I didn't expect that at all. I wanted to see if there was anybody out there
who did anymore than write self-congratulory stories for other chatsubo
members.
> This place was founded on the concept of virtual communities before all
> the fucking web shit with 3D interface style BS came around .. we had to
> invent a reality out of words and ideas - which took a fuck load more
> creativity than you've managed to manifest. Some of us do some very real
> "CP" things in our personal lives, one of them is this. A virtual
> community made from the ideas and sharing of thoughts of people from all
> over the world. If all of us congregating into one place to try and
> create a shared reality, even if only in text, isn't a part of CP then
> nothing is. If you don't respect what we've done here, we won't respect
> you and then you'll be shouting to empty space as you end up in our k/f
> bins ... forgotten with the rest of the trash.
I'm impressed. alt.cyberpunk invented cyberpunk, all by itself. If you did
something cool with the tech, I'd respect that. I have respect for NNTP,
for usenet... all of it great ideas.
But a great idea is nothing unless you follow through. And all I see is
people blithering on about implants and cyberspace, without actually doing
anything about either.
> "So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage
> palours..."
Strangely, the hyper-intellectual chess player always pissed me off. He
played chess, and missed out on doing anything.
Monkey Doctor
wrote:
>> >Let's get one thing straight. I do what I do for me. I insult and berate
>> >because stupidity pisses me off.
>>
>> You must have alot to say to mirrors then....
>
>A cutting ad hominem attack. Is this supposed to be witty? Relevant?
>Coherent? Let me guess, you were the guy in class who got picked on, and
>then muttered "Your're a dick" when the bully was well out of ear shot.
>Make some sort of point or fuck off.
Yes, it's witty. Yes it's relevant.
Here I am saying you come across like a loudmouthed idiot. That's the
facts. And maybe I was the kid that got picked on at school, but now
i'm at the top of the food chain, and they are at the bottom. Is that
punk? Is it Cyber? Who gives a fuck. Maybe that's the attitude you're
looking for?
ghost
Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote:
> > > Fuck history.
> > >
> > > Fuck tradition.
> > >
> > > And fuck the medium, give me content.
> >
> > This coming from a guy who started a topic that might as well be phrased
> > "Style over Substance" .. isn't that the second rule in CP2.0.2.0.? or
> > was it the first? Can't remember at the moment... not that it matters.
>
> Of course, cyberpunk 2020 *defines* cyberpunk. My social control implants
> must be playing up. Let's just roll some 20 sided dice to decide who wins.
ten sided, but you'll figure it out once you get to that chapter in the
book.
> Style is great, style is cool, but if you don't have the substance behind
> it doesn't mean shit. Wanking on about surfing the edge, jacking in and
> using technology in cool ways doesn't make you cyberpunk unless you
> actually do it.
Again, this coming from a guy who said it was "all about the attitude"
You're doubling back on yourself and coming out like a complete idiot ..
well, maybe not complete - I'm sure there's a few parts missing still.
> Sure it's harder to write a good story than good code... but which is more
> effective? One badly writtern worm affects more people than a good
> cyberpunk story with a limited audience that will probably never get
> published. And if it does no one will read it. A shitty worm can beat a
> good writer, through probably not a great one.
>
> And a *good* worm... well...
so it all comes down to ones and zeros. how very limited of you.
> > Besides, not everyone is a coder. I'm not. I don't program shit. I've
> > got other things to contribute. It's like any community - everyone has a
> > something different to put into the pile. If everyone did the same thing
> > it'd get boring. I respect anyone who creates, in any medium. You seem a
> > little more short sighted than that.
>
> I respect people who write cyberpunk. But I don't think of them AS
> cyberpunk.
So you don't believe any medium beyond computers and programming then is
cyberpunk? that's sad.
> > and about that fucking of tradition and hisotry ... beyond the chafing
> > you'll get ... did it ever occur to you that this place has been around
> > long before you and will be around long after you?
>
> So? Christianity was around before me, will be around after me... do I have
> to follow it's traditions? Do I have to even respect it?
If you plan on being a Christian it helps. If you plan on joining a
group it is certainly worth looking into their history and traditions.
Otherwise fuck off and make your own group Somewhere Else.
> I didn't expect that at all. I wanted to see if there was anybody out there
> who did anymore than write self-congratulory stories for other chatsubo
> members.
This isn't ACC, this is ACp. In here we talk about other stuff. Just
happens that a lot of the traffic plays in both sandboxes because we
believe in diversity. You apparently not only can't differentiate but
don't want to.
> > This place was founded on the concept of virtual communities before all
> > the fucking web shit with 3D interface style BS came around .. we had to
> > invent a reality out of words and ideas - which took a fuck load more
> > creativity than you've managed to manifest. Some of us do some very real
> > "CP" things in our personal lives, one of them is this. A virtual
> > community made from the ideas and sharing of thoughts of people from all
> > over the world. If all of us congregating into one place to try and
> > create a shared reality, even if only in text, isn't a part of CP then
> > nothing is. If you don't respect what we've done here, we won't respect
> > you and then you'll be shouting to empty space as you end up in our k/f
> > bins ... forgotten with the rest of the trash.
>
> I'm impressed. alt.cyberpunk invented cyberpunk, all by itself. If you did
> something cool with the tech, I'd respect that. I have respect for NNTP,
> for usenet... all of it great ideas.
>
> But a great idea is nothing unless you follow through. And all I see is
> people blithering on about implants and cyberspace, without actually doing
> anything about either.
Maybe we are, under the radar or out of site or in real life ... this
little newsgroup is but one place we do things in. You're judging an
awfully large number of people by simply what you see in one spot.
You're a very small minded little person - I hope you grow up someday
and join the rest of the world.
ded-T
>I didn't expect that at all. I wanted to see if there was anybody out there
>who did anymore than write self-congratulory stories for other chatsubo
>members.
Resorting to trolling are we? how sad. yu seem to be poking at the
wrong end... yu want hardware / software go wander off into the
homebrew groups.
cyberpunk is not CP2020 or ShadowRun.
the way yu're carrying on, it sounds to me like yu believe yu're god's
gift to cyberpunk. Sadly yu are coming across like a 15 year old who
is looking to become some convict's punk.
go look up punk some time... yu'll be enlighten to find that the
"street" has mostly used that word for 'efeminate/passive male sexual
partner'... and last time I heard bragging about one's punk status was
likely to get yu in a cell with a buff lifer who wants only to get to
know yur heart shaped ass intimately.
If yu have to brag about being a cyberpunk then yu aren't.
yu've asked what's the point of this newsgroup and the one next door.
Let me turn the question around. What difference do you make?
What grand things have you done? So? Yur point being?
having cool looking blue spiked hair and lots of shiney leather and
knowing all the 3l337 haxors tuuls does not make any difference to the
rest of the world. None. except to give them another kind of vermin
to eradicate.
3l337 haxors don't make any money. there is no job with that title.
3l337 haxors don't have survival skills...
3l337 haxors don't live in the real world...
they live in a fantasy that they don't have to make their own way and
pay their own bills. until the bills come due and then there is hell
to pay. What happens when yur parents stop paying yur bills and yu
have to start paying yur own?
the world yu're raging against does not care if yu live or yu die. ..
get in its way and it will crush yu.
as for self congratulatory... seems yu've been doing way too much of
that. go look in the mirror. yur life is built on the sweat of other
people yu don't know and don't care about.
fine.
just be aware they don't care about yu and yur self involved
ignorance. be aware they would just as soon kill yu or bend yu over
and make yu their punk as talk to yu.
don't like it? do something other than whine and throw bricks because
yu are bored.
go get a life.
go pay yur own bills as yu go...
go away.
yu bore me.
ded-T
Senjin
>
> As much as I enjoy reading cyberpunk ("I'm sure they'll listen to
> REASON"), it's an attitude first, genre later. Cyberpunk authors
> carry a certain style in their works, a stance towards technology and
> society. Their characters tend to reflect this attitude, the use of
> tech for your own ends, an electronic middle finger to burecracy.
>
> Despite what you may have heard about cyberpunk dying, and usenet
> roasting it's stinking corpse over the fire, there are still plenty of
> people who have the attitude in their everyday lives.
>
> Let's break it down. C-Y-B-E-R P-U-N-K
>
> Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive
> attitude than the quietism of the hippies.
>
> Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> reference to anything hi tech.
>
> It's not about reading books, sitting in an air conditioned room and
> masturbating into super-soft three ply toilet paper... It's about
> GETTING OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES. As the punk says, "D.I.Y."
>
> Shit, or get off the pot. Stop dreaming about how kewl it would be and
> do it.
>
> Adios.
What's funny about this whole thread is that how I see cyberpunk lies
somewhere inbetween Subtle Brick and ghost.
On the side of ghost, I love the literature and see that's where we
started: some guy's idea of the future, and the people working against
it. Doing what they can. Hagdrisil puts it perfectly: "CP means, making
do with whatever you have. Scrounging up what ever is needed to finish
whatever your doing by what ever means you can. (the cheeper and more
inovative the better)." I see cyberpunk as a way of surviving in the
world. The world where technology is the only way of getting back at "The
Man" and trying to live.
That's where I think Subtle Brick falls short. On the 'living' part.
Don't try to make everyone out to be one-trick-ponies. Just because
someone is cyberpunk doesn't mean they don't like to - I don't know -
dress in Hawaiian shirts and spend time with their families.
I do agree with Subtle Brick that cyberpunk has progressed passed being
just a literary genre. When you have people doing not WHAT is in a novel,
but using the 'mood' as a sense of direction to do things on their own. I
doubt that made sense to anyone else.
I bet Subtle Brick is pretty cool, too bad he comes off as a 12 year old
spouting buzzwords to see what will happen.
Subtle Brick
> wrong end... yu want hardware / software go wander off into the
> homebrew groups.
The hardware / software is the soul of cyberpunk. What do you have when you
take the cyber away?
> cyberpunk is not CP2020 or ShadowRun.
No shit. It's not just the literature either.
> the way yu're carrying on, it sounds to me like yu believe yu're god's
> gift to cyberpunk. Sadly yu are coming across like a 15 year old who
> is looking to become some convict's punk.
Heh. By no means am I the leetest dude on the block. Nor do I have the most
skills or experience. However, "some" is a hell of a lot better than "none".
> go look up punk some time... yu'll be enlighten to find that the
> "street" has mostly used that word for 'efeminate/passive male sexual
> partner'... and last time I heard bragging about one's punk status was
> likely to get yu in a cell with a buff lifer who wants only to get to
> know yur heart shaped ass intimately.
In the long ling ago, in the before time. When gay meant happy and dinosaurs
roamed the earth.
> If yu have to brag about being a cyberpunk then yu aren't.
I don't consider this bragging. My brag would be a lot longer.
> yu've asked what's the point of this newsgroup and the one next door.
> Let me turn the question around. What difference do you make?
The difference that I make is that I'm willing to talk about the tech and
techniques, and that I use them.
> What grand things have you done? So? Yur point being?
>
> having cool looking blue spiked hair and lots of shiney leather and
> knowing all the 3l337 haxors tuuls does not make any difference to the
> rest of the world. None. except to give them another kind of vermin
> to eradicate.
In general, I don't give a fuck about the rest of the world, except for a
few parts of it. The world doesn't give a fuck about me. I'm happy with
that.
And, guess what... no criminal convictions!
> 3l337 haxors don't make any money. there is no job with that title.
> 3l337 haxors don't have survival skills...
> 3l337 haxors don't live in the real world...
> they live in a fantasy that they don't have to make their own way and
> pay their own bills. until the bills come due and then there is hell
> to pay. What happens when yur parents stop paying yur bills and yu
> have to start paying yur own?
Hmmm... let's see. I don't live at home, don't collect a dole cheque, am
gainfully <ahem> employed, pay my bills, have a girlfriend whom I've been
living with for the past two years... in short, a life. I live in the real
world, and I don't play RPGs.
> the world yu're raging against does not care if yu live or yu die. ..
> get in its way and it will crush yu.
"Or die trying..." is my motto. I either win or die trying. Life doesn't
seem worthwhile any other way.
> just be aware they don't care about yu and yur self involved
> ignorance. be aware they would just as soon kill yu or bend yu over
> and make yu their punk as talk to yu.
And coincidentally, I don't care about them. There's a reason I don't
associate with unstable mother fuckers.
> yu bore me.
Life bores you. Go back to your books.
great...@pacific.net.au
If you don't care about the world, as you claim, why are you on here
talking to people?
I am taking Case to be the definitive cyberpunk, seeing as how he was
the protagonist in what everyone seems to accept as the definitive cp
book. Perhpas it's not about the literature, but the lit is credited as
starting the cp style.
I can't visualise Case sitting at home talking to people over a cute
interface.
