bubbleblower | Silicon Soapware #227

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                            SILICON SOAPWARE 
       wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway
                        from Bubbles = Tom Digby
                           = bubbles@well.com 

                      http://www.well.com/~bubbles/

                                Issue #227
                         New Moon of June 8, 2013


Contents copyright 2013 by Thomas G. Digby, and licensed under a Creative 
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.  See the Creative 
Commons site at http://creativecommons.org/ for details. 

Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback.  
Details of how to sign up are at the end.  


                          *********************

Summer is a-coming in, or so goes the song, in an older version of the 
English language that this spelling checker doesn't really care for.  The 
official starting date is either June 20 or 21, depending on what time 
zone you're in.

But even though we aren't yet at the longest day of this year, we're 
already at the time of earliest sunrise, give or take a few days 
depending on your exact latitude (assuming you're in the Northern 
Hemisphere temperate zone).  For the next few weeks sunrises and sunsets 
will both be getting later, until we reach the latest sunset around the 
end of June.  After that sunsets will start getting earlier even as 
sunrises keep getting later.

Something analogous happens at the other side of the year, with earliest 
sunset in early December and latest sunrise in early January.  And no, 
the two situations are not exactly symmetrical, because of how Earth's 
orbit is not perfectly circular.

A technical explanation of why this is so is beyond the scope of this 
article, but can probably be found on the Internet.  Technical 
explanations of almost anything can probably be found on the Internet.


                          *********************

Technical explanations of just about anything can be found on the 
Internet, even if whatever is being explained is unexplainable.  Some of 
those explanations may, however, be wrong.  Listings of which 
explanations are right and which are wrong may not be findable on the 
Internet.  Well, they may, but such listings themselves may be wrong.  
Likewise for lists of lists, and lists of lists of lists ...

You have to be careful on the Internet.


                          *********************

And I have a confession to make.  I may have been wrong on the Internet.  
No, I'm not going to give any details, except to say that the XKCD people 
have so far not contacted me about it.


                          *********************

Memorial Day was a couple of weeks ago, leading to thoughts of the 
Indianapolis 500 auto race.  That came hard on the heels of some news 
item about those self-driving cars Google and others are experimenting 
with.

If the self-driving car technology does pan out, fewer and fewer people 
will have the experience of actually manually driving cars.  Will this 
lead to a decline in interest in auto racing?  It might, although one 
might note that horse racing is still popular even though fewer and fewer 
people in industrialized nations have any in-person interaction with 
horses nowadays.

While thinking about all this I happened to look at the Wikipedia article 
on the different color flags they wave at the cars at race tracks.  The 
article described quite a few different colors and combinations of 
colors, many of which I didn't know they had.

But they didn't describe a whole bunch of other flags that someone could 
conceivably sneak into the venue and hypnotize (or otherwise induce) the 
flag-wavers into waving at the cars.  So if, for example, they start 
waving a purple flag or the Jolly Roger or the Confederate Battle Flag at 
the cars during a race the drivers won't have a clue as to how to 
respond.  Should they speed up or slow down?  Check whether they've left 
their parking brakes on?  If the cars aren't supposed to have parking 
brakes, check whether some have been installed by mistake?  Likewise for 
turn signals?  Maybe they should all turn around and race in the other 
direction, back to the starting line?  Should they all stop, get out of 
their cars and start playing Calvinball?  Have the rules expired, so they 
should all stop and have a meeting in the infield to decide new rules 
before continuing?  Or maybe something else?

Whatever they decide, somebody isn't going to like it.  There will 
probably be spirited debate over the next few weeks or months.  Stay 
tuned.


                          *********************

Someone on another forum posted one of those email spam messages that 
consist of seemingly random words and phrases, sometimes with links 
pointing to Web sites full of similar random-seeming garbage.  Why would 
the spammers bother with such, she asked.  Various people gave 
explanations involving statistics and address verification and 
search-engine rankings and such.

But something else occurred to me.

I recall that back before computerized cryptography was common, when 
secret agents in the movies or in spy novels would make contact they 
would confirm that they had the right person by saying some nonsense 
phrase.  The correct person would know to give a specific answer that 
anyone else would be unlikely to stumble on by chance.

Also, certain code words would have special meanings when used in certain 
contexts.

I haven't noticed any recent examples, perhaps because computers have 
made that kind of thing obsolete.  Then again, it may just be because I 
haven't seen many spy movies recently.

But now with all normal computer traffic being monitored by various 
government agencies (perhaps including some we haven't heard of yet) the 
secret agents may be turning to Internet spam as a secure channel.