Subtle Brick
> do with whatever you have. Scrounging up what ever is needed to finish
> whatever your doing by what ever means you can. (the cheeper and more
> inovative the better)." I see cyberpunk as a way of surviving in the
> world. The world where technology is the only way of getting back at "The
> Man" and trying to live.
>
> That's where I think Subtle Brick falls short. On the 'living' part.
> Don't try to make everyone out to be one-trick-ponies. Just because
> someone is cyberpunk doesn't mean they don't like to - I don't know -
> dress in Hawaiian shirts and spend time with their families.
Hmmm... You're right. I don't spend ALL my time coding. This is a pretty
good summing up Senjin.
> I do agree with Subtle Brick that cyberpunk has progressed passed being
> just a literary genre. When you have people doing not WHAT is in a novel,
> but using the 'mood' as a sense of direction to do things on their own. I
> doubt that made sense to anyone else.
At last! Somebody gets my point.
> I bet Subtle Brick is pretty cool, too bad he comes off as a 12 year old
> spouting buzzwords to see what will happen.
Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card. It seemed like the thing to
do at the time. It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
"Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
I think you just said what I was trying to say better than I did. kudos.
Hagdrisil
>>I bet Subtle Brick is pretty cool, too bad he comes off as a 12 year old
>>spouting buzzwords to see what will happen.
> Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card.
Its one of the easiest to overplay.
It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
> "Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
I don't think the scene is dead, it seems to be tied fairly closely to
the tech industry. The .com boom went to .crash, and seems to have
taken a good number of other businesses down with it.
I work in a refurbished comuter store, and have been seeing some
pretty snazy kit come in to be sold off. Not to mention the tech ref
books, some only a year in print, that are turning up in $1 bargain bins.
It never cesses to amaze me the depths this 'throw away' attitude goes
to. This is in part the inspiration for some of what I write, and for
a little saying a came out with a week ago:
"You can make a fairly reasonable living on the trailing edge of
technolgy."
Now if a few more people could take up the 'recycling with style'
idea, we might just get this CP thing back on track again.
;-)
Hagdrisil (this sig has been recycled from previous posts)
ghost
Hagdrisil <hagdris...@god-eater.org> wrote:
> "You can make a fairly reasonable living on the trailing edge of
> technolgy."
>
> Now if a few more people could take up the 'recycling with style'
> idea, we might just get this CP thing back on track again.
agree ... I don't like the Bleeding Edge of Tech .. to much shit goes
wrong. I trail a fews paces behind, get some good shit dirt cheap and I
still have money left to eat. That and the idea that it's "just some
used shit I picked up for a couple bucks" lets me play around with it a
little more without fear of breaking the latest and greatest in
expensive toys.
ded-T
wrote:
>Life bores you. Go back to your books.
i only get bored by pukes whose mouths are bigger that their alleged
grey matter-- they can't seem to get the idea that there is more to
life and ideas than their own life and their own opinion.
as i said yu want to talk about tech go to the homebrew groups or the
other groups in the alt.cp.* hierarchy which deal with tech specifics
or maybe yu can go troll the new kids in alt.2600.
this group has been described as one where tech meets life meets art.
so far yu seem to have focused upon is the tech and appear to want to
talk 'gearhead'. fine. just don't expect a big welcoming group hug
for your display of ignorance.
yu have done a fine job of attacking people yu don't know. people who
do have a bit of smarts on both sides of the street. even some with
criminal convictions and know things yu apparently do not.
that being said: have fun. I only hope the pain you feel when "the
system" catches up with you is brief.
as for what i do... Let's see...
I've worked as a CNC measuring machine and apps programmer during the
'80s for the Shuttle program at a large aerospace company, a test
engineer for a compliance test lab for Part 15 [radiated emissions]
and Part 68 [PSTN equipment] , as I.S. manager for a CPA firm. and now
i'm a senior SysAdmin for a bank.
Remember that the next time yu go to yur bank.
The BOFH are still very much alive.
ded-T
alias
ghost <trm...@bitstreamnet.com> wrote in message
news:trminlx-120E04...@ool-4352306a.dyn.optonline.net...
> agree ... I don't like the Bleeding Edge of Tech .. to much shit goes
> wrong. I trail a fews paces behind, get some good shit dirt cheap and I
> still have money left to eat. That and the idea that it's "just some
> used shit I picked up for a couple bucks" lets me play around with it a
> little more without fear of breaking the latest and greatest in
> expensive toys.
hell yeah, if it ain't broke.. fix it till it is!
..
alias
Monkey Doctor
wrote:
>Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card. It seemed like the thing to
>do at the time. It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
>"Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
Cyberpunk is dead as a "scene" because it's life now. I don't think
the Dark Ages were a "scene".
But Angry Young Men are mostly angry. Who do you hang out with? People
who are permanently about to punch you in the face? I wouldn't have
thought so - nobody really likes them.
Quietly resolute and very pissed off people get more done. Serial
Killers are generally quite calm people and they scare the fuck out of
people because they can never quite tell who actually *is* one until
you look in the fridge. And that is how to really fuck the system.
Ghost could, if he so decided, fuck the comms of a big chunk of the
US. ded-T could make alot of peoples money disappear. I could grind my
company into dirt by falsifying what I tell them. But we don't yell
"I'm going to fuck the system!" every day, because as soon as they
know you want to, they'll get you out of harms way.
Do you see?
ghost
Monkey Doctor
<james@no_spam_it_tastes_funny_beresfordj.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:39:07 +1200, "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card. It seemed like the thing to
> >do at the time. It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
> >"Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
>
> Cyberpunk is dead as a "scene" because it's life now. I don't think
> the Dark Ages were a "scene".
>
> But Angry Young Men are mostly angry. Who do you hang out with? People
> who are permanently about to punch you in the face? I wouldn't have
> thought so - nobody really likes them.
>
> Quietly resolute and very pissed off people get more done. Serial
> Killers are generally quite calm people and they scare the fuck out of
> people because they can never quite tell who actually *is* one until
> you look in the fridge. And that is how to really fuck the system.
> Ghost could, if he so decided, fuck the comms of a big chunk of the
> US. ded-T could make alot of peoples money disappear. I could grind my
> company into dirt by falsifying what I tell them. But we don't yell
> "I'm going to fuck the system!" every day, because as soon as they
> know you want to, they'll get you out of harms way.
>
> Do you see?
>
> MD
Technically I can't take out the telecomm system ... but many many
D.O.D. and large businesses can be at my mercy ... example: I can shut
down the entire Seattle Boeing Campus security network with one phone
call (that's where they make some really nifty shit .. like
rocket/missile engines). Likewise with the security of any US Marine
Armory in the country.
It's not what damage you want to do .. it's what damage you're capable
of doing. Like the MD said, it's the "nice quiet man next door" who
really does the damage. I wouldn't have this job of mine if I weren't
some "young angry dissident punk" ... I'd have never made it past my
D.O.D. interview.
blend in. fade away. pretend to be something else. hold all that
dissidence inside. and wait.
but I would never do anything to compromise the security of my company's
clients.
alias
Monkey Doctor <james@no_spam_it_tastes_funny_beresfordj.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote in message news:f64fouk10ft69v04d...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:39:07 +1200, "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card. It seemed like the thing
to
> >do at the time. It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
> >"Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
>
> Cyberpunk is dead as a "scene" because it's life now. I don't think
> the Dark Ages were a "scene".
>
> But Angry Young Men are mostly angry. Who do you hang out with? People
> who are permanently about to punch you in the face? I wouldn't have
> thought so - nobody really likes them.
>
> Quietly resolute and very pissed off people get more done. Serial
> Killers are generally quite calm people and they scare the fuck out of
> people because they can never quite tell who actually *is* one until
> you look in the fridge. And that is how to really fuck the system.
> Ghost could, if he so decided, fuck the comms of a big chunk of the
> US. ded-T could make alot of peoples money disappear. I could grind my
> company into dirt by falsifying what I tell them. But we don't yell
> "I'm going to fuck the system!" every day, because as soon as they
> know you want to, they'll get you out of harms way.
>
> Do you see?
not really man.. u have the ability to do those things, ok.. i'll give u
that. but none of u ever will.
u are a part of that system, u are dependant upon it for ur survival.. and
if u hurt it u'd be locked out and have to work very hard at being accepted
into another similar system that would provide for u. none of u would ever
do that sort of thuing, because unfortunately u need food, and clothes, and
cars, and a house and all the shit that is required for life.
sucks huh? but u become what u pretend to be.. and if u pretend to be a
cog long enough u'll look up one day and realize ur not pretending any more.
..
alias
ghost
"alias" <al...@REMOVEgod-eater.org> wrote:
Liike I've said before ... I like my job anyway. There's no fucking way
you could get me to go back to being a fucking mallworker or a web
designer, those jobs SUCKED when you got down to it. The first didn't
pay enough to eat much less do anything else, the second had a guise of
creativity about it and stifled me entirely.
Subtle Brick
> Liike I've said before ... I like my job anyway. There's no fucking way
> you could get me to go back to being a fucking mallworker or a web
> designer, those jobs SUCKED when you got down to it. The first didn't
^^^^^^
Goddamn right, web design is supposedly an artform, but all you do is churn
out the same old online brochures and database systems. Day after day, for
eight hour periods.
"Oh look, *another* fucking shopping cart."
great...@pacific.net.au
I'm reminded of Hiro's "world's baddest motherf*cker" paragraph in Snow
Crash... "if I just dropped out and became bad." I vote for that as the
greatest chapter opening ever, incidentally.
Don't quote me on this -- but I have the feeling that the world would
absorb any of the dissedent actions y'all are talking about (and I've
probably just made a spelling error -- I hate english).
If you do make phone calls and pull strings and shut down the
government, you're going to get labelled "world's most wanted", and then
computer skills won't help you *
And if you don't make the call, pull the lever, well, society has made
you impotent.
* = I suppose computer skills could help... misinformation and whatnot.
I suppose you could even crack into the "world's most wanted" database
and change the #1 entry to Fred Bobson. But you can't crack a human
brain, and people aren't removed from the process entirely yet. My point
was more or less that if a bunch of well-trained dudes with guns come to
your door, shutting down a business or two, or recompiling a kernel, or
getting a free phone call, isn't going to help you.
-Me
Zaren Ankleweed
able to get into alt.cp after several days of dead newsserver drive...
> > >Perhaps I overplayed the "angry young man" card. It seemed like the thing
> > >to
> > >do at the time. It just really pisses me off... "The scene is dead"...
> > >"Cyberpunk only exists as a literitary genre"... etc etc
?!? Well, what the frell have I missed in the last few days? Time to wander
off to Google Groups, methinks...
Good to see you calmed down a bit, Brick :)
Omixochitl
@pacific.net.au>:
>If you don't care about the world, as you claim, why are you on here
>talking to people?
>
>I am taking Case to be the definitive cyberpunk, seeing as how he was
>the protagonist in what everyone seems to accept as the definitive cp
>book. Perhpas it's not about the literature, but the lit is credited as
>starting the cp style.
>
>I can't visualise Case sitting at home talking to people over a cute
>interface.
Interesting point. How definitive-CP would Hiro and Nell be then?
Monkey Doctor
<al...@REMOVEgod-eater.org> wrote:
>not really man.. u have the ability to do those things, ok.. i'll give u
>that. but none of u ever will.
>
>u are a part of that system, u are dependant upon it for ur survival.. and
>if u hurt it u'd be locked out and have to work very hard at being accepted
>into another similar system that would provide for u. none of u would ever
>do that sort of thuing, because unfortunately u need food, and clothes, and
>cars, and a house and all the shit that is required for life.
>
>sucks huh? but u become what u pretend to be.. and if u pretend to be a
>cog long enough u'll look up one day and realize ur not pretending any more.
click click click click click
fuck
md
Hagdrisil
> On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 03:25:28 -0400, "alias"
> <al...@REMOVEgod-eater.org> wrote:
>>sucks huh? but u become what u pretend to be.. and if u pretend to be a
>>cog long enough u'll look up one day and realize ur not pretending any more.
>
>
>
> click click click click click
>
click click *CRUNCH* click click *CRUNCH*
I think mines broken.
Hagdrisil
Sourcerer
<rm>
> Zaren looks up from the hammock he has slung alongside the Rancho between a
> pair of large oak trees in the side yard. "Yep, school's back in session,
> and the n00bs are stretching their legs... Can't fault 'em for trying,
> ghost!"
>
> He pauses to stroke the wisps of grey filtering into his virtual beard. He
> then chuckles, signals one of the daemons for another cold bottle of water
> from the fridge, and pulls his hat back over his eyes, settling in to enjoy
> the cool evening breeze.
It must be two years since I last read news, much less posted. I don't
even have a newsacct set up anywhere. I was researching something on
Google and just peeked in and saw your name. I set up a newsacct with
Google...newfangled webbed interfaeces...hate the shit. The formatting
should be crap too when it posts.
I showed Sweet Poly your article and she is very pleased someone
remembers
the Rancho. She remembers fondly (I can't think of another word for
it)
everyone who could "write rancho" .
***
I see you've snagged a Real Cyberpunk. Lucky you. I'm surprised they
aren't extinct.
We were right about things on alt.cp during the '90's. We called the
"I-net" and "cyberspace" memeification, the ecstacy of communication,
and "self-organizing" babbleification for the crap that it was. We
called
and traced the internet bubble all the way up and all the way down
before anyone else noticed. The internet -- even the self-organizing
Internet Mind -- is crap. We know we'll outlive AOL, MSFT, and the
FBI.
Real Cyberpunks(tm) can code. BFD. In 2002. Imagine that. Shit.
There's
whole nations that can code. They've got bootcamps for coders. The
world
where "coding" is an elite skill has been tipped onto the midden-heap
of
history along with the NASDAQ, WiReD, Mondo 2000, freelance
web-designers,
and Esther Dyson.
This is the dark cybergothic dystopic future, so it's time for Real
Cyberpunks to grow up and get a job. No. I mean a Real Job.
Time has come today.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O
\../ |OO|||O|||O|| Cyberpunk's not dead. It's just not
|| OO|||OO||O||O fiction anymore...
nick walker
establishments...punk is all about defiance to everything, punk is about
going AGAINST society...
alie...@hotmail.com
Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote in message news:<EC7f9.4853$Y3.9...@news.xtra.co.nz>...
> As much as I enjoy reading cyberpunk ("I'm sure they'll listen to REASON"),
> it's an attitude first, genre later. Cyberpunk authors carry a certain
> style in their works, a stance towards technology and society. Their
> characters tend to reflect this attitude, the use of tech for your own
> ends, an electronic middle finger to burecracy.
Mmmmm, while technological awareness was part of the warcries it was
the science fiction writers who got the proverbial finger. Did you
read Cheap Truth?
< http://dub.home.texas.net/sterling/cheap.html >
> Despite what you may have heard about cyberpunk dying, and usenet roasting
> it's stinking corpse over the fire, there are still plenty of people who
Perhaps I am getting used to the September but I do have a funny
feeling things are getting better. Also I believe Microsoft has
stated they will not focus so much on Usenet News support anymore.
> have the attitude in their everyday lives.
>
> Let's break it down. C-Y-B-E-R P-U-N-K
Let us perhaps first look at the history of what we today call cyberpunk
< http://heriot.brinkster.net/cns/tl.htm >
Originally it was just called "The Movement", "Mirrorshades" and a
number of other things. "Cyberpunk" as a label was glued onto this
movement by an outsider, and Bruce Sterling, knowing a good marketing
tag when he saw one, took it and ran with it. Today they just call
it the "C-word", perhaps they regret it...
> Punk, a fuck you stance towards society with a more aggressive attitude
> than the quietism of the hippies.
How about the original members:
Bruce Sterling - university degree in journalism
William Gibson - university degree in literature (unsure here)
Rudy Rucker - PhD, professor in mathematics
Lew Shiner - (not sure)
John Shirley - univerity of life, department of hard knocks, advanced
degree in life on the street.
Not much punk there, more of bohemia. John Shirley sure does compensate
for the rest of them though.
Some other central authors:
Tom Maddox - PhD in literary studies
Neal Stephenson - university degree in physics/geography
Looking throgh some lists there is not much punk to be found
but instead a bit of bohemia.
> Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> reference to anything hi tech.
Interesting to note how few of them who actually did technical
studies and how unimportant that was.
> It's not about reading books, sitting in an air conditioned room and
> masturbating into super-soft three ply toilet paper... It's about GETTING
> OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES. As the punk says, "D.I.Y."
>
> Shit, or get off the pot. Stop dreaming about how kewl it would be and do
> it.
Well, Bruce Sterling wrote "Cyberpunk in the 90's"
< http://www.eff.org//Publications/Bruce_Sterling/Interzone_columns/interzone.06 >
so time should now be ripe for "Cyberpunk in the 2000's". I am not
being sarcastic here; rtaher I do want to know where you see
cyberpunk going.
==<)
Subtle Brick
> the science fiction writers who got the proverbial finger. Did you
> read Cheap Truth?
> < http://dub.home.texas.net/sterling/cheap.html >
>
> > Despite what you may have heard about cyberpunk dying, and usenet
roasting
> > it's stinking corpse over the fire, there are still plenty of people who
>
> Perhaps I am getting used to the September but I do have a funny
> feeling things are getting better. Also I believe Microsoft has
> stated they will not focus so much on Usenet News support anymore.
Hmmm... I don't understand these references to September + usenet, is this
an American thing? Please explain.
> Not much punk there, more of bohemia. John Shirley sure does compensate
> for the rest of them though.
>
> Some other central authors:
> Tom Maddox - PhD in literary studies
> Neal Stephenson - university degree in physics/geography
>
> Looking throgh some lists there is not much punk to be found
> but instead a bit of bohemia.
>
> > Cyber, technically used to refer to cybernetics but commonly used in
> > reference to anything hi tech.
>
> Interesting to note how few of them who actually did technical
> studies and how unimportant that was.
I'm not talking about cyberpunk as a literary genre, I'm talking about
cyberpunk as a culture or a stance to life. The authors are relevant only in
so far a they provided some good ideas. I don't care what the original
intention of the author was, who the author was or whether they though
sci-fi was wank. Cyberpunk fiction is a great way to get ideas for reality.
> Well, Bruce Sterling wrote "Cyberpunk in the 90's"
> <
http://www.eff.org//Publications/Bruce_Sterling/Interzone_columns/interzone.
06 >
> so time should now be ripe for "Cyberpunk in the 2000's". I am not
> being sarcastic here; rtaher I do want to know where you see
> cyberpunk going.
I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real life,
the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or high. For
instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite cyberpunk in
flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and small. Even more
cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely through the manipulation
of information, like taking over an air traffic control system and flying it
remotely. It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk died completely as a literary
movement, it's served it's purpose and given the world some great memes.
Sourcerer
<rm>
> I'm not talking about cyberpunk as a literary genre, I'm talking about
> cyberpunk as a culture or a stance to life. The authors are relevant only in
> so far a they provided some good ideas. I don't care what the original
> intention of the author was, who the author was or whether they though
> sci-fi was wank. Cyberpunk fiction is a great way to get ideas for reality.
I think it would be great if you'd discuss some of those cyberpunk
ideas that didn't come from the authors. Just a couple would do,
for starters.
<rm>
> I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real life,
> the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or high. For
> instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite cyberpunk in
> flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and small. Even more
> cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely through the manipulation
> of information, like taking over an air traffic control system and flying it
> remotely. It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk died completely as a literary
> movement, it's served it's purpose and given the world some great memes.
It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
And they didn't have to kill anyone.
Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk to
me. Neither does hijacking or suicide. Our Forces in Afghanistan have
such things, controlled from Florida, including video. And there's more
great ideas like that in their arsenal.
But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O Bred out of cheap elective surgery
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O and the relentless Darwinism of
|| OO|||OO||O||O fashion. -- C0
alias
ecs...@circuit-riders.net says...
[snip]
>
> But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
>
> Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
[snip]
terrorists have political goals.. cyberpunks just wanna get paid.
..
alias
Sourcerer
So does any slogger.
I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
wanna have fun.
--
Hagdrisil
> alias <jackR...@god-eater.org> wrote in message news:<MPG.17fcd71d2...@192.168.0.2>...
>
>>In article <92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com>,
>>ecs...@circuit-riders.net says...
>>>Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
>>>real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
>>terrorists have political goals.. cyberpunks just wanna get paid.
> So does any slogger.
>
> I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
> wanna have fun.
Now we need a definition of fun, and this is where the thread degens
into a bickerfest defining fun. Or we all agree that, like deffining
CP, fun is a personal thing. ;-)
Sourcerer
> Sourcerer wrote:
> > alias <jackR...@god-eater.org> wrote in message news:<MPG.17fcd71d281
> 73029...@192.168.0.2>...
> >
> >>In article <92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com>,
> >>ecs...@circuit-riders.net says...
>
> >>>Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> >>>real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
>
>
> >>terrorists have political goals.. cyberpunks just wanna get paid.
>
> > So does any slogger.
> >
> > I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
> > wanna have fun.
>
> Now we need a definition of fun, and this is where the thread degens
> into a bickerfest defining fun. Or we all agree that, like deffining
> CP, fun is a personal thing. ;-)
fun. The problem is that non-real cyberpunks think they're having
real cyberpunk fun, when they're not. They just think they are. So
then the real cyberpunks slap the non-real cyberpunks around for
awhile trying to wise them up and of course it's futile they being
such clueless lamers and all.
And then they leave. Happens all the time here. We're used to it.
We know our lines.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O This is the last time god has to warn me
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O to stay away from suburbanites.
|| OO|||OO||O||O -- C. Brozefsky
alias
Sourcerer <ecs...@circuit-riders.net> wrote in message
news:92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com...
[snip]
> >
> > terrorists have political goals.. cyberpunks just wanna get paid.
>
> So does any slogger.
c'mon man.. don't be dense. all the classic cp characters were motivated by
nothing greater than self-interest.. politics is for the other guy, long as
i get mine before it all goes to hell..
>
> I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
> wanna have fun.
nah.. girls just wanna have fun. cyberpunks wanna get paid. .. then they
can afford the girls that just wanna have fun, its a viscious cycle..
..
alias
Senjin
news:92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com:
> "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote in message
> news:<d0wk9.205$Os6....@news.xtra.co.nz>...
>
> <rm>
>
>> I'm not talking about cyberpunk as a literary genre, I'm talking
>> about cyberpunk as a culture or a stance to life. The authors are
>> relevant only in so far a they provided some good ideas. I don't
>> care what the original intention of the author was, who the author
>> was or whether they though sci-fi was wank. Cyberpunk fiction is a
>> great way to get ideas for reality.
>
> I think it would be great if you'd discuss some of those cyberpunk
> ideas that didn't come from the authors. Just a couple would do,
> for starters.
>
"Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk
to me. Neither does hijacking or suicide. Our Forces in Afghanistan
have such things, controlled from Florida, including video. And
there's more great ideas like that in their arsenal."
Here's one I read somewhere...
>> I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real
>> life, the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech
>> or high. For instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite
>> cyberpunk in flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and
>> small. Even more cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely
>> through the manipulation of information, like taking over an air
>> traffic control system and flying it remotely. It wouldn't worry me
>> if cyberpunk died completely as a literary movement, it's served it's
>> purpose and given the world some great memes.
>
> It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> And they didn't have to kill anyone.
Impressive indeed! But not real. I think that's exactly the problem
people are having with the literature, it's not real. An author can
create a world more immense and detailed than this one, with his own laws
of physics and nature. An author can write a whole library of novels that
would take a person years to finish, but when they are through, they
aren't in the world described on paper, they are still here.
> Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk
> to me. Neither does hijacking or suicide. Our Forces in Afghanistan
> have such things, controlled from Florida, including video. And
> there's more great ideas like that in their arsenal.
Oh yeah, here it is.
> But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
>
> Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
This is where I disagree with Subtle Brick. I think it's more about
survival.
//.Sen
alie...@hotmail.com
> > Mmmmm, while technological awareness was part of the warcries it was
> > the science fiction writers who got the proverbial finger. Did you
> > read Cheap Truth?
> > < http://dub.home.texas.net/sterling/cheap.html >
> >
> > > Despite what you may have heard about cyberpunk dying, and usenet
> roasting
> > > it's stinking corpse over the fire, there are still plenty of people who
> >
> > Perhaps I am getting used to the September but I do have a funny
> > feeling things are getting better. Also I believe Microsoft has
> > stated they will not focus so much on Usenet News support anymore.
>
> Hmmm... I don't understand these references to September + usenet, is this
> an American thing? Please explain.
September is when students start at universities and discover Usenet.
Many never looked at the FAQs and some thought they had an original
idea when they hawked chain letters across all newsgroups they could
reach. September is more of a state than a month.
>[snip]
> I'm not talking about cyberpunk as a literary genre, I'm talking about
> cyberpunk as a culture or a stance to life. The authors are relevant only in
> so far a they provided some good ideas. I don't care what the original
> intention of the author was, who the author was or whether they though
> sci-fi was wank. Cyberpunk fiction is a great way to get ideas for reality.
>
> > Well, Bruce Sterling wrote "Cyberpunk in the 90's"
> > <
> http://www.eff.org//Publications/Bruce_Sterling/Interzone_columns/interzone.
> 06 >
> > so time should now be ripe for "Cyberpunk in the 2000's". I am not
> > being sarcastic here; rtaher I do want to know where you see
> > cyberpunk going.
That article is an invitation for people like you to do it
again, from the underground to the top. Do give it a try.