Say Secret Agent A wants to send a message to Secret Agent B.  Agent A 
looks it up in their code book and finds the appropriate 
nonsense-sounding phrase with the meaning they want.  They then send 
copies of that nonsense phrase out to millions of people, including 
Secret Agent B.  Most people just ignore the message as spam.  But since 
Secret Agent B's computer is programmed to be on the lookout for that 
specific phrase (among others) it notifies Agent B of the arrival of the 
message.

Various counter-spies may have the network under surveillance, and may 
also pick up the message, but they have the needle-in-a-haystack problem.  
They have no way to tell which of the millions of junk messages flying 
hither and yon are significant.  And even if they do trace a message back 
to Secret Agent A's computer, it could have been sent by a virus or 
something without Agent A's knowledge.  So Internet spam becomes a 
relatively secure channel for secret messages.

Have the people who make spy movies picked up on this yet?


                          *********************

Something reminded me of the 1950's science fiction movie "This Island 
Earth".  One of the gimmicks in that film was a communication device 
called an "interocitor".  It looked sort of like an office desk with a 
triangular Yield sign sticking up out of the back.  It was a video 
communicator, with the triangular thing being the screen.  It may seem 
big and clunky by today's standards, but that was the technology they had 
in 1950's science fiction movies.

One interesting feature was that the screen was equipped with something 
like death rays, whereby the person you were talking to could shoot at 
you.

Now you might think that you could use one of these for when those 
annoying marketing people call about carpet cleaning or whatever.  Just 
hit the button and Zap!  No more annoying telemarketing calls.

But look more closely at the description.  In order for you to be able to 
shoot at telemarketers they would have to have an interocitor with the 
death-ray hardware.  Just getting one for yourself would let others shoot 
at you, but wouldn't by itself let you shoot at anyone else.

So why would anyone want one of these things?  Maybe in a world with a 
strict code of honor like "No fair shooting at people if they can't shoot 
back" everyone would feel sort of obligated to have one and very few 
people would actually do anything drastic with it.

Or maybe people would develop workarounds like standing off to the side 
of the screen when talking, perhaps using mirrors to make it look like 
they're front and center where they're supposed to be.  This is assuming 
the death rays or whatever they are don't reflect off of mirrors.

In the movie some of the people using the things weren't aware of the 
danger.  Others were in a situation where they had no choice.  And some 
may have figured that the people they would be talking with wouldn't want 
to harm them.

So no, I don't think I would want an interocitor for telemarketers to 
call me on.  But it would be tempting to pass a law requiring them to 
have something like it: "... to make an appointment to have your carpets 
cleaned, press 1.  To get taken off our list, press 3.  To zap us with 
death rays, press 5."

That's something I'd like to see.  But I'm not holding my breath.


                          *********************


                           SORRY, RIGHT NUMBER


In the dead of night
The phone rings...
And rings...
And rings...

"Hello?"

Bright cheery voice:
"Good morning!  This is your three a.m. wake-up call."

Not quite awake,
I still manage to say
That I didn't order any
Three a.m. wake-up call.

"We know that, but for only ten dollars a month
You can cancel it."

I thought I'd sent my money in for that already,
But no,
That had been to cancel
Their two a.m. wake-up call.
The three a.m. call was a new item
Just added to their list
Of "services".
And they were planning others for the future
At other hours of the night
Along with don't-stay-in-the-shower-too-long calls
Plus physical-fitness calls
To keep you jogging
Between the dinner table
And the phone.

I mumble something
About answering machines
And the voice grows angry:
"That's...that's...restraint of trade!
Listen, buster, you try that
And we'll get an injunction so fast
It'll make your head swim.
And don't try anything funny
Like letting it ring, either!"

My mention of the bit
In the Eighth Amendment about
Cruel and unusual punishment
Brings only scornful laughter:
"We're exempt from all that stuff."

My patience nears its end:
"Law or no law, if this phone rings one more time
I'm gonna rip it out by the roots
And mail it to Timbuktu."
SLAM!!!

Ten minutes later
Some delivery service calls
With a special deal
On mailing phones to Timbuktu
In the middle of the night.

So, the next time they call
They'll get a recording:
"The number you have reached
Has been ripped out by the roots
And mailed to Timbuktu.
All of our overseas circuits are busy
And calling Timbuktu is too expensive anyway
But if you insist
You may hold the line
Until something becomes available."

Only my friends will know
That it's really
An answering machine.



                                     Thomas G. Digby

                                     Entered 2345hr 2/22/84



                          *********************


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