> I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real life,
> the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or high. For
> instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite cyberpunk in
> flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and small. Even more
> cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely through the manipulation
> of information, like taking over an air traffic control system and flying it
Both 911 and the earlier attack using rubber boats to attack a
US warship were all examples of what is technically known as
Asymmetric Warfare. There is not much cyberpunk to this that I
can see.
There is more cyberpunk to Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) then;
younger officers using semi subversive methods to get their views
across and into the uppermost circles of power. They are just one
zine short of being The New Movement. These are the younger, brighter,
informed, knowing bombing the stuffing out of a country is not always
the solution. You can sample their opposition in the contributors to
the rather stale news:sci.military.moderated where bullet stopping
power and penetration is far too frequent a topic and where a search
for RMA yields very little other than the occational sneer.
> remotely. It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk died completely as a literary
> movement, it's served it's purpose and given the world some great memes.
For one thing it showed that a small group can change things if
their case is one whose time has come. When the zeitgeist goes
on a rampage it is hard to tell who leads and who follows.
As a litterature it did by extrapolation show us what a strange
place this world is.
So the ball is yours to take and show what you can do.
==<)
Subtle Brick
> I think it would be great if you'd discuss some of those cyberpunk
> ideas that didn't come from the authors. Just a couple would do,
> for starters.
>
Let's see.... DIY, the hacker ethic to learn and experiment, and all the
*real world* cyberpunk tools that people actually use. Kevin Poulsen didn't
use a rail gun that fired uranium slugs to get his porsche. He used his
knowledge of the phone system. War driving wasn't pulled from the pages of
a novel. Those guys that made the graffiti bot didn't read it on page 53 of
snowcrash and then go implement it.
> > I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real
> > life, the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or
> > high. For instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite
> > cyberpunk in flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and
> > small. Even more cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely
> > through the manipulation of information, like taking over an air traffic
> > control system and flying it remotely. It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk
> > died completely as a literary movement, it's served it's purpose and
> > given the world some great memes.
>
> It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> And they didn't have to kill anyone.
Of course, I should model my life after Neuromancer. Oh wait! None of the
tech exists. Dang. How my dull dreary existence is highlighted by the
novels. <sigh> No point really trying is there?
So what would Osama have done different *had* he read Neuromancer? Nothing,
because neuromancer is not a technical manual. It is not a blueprint for
dealing with life. It is *not practical*. It's use is that it makes people
think about the possibilities and try things out.
> Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk to
> me. Neither does hijacking or suicide. Our Forces in Afghanistan have
> such things, controlled from Florida, including video. And there's more
> great ideas like that in their arsenal.
I think asymmetrical warfare is cyberpunk, except in the novels it's
massivily more asymmetric. Osama did with a hundred grand what would have
cost the US military how many millions of dollars?
> But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
The world, for your own ends. Be they political, economic, etc
> Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
Needs to be decided on a case by case basis. Not mutually exclusive.
Subtle Brick
> > has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> > What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
> >
> > Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> > real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
>
> This is where I disagree with Subtle Brick. I think it's more about
> survival.
Actually, I'm beginning to agree with you, after reading the google
archives and the old arguments over semantics. My definition was too
narrow, and excluded too many possibilities.
mpa
<alias...@god-eater.org> wrote:
<rm>
>> > terrorists have political goals.. cyberpunks just wanna get paid.
Source:
>> So does any slogger.
>c'mon man.. don't be dense. all the classic cp characters were motivated by
>nothing greater than self-interest.. politics is for the other guy, long as
>i get mine before it all goes to hell..
This begs the eternal question:
Is cyberpunk fiction about cyberpunks?
>> I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
>> wanna have fun.
>
>nah.. girls just wanna have fun. cyberpunks wanna get paid. .. then they
>can afford the girls that just wanna have fun, its a viscious cycle..
Style, man. You left out style.
.mpa
Is this thing on?
Hagdrisil
> Hagdrisil <hagdris...@god-eater.org> wrote in message news:<3D937FB6...@god-eater.org>...
>>Sourcerer wrote:
>>>I thought I understood Subtle Brick to mean that real cyberpunks just
>>>wanna have fun.
>>
>>Now we need a definition of fun, and this is where the thread degens
>>into a bickerfest defining fun. Or we all agree that, like deffining
>>CP, fun is a personal thing. ;-)
I shouldn't read things like this after waking up, I should wait at
least a cup of coffee or two (or three).
> Well, no real cyberpunk will deny non-real cyberpunks don't have
> fun. The problem is that non-real cyberpunks think they're having
> real cyberpunk fun, when they're not. They just think they are. So
> then the real cyberpunks slap the non-real cyberpunks around for
> awhile trying to wise them up and of course it's futile they being
> such clueless lamers and all.
>
> And then they leave. Happens all the time here. We're used to it.
> We know our lines.
In a warped way, this sounds like fun. You know, getting the newbies
ready to be real and all.
Now where did I leave my chrome plated baseball bat?
Sourcerer
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2002 03:49:02 -0400, "alias"
> <alias...@god-eater.org> wrote:
<rm>
> Source:
> >> So does any slogger.
> Alias:
> >c'mon man.. don't be dense.
I thought I was being on topic (see subject line in header).
> >all the classic cp characters were motivated by
> >nothing greater than self-interest.. politics is for the other guy, long as
> >i get mine before it all goes to hell..
"Subtle Brick" argues that real cyberpunks are nihilistic (not his
word, but my summary) and do what they want, when they want, how
they want, i.e. "for fun". So, considering this, and considering the
subject, you can see that your appeal to what all the classic cp
characters do is not merely irrelevant, but is convincing evidence
for "Subtle Brick's" argument that we're all just a bunch of
middle class wankers pulling our puds while reading Neuromancer.
> mpa:
> This begs the eternal question:
>
> Is cyberpunk fiction about cyberpunks?
To the hacker contingent here, it is. Case is their role-model. This
may explain why they want to hurry past discussing the literature
and get down to real life. Although, for those whose hacker credentials
are the ability to follow directions in PDP or Phrack, Bobby Newmark
rather than Case, seems a more appropriate model.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O The world hadn't ever had so many
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O moving parts or so few labels.
|| OO|||OO||O||O -- mlo
John Smith
> It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> And they didn't have to kill anyone.
>
My reading of "Beyond the shattered wreckage of the main street doors,
bodies were piled three deep on the barricades. The hollow thumping of
the riot guns provided a constant background ..." is that there were
heavy casualities caused by the Panther Moderns' illusion.
> Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk to
> me.
William Gibson used the idea a couple of times - in Neuromancer,
killing off the French Turing Authority agent Pierre with a
microlight, and in Mona Lisa Overdrive, Bobby Newmark's re-routing of
"a Borg-Ward cargo drone out of Newark".
The September 11th planes were crashed by human pilots in the cockpit
rather than by remote control, just like the World War 2 Kamikaze.
JS
Sourcerer
> ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in
> news:92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com:
>
> > "Subtle Brick" <fu...@off.com> wrote in message
> > news:<d0wk9.205$Os6....@news.xtra.co.nz>...
<rm>
> >> I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real
> >> life, the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech
> >> or high. For instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite
> >> cyberpunk in flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and
> >> small. Even more cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely
> >> through the manipulation of information, like taking over an air
> >> traffic control system and flying it remotely. It wouldn't worry me
> >> if cyberpunk died completely as a literary movement, it's served it's
> >> purpose and given the world some great memes.
> >
> > It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> > either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> > Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> > And they didn't have to kill anyone.
>
> Impressive indeed! But not real. I think that's exactly the problem
> people are having with the literature, it's not real.
> An author can
> create a world more immense and detailed than this one, with his own laws
> of physics and nature. An author can write a whole library of novels that
> would take a person years to finish, but when they are through, they
> aren't in the world described on paper, they are still here.
I'd like to point out that Usama didn't remote control airplanes,
either. That idea is as much a work of fiction as the Panther Modern
attack. So, I feel my response, which goes to the cyberpunk quality of
Usama's real act and Subtle Brick's "more cyberpunk" act, is right
on-point. I don't think the real act, or SB's imagined act, are
cyberpunk at all. I use The PM's act, as an example of cyberpunk,
as evidence for that conclusion. The only ontological difference between
them is one comes from SB's imagination and the other come's from WG's.
On these terms, then neither Usama nor SB are cyberpunk, but Gibson
is. Gibson imagined something cyberpunk. Usama and Subtle Brick
imagine something banal and pedestrian.
<rm>
> > But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> > has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> > What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
> >
> > Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> > real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
>
> This is where I disagree with Subtle Brick. I think it's more about
> survival.
Is "survival" just an ominous way of saying "earning a living"?
(__) Sourcerer
John Smith
> > Liike I've said before ... I like my job anyway. There's no fucking way
> > you could get me to go back to being a fucking mallworker or a web
> > designer, those jobs SUCKED when you got down to it. The first didn't
> ^^^^^^
> Goddamn right, web design is supposedly an artform, but all you do is churn
> out the same old online brochures and database systems. Day after day, for
> eight hour periods.
I thought website design meant to be was more akin to film or TV
production, a mixture of artistic, technical and project management
skills - which no single person has.
>
> "Oh look, *another* fucking shopping cart."
>
If you have written one that is:
a) secure
b) easy to use
c) secure
d) copes with international address and telephone formats
e) secure
f) scales easily to cope with the Christmas rush or a TV advert
g) secure
h) not too privacy invasive
i) secure
j) multiplatform
k) secure
please post the URL
JS
John Smith
> * = I suppose computer skills could help... misinformation and whatnot.
> I suppose you could even crack into the "world's most wanted" database
> and change the #1 entry to Fred Bobson. But you can't crack a human
> brain, and people aren't removed from the process entirely yet.
The weakest part of security is usually human
>My point
> was more or less that if a bunch of well-trained dudes with guns come to
> your door,
One of the themes of cyberpunk literature is that if you are subtle
enough, you (or a ficitional AI) can control the actions of the people
with guns - all it takes is money and information.
shutting down a business or two, or recompiling a kernel, or
> getting a free phone call, isn't going to help you.
>
>
> -Me
JS
Sourcerer
> Sourcerer wrote:
> > I think it would be great if you'd discuss some of those cyberpunk
> > ideas that didn't come from the authors. Just a couple would do,
> > for starters.
> >
>
> Let's see.... DIY, the hacker ethic
Human race has been doing that from the gitgo
> to learn and experiment,
Human race has been doing that from the gitgo
> and all the
> *real world* cyberpunk tools that people actually use. Kevin Poulsen didn't
> use a rail gun that fired uranium slugs to get his porsche. He used his
> knowledge of the phone system. War driving wasn't pulled from the pages of
> a novel. Those guys that made the graffiti bot didn't read it on page 53 of
> snowcrash and then go implement it.
What exactly is it about using telephones that is so cyberpunk? Bell,
Westinghouse, Edison are the "cyberpunks" here, not Poulsen. Any
lineman probably has more learning and experience than you. Is he or
she cyberpunk?
And rail guns and uranium slugs (depleted uranium shell casing) are
as much in the "real world", "cyberpunk" or not, as a Porsche.
> > > I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real
> > > life, the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or
> > > high. For instance, I consider the world trade centre attack quite
> > > cyberpunk in flavour. Technology evens the odds between the big and
> > > small. Even more cyberpunk would have been if they'd done it purely
> > > through the manipulation of information, like taking over an air traffic
> > > control system and flying it remotely. It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk
> > > died completely as a literary movement, it's served it's purpose and
> > > given the world some great memes.
> >
> > It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> > either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> > Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> > And they didn't have to kill anyone.
>
> Of course, I should model my life after Neuromancer. Oh wait! None of the
> tech exists. Dang. How my dull dreary existence is highlighted by the
> novels. <sigh> No point really trying is there?
You have modeled your story on Neuromancer, Case specifically, whether
you know it or not. Gosh, SB, it was the authors who coined the term
cyberpunk, that you are so protective towards.
Do you really believe the technology to pull off the Panther Modern
attack doesn't exist? If it doesn't, why not invent it? Why not do
something besides follow directions for some "diy" gizmo found in PDP?
> So what would Osama have done different *had* he read Neuromancer? Nothing,
> because neuromancer is not a technical manual. It is not a blueprint for
> dealing with life. It is *not practical*. It's use is that it makes people
> think about the possibilities and try things out.
>
> > Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk to
> > me. Neither does hijacking or suicide. Our Forces in Afghanistan have
> > such things, controlled from Florida, including video. And there's more
> > great ideas like that in their arsenal.
>
> I think asymmetrical warfare is cyberpunk, except in the novels it's
> massivily more asymmetric. Osama did with a hundred grand what would have
> cost the US military how many millions of dollars?
Do you think the cost for what "Osama did" was money? -- there's a
naivete here, SB -- Accomplishing such things is not calculated in
money. Money, no matter the amount, does not buy you a 9/11 all by
itself
"I'll have one serving of 9/11, fries and a coke, please".
Consider this: in fact, the fictional attack would be far easier
for you or me to pull off than 9/11. There's hardly any moving parts
to it in comparison.
"I'd like to hire 20 temps...suicide hijacking...yeah".
A hundred thousand dollars. Who told you that? How can you believe
it? Think.
"Yes. They'll have to relocate, and there's a 3 year training
course...Guerilla warfare and manouevering airliners".
> > But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> > has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> > What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
>
> The world, for your own ends. Be they political, economic, etc
No, that's not it, anymore than all the other things we've been
doing since the dawn of our species.
But I note the "application", which really goes to every point you
make. For you cyberpunk is about *using* things already existing,
and not about creating new things.
There are hackers, but there are no cyberpunks. You can be a hacker, but
no one can be *a* cyberpunk. There is no such animal. You are either
cyberpunk or you are not. There is no cyberpunk movement, unless you
mean the hacker culture is the cyberpunk movement. But why they would
want to associate themselves by labelling themselves with a term
invented by fiction writers, I do not understand. Maybe you can
explain it.
Historical footnote: the authors of cp fiction were the cyberpunks, and
the cyberpunk movement was the writers who got together around Cheap Truth.
And we only mention this when it becomes necessary to spell out the
obvious to the newly minted "real cyberpunks"
> > Maybe the question should be what's the difference between a
> > real cyberpunk and a terrorist?
>
> Needs to be decided on a case by case basis. Not mutually exclusive.
Don't you understand? The very fact that you label yourself a cyberpunk
is the measure of your cluelessness on this issue. All we're trying to
do is clue you in.
Look at you! You're slagging this group for not being malicious
hackers <laughing> You're slagging us because we aren't exactly
like you.
What's interesting is that you're a clone, in some cases
word for word, of every other real cyberpunk whose posts are
preserved in the archive, whether from 1994 or yesterday.
That's not a flame, SB, that's a simple fact. How do you explain
it? How can you be so identical to someone from eight or more years
ago? And from five years ago? And from three years ago?
Can you explain that? The only thing I can come up with is that
you've all read the same filz. Those are some fairly old filz,
too, and they get replicated all over and get in everything related
to 'forbidden hacker knowledge'.
I mean, we recognize the unique subculture of hackers-on-internet.
And if you want to call yourselves cyberpunks, that's okay. I think
it's an unintended homage to Bill Gibson and Neuromancer that you
claim the label for yourselves. The archive will prove to you that
this group has never claimed to be real or even fictional cyberpunks.
They have never claimed to be the cyberpunk movement. There's no
point in cluing us in that we aren't real cyberpunks, because we
never believed we were. We aren't even interested in how you become
a real cyberpunk.
Thing is you claim cyberpunk equals hacker. In which case, this ought
to be a hacker newsgroup. So, we're all in the wrong newsgroup by your
lights. We ought to move on to one of the rec.arts.written.sf groups,
I guess.
We won't though. Sometimes life is just unfair. You should get used
to it.
(__) Sourcerer
Sourcerer
> I think cyberpunk had moved beyond it's literary beginnings into real
> life,
This is a fairly standard opinion here, which nearly anyone who
posted regularly here for a few years at any time would agree with
including me (maybe not Omar).
> the subversive use of technology in novel ways, either low-tech or
> high.
No. That's what some characters in cyberpunk sf sometimes do. You do not
move beyond the literary beginnings by imitating the characters in the
stories. Instead you're stuck in a rather perplexing place at the
beginnings, like a trekkie wearing vulcan ears.
You take a subset of cp fiction: some stories, some characters, and see
nothing else. For you "cyberpunks" are characters like Case and Bobby.
That's a common misperception propagated in the media. And thanks to
the same media, hackers and crackers are indentified as "cyberpunks".
Why? Because it was a good story, trendy, and fashionably kewl.
Crackers got to be celebrities, got a bit of their 15 minutes,
at least.
But the reality is:
"Cyberpunks" are what sf book critics called the authors associated with
Cheap Truth. And because those authors had an agenda, they were referred
to as the "cyberpunk movement". I believe Bruce Bethke's story Cyberpunk
was its first appearance.
That's where the terms "cyberpunk" and "cyberpunk movement" come from.
So, from my perspective, you're a lunatic pretending to be like a
character in a story. Unless you're 10 years old. Then you're just
playing like any kid and its okay.
> It wouldn't worry me if cyberpunk
> died completely as a literary movement, it's served it's purpose and
> given the world some great memes.
Those being that cyberpunks are supposed to be crackers and malicious
hackers just like Case and Bobby, apparently.
It seems to me that you're the one who is stuck in the literature.
You tell yourself this story that cp sf is about hackers subversive
use of technology to achieve private desires. I think you're
reading your own predilictions into the stories. Anyone here ought
to be able to name dozens of cp stories without anything like that
in them. In fact, the Cases and Bobbys are only a small fraction
of the literature, so cp sf isn't even about what you think it is
about.
Speaking of memes, look what the cyberpunk meme has done to you.
You have been hacked by advertizing, book cover art, filz, Hollywood,
Madison Avenue, rpg's, comic books, and Goddess knows what else.
You say cyberpunk originates in the literature. You say cyberpunk has
moved on to real life. Since you mean by "cyberpunk" fictional persons
like Case, you can only mean by "moved beyond it's literary beginnings
into real life" is that people are imitating characters from stories, among
them, apparently, yourself. And you flame the group for not imitating
Case in real life, just like you do.
You have got to realize that you're just a fan who has taken some
pretty exciting stories and confused them with real life.
Those "cyberpunks", they're just words put together by WG. He made
them up and their subversive use of technology. "It's just a doll, Ripley".
If you want to become an elite hacker, quit playing around designing
web pages and get a degree in electrical engineering.
The adult world is a serious place. Sometimes, like now, it gets
very seriously real. You're in NZ, right? That's good. That's on
the margins. Safer than here.
But here, in the belly of the beast, you can't pretend anymore, you have
to be very careful what you say and what you do. These are seriously
dangerous times. To live well, as you please, to do what you want,
requires subtlety and skill. Wander off into fantasy and you could very
easily disappear into Justice just like that and never be seen again,
you and your friends just acting like "cyberpunks".
You have got to be smarter than that.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O Real cyberpunks carry enough
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O gold to bribe the border guards
|| OO|||OO||O||O
Sourcerer
> ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.0209...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > It's pretty obvious Usama hadn't read Neuromancer. Perhaps you haven't
> > either -- remote controlling an airplane cannot compare to what the
> > Panther Moderns did to SenseNet. Now that's information manipulation!
> > And they didn't have to kill anyone.
> >
>
> My reading of "Beyond the shattered wreckage of the main street doors,
> bodies were piled three deep on the barricades. The hollow thumping of
> the riot guns provided a constant background ..." is that there were
> heavy casualities caused by the Panther Moderns' illusion.
For the record, the Panther Moderns did nothing but plant two pieces
of
misinformation. They didn't spill anyone's blood. It was two really
vicious gangs that did that: The NYPD Tacticals and the BAMA Rapids.
"The two agencies, convinced that they were containing a horde of
potential killers, were cooperating with an uncharacteristic degree of
efficiency...bodies were piled three deep on the barricades."
Gibson makes it clear the Tacticals and Rapids enjoyed their work.
The Panther Moderns did not kill anyone, nor was killing anyone
necessary for doing their job. Not to say they might not have
expected it, though.
> > Actually, remote controlling an airplane doesn't sound very cyberpunk to
> > me.
>
> William Gibson used the idea a couple of times - in Neuromancer,
> killing off the French Turing Authority agent Pierre with a
> microlight, and in Mona Lisa Overdrive, Bobby Newmark's re-routing of
> "a Borg-Ward cargo drone out of Newark".
Still doesn't seem very cyberpunk to me. It was just a job of work.
Not everything in cp fiction is cyberpunk.
> The September 11th planes were crashed by human pilots in the cockpit
> rather than by remote control, just like the World War 2 Kamikaze.
It's the claim that there is something cyberpunk about it that I find
curious. I think it's the suicide part that keeps the cyberpunk
label from sticking. Remote control might seem more cyberpunk, but
the logistics are a nightmare, the odds of success slim at best, and
the odds of being tracked and taking a direct hit immediately is
so high as to make the remote control scenario suicide.
There's a good chance we're going to get a thread about how
cyberpunk is all about survival. I'll probably bring up the
contradiction between survival and doing suicidal things
there.
Here's something recent that seems more cyberpunk-like to me:
When the Yugoslav army withdrew from Kosovo, NATO was surprised to
discover the size of the forces they counted leaving. It turned out
that
after 71 days of bombing with the most sophisticated weapons, NATO had
managed to destroy 11 tanks. Period.
What NATO found at supposed Yugoslav positions were cardboard tanks,
phony artillery pieces and firepits which attracted heat seeking
ordnance to them. NATO also found they had been repeatedly bombing
roads
that were nothing but basically hefty sacks laid out across the
countryside with wood and board vehicles on them. They also used
microwave ovens to confuse guidance systems. Thus, NATO missed the
real targets.
Now there's some diy for you!
(__) Sourcerer
Informatik
Can you tell about cyberpunk sci-fi describing RL (real life, as we
know it from centuries) in what is a "modern language", to say so...?
[oo]
Sourcerer
I'll try to answer your question, if I understand it.
You may be referring to another article in which I wrote that
"diy" -- doing stuff for yourself, learning, experimenting,
using technology to subvert political and economic systems,
is something the human race has been doing since the beginning
of history. They aren't things invented by hackers.
I asked for examples of "cyberpunk ideas" that didn't come
from cyberpunk fiction. I didn't think the answer SB gave
was accurate. I think he wanted to tell me that the hacker
(phreaking, cracking) culture is prior to cyberpunk. If so,
he is right. So, coming before the cyberpunk movement, those
concepts come before cyberpunk.
The relation between the cyberpunk movement and the hacker
culture is the cp author's wrote about the new technologies,
mainly computer networks, and based a few characters on the
existing hacker culture. That doesn't mean cyberpunk=hacker,
anymore than it means cyberpunk=voudoun, or cyberpunk=sarariman.
Voodoo priests, Japanese clerks, do not claim to be cyberpunks,
but hackers do. Why? Because they like the style, the way
hackers are portrayed in the stories. If they want to call
themselves cyberpunks, fine. No problem.
But that doesn't mean cyberpunk=hacker. It just means hackers
like cyberpunk fiction. It doesn't mean only malicious hackers
are "cyberpunks". SB is confusing fiction with reality.
I hope that answers your question.
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O Getting there is half the journey
|| OO|||OO||O||O -Sweet Poly
Subtle Brick
> Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote in message
news:<Gq5l9.794$Os6.1...@news.xtra.co.nz>...
> > Sourcerer wrote:
> > > I think it would be great if you'd discuss some of those cyberpunk
> > > ideas that didn't come from the authors. Just a couple would do,
> > > for starters.
> > >
> >
> > Let's see.... DIY, the hacker ethic
>
> Human race has been doing that from the gitgo
>
> > to learn and experiment,
>
> Human race has been doing that from the gitgo
Just like gravity, it existed all along before there was a word for it.
> What exactly is it about using telephones that is so cyberpunk? Bell,
> Westinghouse, Edison are the "cyberpunks" here, not Poulsen. Any
> lineman probably has more learning and experience than you. Is he or
> she cyberpunk?
Depends on how the lineman uses that knowledge.
> You have modeled your story on Neuromancer, Case specifically, whether
> you know it or not. Gosh, SB, it was the authors who coined the term
> cyberpunk, that you are so protective towards.
>
> Do you really believe the technology to pull off the Panther Modern
> attack doesn't exist? If it doesn't, why not invent it? Why not do
> something besides follow directions for some "diy" gizmo found in PDP?
Who do you think creates the "diy" gizmos? They don't invent themselves. New
techniques don't get handed down by god. The "forbidden knowledge" quickly
goes out of date, almost as soon as it is released. Reading the zines does
give you a good foundation for going off in your own direction.
> A hundred thousand dollars. Who told you that? How can you believe
> it? Think.
A ballpark figure, based on the real world cost of feeding/training the
hijackers etc, and plucked out of thin air. Perhaps it was $300,000. I do
however, take your point. The political and religious backdrop, etc.
> "Yes. They'll have to relocate, and there's a 3 year training
> course...Guerilla warfare and manouevering airliners".
>
> > > But the clever application of technology, in order to be cyberpunk,
> > > has to be "subversive", I understand you to mean. Subversive of what?
> > > What would the real cyberpunk want to subvert here in real life?
> >
> > The world, for your own ends. Be they political, economic, etc
>
> No, that's not it, anymore than all the other things we've been
> doing since the dawn of our species.
>
> But I note the "application", which really goes to every point you
> make. For you cyberpunk is about *using* things already existing,
> and not about creating new things.
Hell yeah it's about creating new things. I don't get my jollies by
compiling the latest exploits. Where's the fun in exploit/rootkit or
exploit/deface ad nausem? The fun is in learning, building new tools, using
things in new ways. Cracking for the sake of cracking doesn't turn me on.
> Don't you understand? The very fact that you label yourself a cyberpunk
> is the measure of your cluelessness on this issue. All we're trying to
> do is clue you in.
>
> Look at you! You're slagging this group for not being malicious
> hackers <laughing> You're slagging us because we aren't exactly
> like you.
I'm slagging the group for not *doing* anything. Now whether that's coding,
building graffiti bots, discussing ways to "stay under the radar" or
whatever doesn't worry me.
> What's interesting is that you're a clone, in some cases
> word for word, of every other real cyberpunk whose posts are
> preserved in the archive, whether from 1994 or yesterday.
I'll survive my lack of uniqueness.
> That's not a flame, SB, that's a simple fact. How do you explain
> it? How can you be so identical to someone from eight or more years
> ago? And from five years ago? And from three years ago?
>
> Can you explain that? The only thing I can come up with is that
> you've all read the same filz. Those are some fairly old filz,
> too, and they get replicated all over and get in everything related
> to 'forbidden hacker knowledge'.
"How do be a cyberpunk and make pipebombs" Phrack: #23. Why does it surprise
you that I have the same ideas as other people? I don't find it particularly
interesting that ghost echos you or vice versa. Does it make any difference
how many people have come before me, or how many "clueless" people will come
after me? Do I need to cross reference everything you say against Walden
Pond?
> I mean, we recognize the unique subculture of hackers-on-internet.
> And if you want to call yourselves cyberpunks, that's okay. I think
> it's an unintended homage to Bill Gibson and Neuromancer that you
> claim the label for yourselves. The archive will prove to you that
> this group has never claimed to be real or even fictional cyberpunks.
> They have never claimed to be the cyberpunk movement. There's no
> point in cluing us in that we aren't real cyberpunks, because we
> never believed we were. We aren't even interested in how you become
> a real cyberpunk.
I'm telling you, it was phrack 23.
Ross Winn
ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote:
> You may be referring to another article in which I wrote that
> "diy" -- doing stuff for yourself, learning, experimenting,
> using technology to subvert political and economic systems,
> is something the human race has been doing since the beginning
> of history. They aren't things invented by hackers.
>
> I asked for examples of "cyberpunk ideas" that didn't come
> from cyberpunk fiction. I didn't think the answer SB gave
> was accurate. I think he wanted to tell me that the hacker
> (phreaking, cracking) culture is prior to cyberpunk. If so,
> he is right. So, coming before the cyberpunk movement, those
> concepts come before cyberpunk.
>
> The relation between the cyberpunk movement and the hacker
> culture is the cp author's wrote about the new technologies,
> mainly computer networks, and based a few characters on the
> existing hacker culture. That doesn't mean cyberpunk=hacker,
> anymore than it means cyberpunk=voudoun, or cyberpunk=sarariman.
>
> Voodoo priests, Japanese clerks, do not claim to be cyberpunks,
> but hackers do. Why? Because they like the style, the way
> hackers are portrayed in the stories. If they want to call
> themselves cyberpunks, fine. No problem.
>
> But that doesn't mean cyberpunk=hacker. It just means hackers
> like cyberpunk fiction. It doesn't mean only malicious hackers
> are "cyberpunks". SB is confusing fiction with reality.
Yet these hackers you discuss are all simply software hackers. Hackers
deal in software and hardware. Corporate Statism and the entire idea of
the evil corporation predate cyberpunk. Artificial limbs predate
cyberpunk. Well written prose predates cyberpunk. Eugenics predate
cyberpunk. Almost any idea present in speculative fiction in the last
hundred years can be presented as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is, almost by
definition, a style as much as an idea.
Ross Winn, Freelance Geek
ross...@mac.com
AIM winn2r
ICQ 19818264
"Not just another ugly face..."
Subtle Brick
> I thought website design meant to be was more akin to film or TV
> production, a mixture of artistic, technical and project management
> skills - which no single person has.
Sure... in an ideal world. I am not self employed, and quality==time, and
time==money... which my employers are not willing to spend. I do not get to
lovingly craft sites, optimise the html for size by hand and mathematically
prove their robustness.
> >
> > "Oh look, *another* fucking shopping cart."
> >
>
> If you have written one that is:
>
> a) secure
> b) easy to use
> c) secure
> d) copes with international address and telephone formats
> e) secure
> f) scales easily to cope with the Christmas rush or a TV advert
> g) secure
> h) not too privacy invasive
> i) secure
> j) multiplatform
> k) secure
In my experience it's rarely been the shopping cart that is the point of
failure.
John Smith
> > > me.
> >
> > William Gibson used the idea a couple of times - in Neuromancer,
> > killing off the French Turing Authority agent Pierre with a
> > microlight, and in Mona Lisa Overdrive, Bobby Newmark's re-routing of
> > "a Borg-Ward cargo drone out of Newark".
>
> Still doesn't seem very cyberpunk to me. It was just a job of work.
> Not everything in cp fiction is cyberpunk.
>
The re-routing of the Borg-Ward cargo drone as a defensive weapon
using his "aleph" connection, was the Bobby Newmark character's main
deus ex machina contribution to the climax of the novel.
> > The September 11th planes were crashed by human pilots in the cockpit
> > rather than by remote control, just like the World War 2 Kamikaze.
>
> It's the claim that there is something cyberpunk about it that I find
> curious. I think it's the suicide part that keeps the cyberpunk
> label from sticking. Remote control might seem more cyberpunk, but
> the logistics are a nightmare, the odds of success slim at best, and
I agree - at the moment, remote control of a plane needs special
remote control system hardware built into it i.e. something like a
gunnery target drone. There are airliners equipped with automatic
landing systems which could perhaps be subverted via a computer
compromise of the radar and flight control systems, but whilst it
might be possible to crash an airliner (bad enough), I do not see how
this could be used to attack a specific target away from an airport.
That won't stop the authorities from arresting Muslim suspects who
happen to have suspicious copies of say, Microsoft Flight Simulator,
on their computers.
> the odds of being tracked and taking a direct hit immediately is
> so high as to make the remote control scenario suicide.
>
I disgree - pinpoint real time tracking of unauthorised radio
transmissions is not that easy in an urban context, even for the
military, and there are no mechanisms in place for instant retaliation
unless they emanate in a battlefield environment e.g. artillery
counter-battery fire. Subversion of air traffic control, navigation
and radar data systems is very unlikely to be detectable in real time,
and, unfortunately, could be set as a cron job to execute at the
attacker's convenience.
>
> Here's something recent that seems more cyberpunk-like to me:
>
> When the Yugoslav army withdrew from Kosovo, NATO was surprised to
> discover the size of the forces they counted leaving. It turned out
> that
> after 71 days of bombing with the most sophisticated weapons, NATO had
> managed to destroy 11 tanks. Period.
>
Most US or British airforce missions do not use precision guided
weapons. Even George Bush seemed to understand the economics of not
using "a million dollar missile on a 70 dollar tent" in the recent
Afghan rock bouncing campaign.
>
> What NATO found at supposed Yugoslav positions were cardboard tanks,
> phony artillery pieces and firepits which attracted heat seeking
> ordnance to them. NATO also found they had been repeatedly bombing
> roads
> that were nothing but basically hefty sacks laid out across the
> countryside with wood and board vehicles on them. They also used
> microwave ovens to confuse guidance systems. Thus, NATO missed the
> real targets.
>
> Now there's some diy for you!
>
Dummy tanks and artillery have been standard camouflage practice since
World War 2, not very cyberpunk really.
I do not see how microwave ovens would have any effect - even some
802.11b WiFi cards have microwave oven interference compensation built
in, and the water molecule resonance harmonics are unlikely to fool an
electronics warfare plane or anti-radar missiles, which do have to
work in wet conditions. A microwave oven simply does not generate
enough power to have any EMP/HERF effects on a missile guidance
system.
There were some interesting stories that came out of the Bosnian
conflict (remembering that "truth is the first casualty of war"):
e.g. the use of the GSM cellphone network - NATO intelligence
agencies gave Bosnian civilians mobile phones to report on refugee
movements, and the Serbians allegedly subverted some of these to feed
in false reports of Serbian troop movements, allegedly leading to some
bombing of civilian convoys (or was this spin to cover up the usual
"collateral damage" ?).
The alleged tracking of US Stealth bombers by passively measuring the
"hole" that they leave in the signal strength of TV transmissions and
possibly mobile phone transmitters (or was this just another
justification for the bombing of Serbian TV stations ?).
The post conflict incident at KFOR, where their supposed cyberwar
experts, whilst examining some of the standard email computer viruses
that were emailed by Serbian supporters, managed to unleash one on
their internal NATO email system, leading to the release of supposedly
sensitive documents (or was this just an excuse for leaking those
documents ?)
JS
Sourcerer
> ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.0209...@posting.google.com>...
<rm>
> > > The September 11th planes were crashed by human pilots in the cockpit
> > > rather than by remote control, just like the World War 2 Kamikaze.
> >
> > It's the claim that there is something cyberpunk about it that I find
> > curious. I think it's the suicide part that keeps the cyberpunk
> > label from sticking. Remote control might seem more cyberpunk, but
> > the logistics are a nightmare, the odds of success slim at best, and
>
> I agree - at the moment, remote control of a plane needs special
> remote control system hardware built into it i.e. something like a
> gunnery target drone. There are airliners equipped with automatic
> landing systems which could perhaps be subverted via a computer
> compromise of the radar and flight control systems, but whilst it
> might be possible to crash an airliner (bad enough), I do not see how
> this could be used to attack a specific target away from an airport.
There's the drone's the US is using in Afghanistan, controlled from
Florida, they say.
Another factor is there is no one in the plane cutting the pilot's
throat. If there's special hw pre-built into the design, then part
of that, it seems likely, is a way to return 'manual' control to the
pilot.
> That won't stop the authorities from arresting Muslim suspects who
> happen to have suspicious copies of say, Microsoft Flight Simulator,
> on their computers.
About 10 years ago there was a simulator for the space shuttle. I
read a review which proclaimed it was dead boring because it took
days to complete the pre-flight tests. Sounds useful to me.
> > the odds of being tracked and taking a direct hit immediately is
> > so high as to make the remote control scenario suicide.
> >
>
> I disgree - pinpoint real time tracking of unauthorised radio
> transmissions is not that easy in an urban context, even for the
> military, and there are no mechanisms in place for instant retaliation
> unless they emanate in a battlefield environment e.g. artillery
> counter-battery fire. Subversion of air traffic control, navigation
> and radar data systems is very unlikely to be detectable in real time,
> and, unfortunately, could be set as a cron job to execute at the
> attacker's convenience.
Points taken. My assumption is that, at least for the US, everyday
life will become increasingly a battlefield environment. That will
develop over years. It's not right now, but it has begun and it
began with air traffic issues due to 9/11. A tactic of US strategy
is to wow the wogs with technology. The domestic market is the easiest
and surest place to deploy and demonstrate them, since they can't seem to
troll al Qaeda into another move.
It's why I'm warning against hacker exploits, for example if anyone
is planning a reprise of the attack on the Pentagon during the Gulf
War, say when the shooting starts in Iraq. Times have changed. It
was stupid then. It may be suicidal now. Non-US citizens should
know that the ruling class here seriously intends to achieve
its goals. I believe, for them it is not anymore an issue of "how",
it is simply an issue of timing.
I mean, let's not make orange jumpsuits and blindfolds the official
cyberpunk uniform.
Maybe I'm just spooked. I don't like at all the way things are
developing.
> > Here's something recent that seems more cyberpunk-like to me:
> >
> > When the Yugoslav army withdrew from Kosovo, NATO was surprised to
> > discover the size of the forces they counted leaving. It turned out
> > that
> > after 71 days of bombing with the most sophisticated weapons, NATO had
> > managed to destroy 11 tanks. Period.
> >
>
> Most US or British airforce missions do not use precision guided
> weapons. Even George Bush seemed to understand the economics of not
> using "a million dollar missile on a 70 dollar tent" in the recent
> Afghan rock bouncing campaign.
>
> >
> > What NATO found at supposed Yugoslav positions were cardboard tanks,
> > phony artillery pieces and firepits which attracted heat seeking
> > ordnance to them. NATO also found they had been repeatedly bombing
> > roads
> > that were nothing but basically hefty sacks laid out across the
> > countryside with wood and board vehicles on them. They also used
> > microwave ovens to confuse guidance systems. Thus, NATO missed the
> > real targets.
> >
> > Now there's some diy for you!
> >
>
> Dummy tanks and artillery have been standard camouflage practice since
> World War 2, not very cyberpunk really.
And that is exactly my point about "diy".
> I do not see how microwave ovens would have any effect - even some
> 802.11b WiFi cards have microwave oven interference compensation built
> in, and the water molecule resonance harmonics are unlikely to fool an
> electronics warfare plane or anti-radar missiles, which do have to
> work in wet conditions. A microwave oven simply does not generate
> enough power to have any EMP/HERF effects on a missile guidance
> system.
I'll try to find the source for my comment. I recollect it was
some scheme the Serbs got from Iraqi sources.
<rm>
> The alleged tracking of US Stealth bombers by passively measuring the
> "hole" that they leave in the signal strength of TV transmissions and
> possibly mobile phone transmitters (or was this just another
> justification for the bombing of Serbian TV stations ?).
Didn't we lose a Stealth to the Serbs? How did that play out?
> The post conflict incident at KFOR, where their supposed cyberwar
> experts, whilst examining some of the standard email computer viruses
> that were emailed by Serbian supporters, managed to unleash one on
> their internal NATO email system, leading to the release of supposedly
> sensitive documents (or was this just an excuse for leaking those
> documents ?)
Moussaoui got a windfall this summer, too.
<rm>
(__) Sourcerer
Sourcerer
> "Sourcerer" <ecs...@circuit-riders.net> wrote in message
> news:92404cad.02092...@posting.google.com...
> > Subtle Brick <fu...@off.com> wrote in message
> news:<Gq5l9.794$Os6.1...@news.xtra.co.nz>...
> > > Sourcerer wrote:
<rm>
> Who do you think creates the "diy" gizmos? They don't invent themselves. New
> techniques don't get handed down by god. The "forbidden knowledge" quickly
> goes out of date, almost as soon as it is released. Reading the zines does
> give you a good foundation for going off in your own direction.
<rm>
> Hell yeah it's about creating new things. I don't get my jollies by
> compiling the latest exploits. Where's the fun in exploit/rootkit or
> exploit/deface ad nausem? The fun is in learning, building new tools, using
> things in new ways. Cracking for the sake of cracking doesn't turn me on.
We agree on all the above.
> > Don't you understand? The very fact that you label yourself a cyberpunk
> > is the measure of your cluelessness on this issue. All we're trying to
> > do is clue you in.
> >
> > Look at you! You're slagging this group for not being malicious
> > hackers <laughing> You're slagging us because we aren't exactly
> > like you.
>
> I'm slagging the group for not *doing* anything. Now whether that's coding,
> building graffiti bots, discussing ways to "stay under the radar" or
> whatever doesn't worry me.
You don't know what we do. You assumed things in order to slag the
group. It's a time-honored tradition here for people with your
specific interests in cyberpunk to introduce themselves that way.
I don't know why, but there it is.
Here's the way it works. Everybody does what they do. Nobody waves
dicks around. We discuss things we think relate to cyberpunk. You
want to start a thread on what you do. No problem. Others will
reply or not as they like. Nobody gets defined out of cyberpunk
by anybody else and especially nobody claims only people like
themselves are cyberpunk. This is known as 'getting along well
with others'. That may not seem cyberpunk, but it is necessary
if there is to be a cyberpunk group. Listen to the voice of
experience.
If you're unfamiliar with usenet newsgroups, check to see if the
thread you're reading is crossposted. If it is, the odds are low
that anyone who posts to altcp started it, and it is unlikely
that any long time poster to this group even participates in
those threads. My killfile simply culls all crossposts (or it
will again, once I set up a newsserver) to this group.
There are crossposters to this group whose articles have shown
up here for a decade who have never once appeared here in a
non-crossposted, iow, real, alt.cyberpunk discussion. They
have never read this group, but there are hundreds, if not
thousands, of their articles in the alt.cp archive.
<rm>
> > What's interesting is that you're a clone, in some cases
> > word for word, of every other real cyberpunk whose posts are
> > preserved in the archive, whether from 1994 or yesterday.
>
> I'll survive my lack of uniqueness.
Just pointing out the phenomonon of the Hackerly Introduction 8-)
There are two reasons why you find no discussions that measure
up to your standards:
1. Phreaks and crackers, come here, slag us, and leave. So they
aren't around to post much.
2. Certain discussions are not for public boards (right now, in the
US, as far as I'm concerned, there's really no safe place for them).
(__) Sourcerer
Sourcerer
I've left out a whole line of hackers going back through Stallman
to MAC at MIT, not to mention Kernighan, Pike, Ritchie, Thompson who
gave us C and Unix.
I disagree, though, that the P's and C's are software only hackers.
They deserve the label "hacker", no matter how dumb they sometimes
seem, or because they don't descend directly from the pure line.
Some people think cyberpunk is a style, some an attitude. I think
it is tactics and strategies. It's all those things. They may
be the same thing. We each emphasize what is more useful to us.
Cyberpunk has a history and a pre-history. The cyberpunk movement
was the moment pre-history became history. It's when cyberpunk
received its Name.
(__) Sourcerer
Informatik
> it is tactics and strategies. It's all those things. They may
> be the same thing. We each emphasize what is more useful to us.
How about the phylosophy of cyberpunk.
Can we say that Virtual Reality and Cyberspace, in cp sci-fi
are the masks of Everyday Experience and Enviorment?
Then avatars, people show up with, are ego-masks of men, which they
use in everyday life. The operator behind the control could be the
spirit of men.
And so on, I believe authors of cyberpunk did describe our life, using
fancy futuristic names for what is today and have always been. They
just observed the dark-realism of things, not the utopia of perfect
life.
Social relations seem the same, tools are different.
That was the subject of my original message.
[o][o]
Subtle Brick
> dicks around. We discuss things we think relate to cyberpunk. You
> want to start a thread on what you do. No problem. Others will
> reply or not as they like. Nobody gets defined out of cyberpunk
> by anybody else and especially nobody claims only people like
> themselves are cyberpunk. This is known as 'getting along well
> with others'. That may not seem cyberpunk, but it is necessary
> if there is to be a cyberpunk group. Listen to the voice of
> experience.
Fair enough.
> There are two reasons why you find no discussions that measure
> up to your standards:
>
> 1. Phreaks and crackers, come here, slag us, and leave. So they
> aren't around to post much.
>
> 2. Certain discussions are not for public boards (right now, in the
> US, as far as I'm concerned, there's really no safe place for them).
Yes, it's a pity. Even back in the early nineties, on the old "invite only"
BBS's there was still an element of suspicion and paranoia over sharing
information with people you hadn't physically met. Great way to screw over
the scene, plant one narc and people will suspect four.
No hacker really believes info wants to be free anyway. The value of
information is (in general) inversely proportional to the number of people
that have it. Zero day exploits aren't zero day when everybody knows about
them. I guess thats why lots of hackers operate in small groups.
On the other hand the less information is distributed the slower it
advances, and the less opportunity you personally have to get your ideas
bounced around, criticised and improved on. And I guess fame/notoriety is a
lot of why stuff gets released.
Ah, scew the paranoia, there is little enough community as it is.
John Smith
> experience.
>
> Fair enough.
>
> > There are two reasons why you find no discussions that measure
> > up to your standards:
> >
> > 1. Phreaks and crackers, come here, slag us, and leave. So they
> > aren't around to post much.
> >
> > 2. Certain discussions are not for public boards (right now, in the
> > US, as far as I'm concerned, there's really no safe place for them).
>
Some topics are *never* suitable for public discussion.
I remember sitting in a circle, in a Dutch polder at Hacking in
Progress in 1997, discussing practical Electro Magnetic Pulse/ High
Energy Radio Frequency experiments/weapons with about a dozen people.
We all promised to keep in touch via an email list, but on reflection,
when back at home, everyone realised that this could become one of
*the most seriously monitored* email discussion lists on the planet.
> Yes, it's a pity. Even back in the early nineties, on the old "invite only"
> BBS's there was still an element of suspicion and paranoia over sharing
> information with people you hadn't physically met. Great way to screw over
> the scene, plant one narc and people will suspect four.
With good reason ! Ask yourselves if the people that you see, now and
then, rolling up a joint are likely to a) spend several years in jail
or b) cough up to the authorities about all their
"hacker"/subversive/cyberpunk friends
(never discuss anything sensitive on IRC if you do not want ignorant
journalists or law enforcement officers to enhance their careers at
your expense)
> Ah, scew the paranoia, there is little enough community as it is.
Screw the "community" my vote is for paranoia
JS
Robotboy8
Phylosophy. That's some crazy-cool spelling.
alie...@hotmail.com
> auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.02093...@posting.google.com>...
> > ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> > > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.0209...@posting.google.com>...
> <rm>
> > > > The September 11th planes were crashed by human pilots in the cockpit
> > > > rather than by remote control, just like the World War 2 Kamikaze.
> > >
> > > It's the claim that there is something cyberpunk about it that I find
> > > curious. I think it's the suicide part that keeps the cyberpunk
> > > label from sticking. Remote control might seem more cyberpunk, but
> > > the logistics are a nightmare, the odds of success slim at best, and
> >
> > I agree - at the moment, remote control of a plane needs special
> > remote control system hardware built into it i.e. something like a
> > gunnery target drone. There are airliners equipped with automatic
> > landing systems which could perhaps be subverted via a computer
> > compromise of the radar and flight control systems, but whilst it
> > might be possible to crash an airliner (bad enough), I do not see how
> > this could be used to attack a specific target away from an airport.
I heard somewhere a rumor of unknown reliability that terrorists
in southern Europe had used a remote controlled model car to
transport a bomb into a compund. True or not, the thing is you
can do a lot with remote control and a webcam.
> There's the drone's the US is using in Afghanistan, controlled from
> Florida, they say.
For tactical control purposes the pilot has to be reasonably close
though the high level decisions are made in the US, explaining
delays that let the fugitives get away. Again a disclaimer: it is
hard to tell if it is true or not though it sounds plausible.
[snip]
> > That won't stop the authorities from arresting Muslim suspects who
> > happen to have suspicious copies of say, Microsoft Flight Simulator,
> > on their computers.
>
> About 10 years ago there was a simulator for the space shuttle. I
> read a review which proclaimed it was dead boring because it took
> days to complete the pre-flight tests. Sounds useful to me.
Something similar was said of a sub trainer...
[snip]
> > I disgree - pinpoint real time tracking of unauthorised radio
> > transmissions is not that easy in an urban context, even for the
> > military, and there are no mechanisms in place for instant retaliation
> > unless they emanate in a battlefield environment e.g. artillery
> > counter-battery fire. Subversion of air traffic control, navigation
> > and radar data systems is very unlikely to be detectable in real time,
> > and, unfortunately, could be set as a cron job to execute at the
> > attacker's convenience.
>
> Points taken. My assumption is that, at least for the US, everyday
> life will become increasingly a battlefield environment. That will
> develop over years. It's not right now, but it has begun and it
> began with air traffic issues due to 9/11. A tactic of US strategy
> is to wow the wogs with technology. The domestic market is the easiest
> and surest place to deploy and demonstrate them, since they can't seem to
> troll al Qaeda into another move.
>
> It's why I'm warning against hacker exploits, for example if anyone
> is planning a reprise of the attack on the Pentagon during the Gulf
> War, say when the shooting starts in Iraq. Times have changed. It
> was stupid then. It may be suicidal now. Non-US citizens should
> know that the ruling class here seriously intends to achieve
> its goals. I believe, for them it is not anymore an issue of "how",
> it is simply an issue of timing.
I am a little surprised that no virus writers made another anti-US
virus/worm for this occation as a protest. Perhaps their survival
instinct kicked in. Had someone tried I suspect the authorities
would get greenlighted to go on the rampage. Life expectancy of
whoever netted would be low, methinks.
> I mean, let's not make orange jumpsuits and blindfolds the official
> cyberpunk uniform.
Isn't that the one for the 2600 crowd? Here I see more like
black-with-black-on-black to paraphrase a line from the Chatsubo.
> Maybe I'm just spooked. I don't like at all the way things are
> developing.
Much power has been granted with few questions asked, rarely a
good combination.
[snip]
> > > What NATO found at supposed Yugoslav positions were cardboard tanks,
> > > phony artillery pieces and firepits which attracted heat seeking
> > > ordnance to them. NATO also found they had been repeatedly bombing
> > > roads
> > > that were nothing but basically hefty sacks laid out across the
> > > countryside with wood and board vehicles on them. They also used
> > > microwave ovens to confuse guidance systems. Thus, NATO missed the
> > > real targets.
> > >
> > > Now there's some diy for you!
> > >
> >
> > Dummy tanks and artillery have been standard camouflage practice since
> > World War 2, not very cyberpunk really.
>
> And that is exactly my point about "diy".
>
> > I do not see how microwave ovens would have any effect - even some
> > 802.11b WiFi cards have microwave oven interference compensation built
> > in, and the water molecule resonance harmonics are unlikely to fool an
> > electronics warfare plane or anti-radar missiles, which do have to
> > work in wet conditions. A microwave oven simply does not generate
> > enough power to have any EMP/HERF effects on a missile guidance
> > system.
A simple microwave oven plus a little tinkering would result in
a cheap, powerful (600W) GPS jammer. Golf war era cruise missiles
would perhaps have been susceptible, not sure how many were GPS
augmented. These days I would expect they use directive antennas
so you would need to loft your jammer into the air. Ye olde oven
is impractical there but for a few dolars you can make your own
solid state jammer.
> I'll try to find the source for my comment. I recollect it was
> some scheme the Serbs got from Iraqi sources.
The Iraqi has gained some experience from being in the receiving
end of US tech over the last 10 years or so. Next I am expecting
someone to make a laser guidance jammer.
> <rm>
>
> > The alleged tracking of US Stealth bombers by passively measuring the
> > "hole" that they leave in the signal strength of TV transmissions and
> > possibly mobile phone transmitters (or was this just another
> > justification for the bombing of Serbian TV stations ?).
>
> Didn't we lose a Stealth to the Serbs? How did that play out?
It has been very, very quiet. Most likely the Serbs made a mint
selling samples of the panels to high bidders.
> > The post conflict incident at KFOR, where their supposed cyberwar
> > experts, whilst examining some of the standard email computer viruses
> > that were emailed by Serbian supporters, managed to unleash one on
> > their internal NATO email system, leading to the release of supposedly
> > sensitive documents (or was this just an excuse for leaking those
> > documents ?)
>
> Moussaoui got a windfall this summer, too.
I find stupidity can easily explain a lot, more than clever
schemes of illegally obtaining inforamtion in the style of
"Mission Impossible".
==<)
John Smith
> ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.0210...@posting.google.com>...
> > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.02093...@posting.google.com>...
> > > ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.0209...@posting.google.com>...
> > <rm>
>
> in southern Europe had used a remote controlled model car to
> transport a bomb into a compund. True or not, the thing is you
> can do a lot with remote control and a webcam.
>
> > There's the drone's the US is using in Afghanistan, controlled from
> > Florida, they say.
>
> For tactical control purposes the pilot has to be reasonably close
> though the high level decisions are made in the US, explaining
> delays that let the fugitives get away. Again a disclaimer: it is
> hard to tell if it is true or not though it sounds plausible.
There were reports from Afghanistan of a CIA Predator drone (as
opposed to a US Army Artillery spotting one) being fitted with a TOW
anti-tank missile (or similar) and being used to kill/ambush some
Taleban leader or other.
Would it be totally unrealistic, given their past history, to propose
a CIA Predator drone converted for opium/morphine base/heroin
smuggling in Afghanistan, to save the cost in pilots that previous CIA
drug smuggling / support for local warlords in Asia and Latin America
has involved ?
> > About 10 years ago there was a simulator for the space shuttle. I
> > read a review which proclaimed it was dead boring because it took
> > days to complete the pre-flight tests. Sounds useful to me.
>
> Something similar was said of a sub trainer...
>
Is a hijacked submarine really a likely possability ? Admittedly,
according to the Economist, there have been *criminal* raids on
Ukarainian (surface) warships, where the watch crew have been
overpowered, simply in order to steal the radio communications
equipment to melt down and salvage the precious metals
used in the electronics, but a submarine is a different order of
magnitude, even though, of course, this is one of the plot devices in
Neal Stephenson's "SnowCrash"
> >
> > It's why I'm warning against hacker exploits, for example if anyone
> > is planning a reprise of the attack on the Pentagon during the Gulf
> > War, say when the shooting starts in Iraq. Times have changed. It
> > was stupid then. It may be suicidal now. Non-US citizens should
> > know that the ruling class here seriously intends to achieve
> > its goals. I believe, for them it is not anymore an issue of "how",
> > it is simply an issue of timing.
>
> I am a little surprised that no virus writers made another anti-US
> virus/worm for this occation as a protest. Perhaps their survival
> instinct kicked in. Had someone tried I suspect the authorities
> would get greenlighted to go on the rampage. Life expectancy of
> whoever netted would be low, methinks.
>
You could make the punishment Ghengis Khan style execution of the
perpetrator and all his family, but this would still not deter people
who simply do not believe that they will be caught, let alone
punished. If you throw in "holy martyrdom" as well, then such
measures, if true, would have even less affect, and could indeed be
counterproductive.
I have no evidence that US cyber security has actually improved or
been tightened up since Sept 11th 2001, there are more armed guards on
buldings, but the electronic defences seem to be as pathetic as ever.
> > I mean, let's not make orange jumpsuits and blindfolds the official
> > cyberpunk uniform.
>
You always wanted a free holiday in Cuba didn't you ?
> >
> > > I do not see how microwave ovens would have any effect - even some
> > > 802.11b WiFi cards have microwave oven interference compensation built
> > > in, and the water molecule resonance harmonics are unlikely to fool an
> > > electronics warfare plane or anti-radar missiles, which do have to
> > > work in wet conditions. A microwave oven simply does not generate
> > > enough power to have any EMP/HERF effects on a missile guidance
> > > system.
>
> A simple microwave oven plus a little tinkering would result in
> a cheap, powerful (600W) GPS jammer. Golf war era cruise missiles
> would perhaps have been susceptible, not sure how many were GPS
> augmented. These days I would expect they use directive antennas
> so you would need to loft your jammer into the air. Ye olde oven
> is impractical there but for a few dolars you can make your own
> solid state jammer.
>
Sorry, I am still not convinced that there is any easy "street tech"
or diy way to convert a domestic microwave oven into a viable missile
jammer. GPS works on around 1227MHz and most microwave ovens work
around 2450 MHz. Physically re-engineering the cavity magnetron to
pump out anything close to 650watts on the GPS frequency is a
precision engineering job, and not for amateurs. N.B. the optimum
resonant frequency of a water molecule is around 12Ghz, so some of the
stuff you read about microwave ovens is crap.
Even if you succeeded in doing this, it is still not enough power to
affect the GPS navigation of a cruise missile (which also uses its
pre-programmed digital map and terrain following radar) or a GPS
guided "iron bomb", unless, as you have pointed out, you lofted it
into a balloon or aeroplane between the satellite(s) and the missile
or bomb.
GPS *position spoofing* is a much more viable technology, but reguires
much more than a microwave oven.
JS
alie...@hotmail.com
> alie...@hotmail.com wrote in message news:<fe70cd21.0210...@posting.google.com>...
> > ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.0210...@posting.google.com>...
> > > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.02093...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > ecs...@circuit-riders.net (Sourcerer) wrote in message news:<92404cad.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > auto4...@hushmail.com (John Smith) wrote in message news:<351370d9.0209...@posting.google.com>...
> > > <rm>
> >
> > I heard somewhere a rumor of unknown reliability that terrorists
> > in southern Europe had used a remote controlled model car to
> > transport a bomb into a compund. True or not, the thing is you
> > can do a lot with remote control and a webcam.
> >
> > > There's the drone's the US is using in Afghanistan, controlled from
> > > Florida, they say.
> >
> > For tactical control purposes the pilot has to be reasonably close
> > though the high level decisions are made in the US, explaining
> > delays that let the fugitives get away. Again a disclaimer: it is
> > hard to tell if it is true or not though it sounds plausible.
>
> There were reports from Afghanistan of a CIA Predator drone (as
> opposed to a US Army Artillery spotting one) being fitted with a TOW
> anti-tank missile (or similar) and being used to kill/ambush some
> Taleban leader or other.
It was not TOW; too messy to drag out a thin wire to the missile
when you are flying too. From what I can remember (assuming it was
not a planted story) it was a modified helicopter fire and forget
missile.
The new buzzword is UCAV, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, old UAVs
outfitted with weapons. FAS has some info
< http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ucav.htm >
> Would it be totally unrealistic, given their past history, to propose
> a CIA Predator drone converted for opium/morphine base/heroin
> smuggling in Afghanistan, to save the cost in pilots that previous CIA
> drug smuggling / support for local warlords in Asia and Latin America
> has involved ?
It is technically possible but costly and difficult. Only recently
have they been able to land and perform takeoff from a runway, in
what looked like a semi-autonomous mode. Much simpler then to tell
military personell that this is a very, very secret box, just
deliver it to such-and-such a place and then forget all about it.
In the current political climate that would be realistic.
> > > About 10 years ago there was a simulator for the space shuttle. I
> > > read a review which proclaimed it was dead boring because it took
> > > days to complete the pre-flight tests. Sounds useful to me.
> >
> > Something similar was said of a sub trainer...
>
> Is a hijacked submarine really a likely possability ? Admittedly,
> according to the Economist, there have been *criminal* raids on
> Ukarainian (surface) warships, where the watch crew have been
> overpowered, simply in order to steal the radio communications
> equipment to melt down and salvage the precious metals
> used in the electronics, but a submarine is a different order of
> magnitude, even though, of course, this is one of the plot devices in
> Neal Stephenson's "SnowCrash"
A lot of former Soviet hardware has been sold off to troubled
areas, so who knows. It is known that Aum Shinrikyo were in the
middle of some serious arms purchase with Russia; initiative and
inventiveness is a large part of completing any mission.
[snip]
> > I am a little surprised that no virus writers made another anti-US
> > virus/worm for this occation as a protest. Perhaps their survival
> > instinct kicked in. Had someone tried I suspect the authorities
> > would get greenlighted to go on the rampage. Life expectancy of
> > whoever netted would be low, methinks.
>
> You could make the punishment Ghengis Khan style execution of the
> perpetrator and all his family, but this would still not deter people
> who simply do not believe that they will be caught, let alone
> punished. If you throw in "holy martyrdom" as well, then such
> measures, if true, would have even less affect, and could indeed be
> counterproductive.
My impression of middle eastern styled martyrs is that they have
to die in the very battle to qualify for martyrdom and the express
ticket to heaven. If so I think someone caught, given a lengthy,
ponderous trial with many embarassing details of their private
life, would not qualify.
> I have no evidence that US cyber security has actually improved or
> been tightened up since Sept 11th 2001, there are more armed guards on
> buldings, but the electronic defences seem to be as pathetic as ever.
Mostly true, it seems so. The RMA crowd is pitching their battle
elsewhere; that is the planned topic of my next technical musing.
> > > I mean, let's not make orange jumpsuits and blindfolds the official
> > > cyberpunk uniform.
>
> You always wanted a free holiday in Cuba didn't you ?
A life time holiday too...
[snip]
> > A simple microwave oven plus a little tinkering would result in
> > a cheap, powerful (600W) GPS jammer. Golf war era cruise missiles
> > would perhaps have been susceptible, not sure how many were GPS
> > augmented. These days I would expect they use directive antennas
> > so you would need to loft your jammer into the air. Ye olde oven
> > is impractical there but for a few dolars you can make your own
> > solid state jammer.
>
> Sorry, I am still not convinced that there is any easy "street tech"
> or diy way to convert a domestic microwave oven into a viable missile
> jammer. GPS works on around 1227MHz and most microwave ovens work
> around 2450 MHz. Physically re-engineering the cavity magnetron to
> pump out anything close to 650watts on the GPS frequency is a
Microwave ovens are designed to pump out RF within the permitted
band; these are not terribly precise and certainly not stabilised
devices. Also you will notice 2450 is near enough double of 1227
so the subharmonic will cover it. Fine tuning by an external cavity
resonator to 2454MHz and then inserting a non-linear dielectric
will quite likely smother the GPS preamp stage. After all the true
GPS signals are very weak; you do have to follow the sequence for
the spectrum spreader to find a signal at all.
The low tech needed to jam GPS is probably an important reason
why they are bringing in the L5 band and the M-code.
> precision engineering job, and not for amateurs. N.B. the optimum
You need only one expert to write reasonably detailed descriptions
for a larger crew of amateurs to churn out microwave jammers.
> resonant frequency of a water molecule is around 12Ghz, so some of the
> stuff you read about microwave ovens is crap.
Quite true, microwave ovens work by agitation and not by lossy
resonance.
> Even if you succeeded in doing this, it is still not enough power to
> affect the GPS navigation of a cruise missile (which also uses its
> pre-programmed digital map and terrain following radar) or a GPS
The terrain following had problems over featureless stretches
such as water and deserts. During the 1991 Gulf war the US sent
the cruise missiles over an Iranian mountain to regain lock on
the terrain features, according to an old story.
> guided "iron bomb", unless, as you have pointed out, you lofted it
> into a balloon or aeroplane between the satellite(s) and the missile
> or bomb.
>
> GPS *position spoofing* is a much more viable technology, but reguires
> much more than a microwave oven.
True, though military receivers should all be equipped with
Anti Spoofing (AS) features. Noticing you suddenly lost all
P-code transmitters and were left with only 4 very powerful
CA-code transmitters would be a giveaway. Even on most modern
civilian receivers you should be able to see something was amiss.
Pseudolites are commercially available though I would expect
some serious export restrictions being placed on them.
==<)
