Vera Wilde, artist-in-residence at Hack42. Because Art & Science!

Hackerspace Hack42 is proudly hosting a new artist-in-residence. Dr. Vera K. Wilde (PhD PoliSci) is a (former) Harvard Kennedy School researcher. She is working on re-branding the Dark-Web to the EDTR-web, a place for Expressing, Dissenting, Teaching and Resisting.

The EDTR-web is using technologies like TOR and encrypted communications tools to create a place of freedom where centralised power cannot reach.

Vera will be using arts (oil painting and songwriting) as well as writing and political science methods to define and develop the EDTR-web as a social space and technological phenomenon.

Vera's third photo-shoot, in which we get to play with some theatrical props and explore extreme opposites.

Wondering “is BitLocker good and a reliable solution to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access”? Microsoft BitLocker is a volume encryption feature that keeps the files safe and ensures efficient drive encryption. However, managing the BitLocker systems is itself a challenge which is possible to do effectively with the centralized cloud-based solution-BitTruster.

dark | light | closer

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] :: [semaphore] sensory

visual study in

perception of self

and the environment

in relation to the five

physical senses

A small compact Wi-Fi cloud camera with a ton of features to protect what you value the most. Check the best price at: koacctv.com/ezviz-mini-720p-hd-wi-fi-ip-camera/

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-Oof! Here we are. Why’re we looking at this old place, anyways?-

Well, only one way to find out. C’mon, let’s move to the basement.

-------------------------------

Extracted From: Security Camera #992 at Cybertron Robotics

Video Recorded 10/6 16:14

Accessed 10/6 by commjgordon@gcpd.net passcode 09141992

CLASSIFIED

Emailed to: waynesecurity@oracle.net

Subject Line: Investigations

Encrypted Message Decrypt key 02011968

Still using codespeak? Encryption much faster. First part of security vid attached. They've gone offline in basement, try to boost power there- we need that footage.

Also- something going on at Club Olympus. Some sort of lighting storm building up- I don't trust it.

Can one of you check it out?

- G

Assorted Media

Evolution knows no math, but it knows how to count. It pays scant regard to geometry and calculus, but it effortlessly employs techniques that make use of those very principles. It does not have intelligence, but it can build brains. It knows nothing of electrical engineering, but it constructs nervous systems we can only admire for their complexity and functionality.

How come?

We say we are rational beings and we trust in the scientific method. At the same time we entrust our systems to our unproven beliefs. We commit our governments’ secrets, and all of our Internet commerce, to mathematical encryption - which is based upon a single assumption: that multiplication cannot easily be reversed. We send people to war based upon assumptions, only to find out we were wrong afterwards. We assume that our systems and our strategies can protect us from natural disasters, and then New Orleans happens.

Why are we so confident?

If all else fails, most claim that they trust in God. But do we really? Given how little we know about ourselves and about the laws of nature, what makes us think we know more about Him?

Are we assuming too much?

Normal daily life along a different timeline - which we cannot find - but have the feeling that it exists - but

Certainly!

Quantum computing represents a groundbreaking advancement in technology, deeply intertwined with the concepts of superposition, entanglement, and interference from quantum physics. Unlike classical computing, which processes information in a linear fashion using bits (0s and 1s), quantum computing utilizes quantum bits or qubits that can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This enables quantum computers to perform numerous calculations at once, effectively navigating through a vast landscape of potential solutions.

The idea of parallel timelines can be likened to the way quantum computers operate. Each decision or computation can be viewed as branching into multiple outcomes, similar to how different timelines might unfold based on various choices. This means that a quantum computer can explore various paths to a solution simultaneously, leading to remarkable efficiencies in solving complex problems.

In practical terms, this capability could revolutionize fields such as cryptography, where quantum computers may break existing encryption methods faster than classical computers. In material science, they could simulate quantum phenomena to discover new materials with desirable properties. Additionally, in optimization problems across various industries, quantum computing offers the potential to find the most efficient solutions more rapidly than traditional methods.

In summary, the link between quantum computing and the concept of parallel timelines highlights a fascinating intersection of technology and theoretical physics, suggesting that our understanding of reality may be more complex and interconnected than we previously imagined.

Board game letters spelling out privacy and encrypt. For attribution please link to www.comparitech.com/ Thanks!

"Cypherpunks is gripping, vital reading, explaining clearly the way in which corporate and government control of the internet poses a fundamental threat to our freedom and democracy". — Oliver Stone

"Obligatory reading for everyone interested in the reality of our freedoms." — Slavoj Zizek

"The power of this book is that it breaks a silence. It marks an insurrection of subjugated knowledge that is, above all, a warning to all." — John Pilger

Buy Cypherpunks Freedom and the Future of the Internet here: stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

Cypherpunks are activists who advocate the widespread use of strong cryptography (writing in code) as a route to progressive change. Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of and visionary behind WikiLeaks, has been a leading voice in the cypherpunk movement since its inception in the 1980s.

Now, in what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute "the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed," perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the "Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse" (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about?

The harassment of WikiLeaks and other Internet activists, together with attempts to introduce anti-file sharing legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, indicate that the politics of the Internet have reached a crossroads. In one direction lies a future that guarantees, in the watchwords of the cypherpunks, "privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful"; in the other lies an Internet that allows government and large corporations to discover ever more about internet users while hiding their own activities. Assange and his co-discussants unpick the complex issues surrounding this crucial choice with clarity and engaging enthusiasm.

Publication November 2012 • 192 pages

Paperback ISBN 978-1-939293-00-8 • Ebook ISBN 978-1-939293-01-5

Julian Assange is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks. An original contributor to the cypherpunk mailing list, Assange is the author of numerous software projects in line with the cypherpunk philosophy, including the Rubberhose encryption system and the original code for WikiLeaks. An 'ethical hacker' in his teens, and subsequently an activist and internet service provider to Australia during the 1990s, he is the co-author (with Sulette Dreyfus) of Underground, a history of the international hacker movement. "Julian is currently a refugee under the protection of the government of Ecuador, and lives in the Ecuadorian embassy in London."

Jacob Appelbaum is a staff research scientist at the University of Washington, and a developer and advocate for the Tor Project, which is an online anonymity system for everyday people to fight against surveillance and against internet censorship.

Andy Müller-Maguhn is a long time member of, and former spokesman for, the Chaos Computer Club in Germany. A specialist on surveillance he runs a company called Cryptophone, which markets secure voice communication devices to commercial clients.

Jérémie Zimmermann is the co-founder and spokesperson for the citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, the most prominent European organization defending anonymity rights online and promoting awareness of regulatory attacks on online freedoms.

AN EXCHANGE FROM CYPHERPUNKS:

JULIAN:

I want to look at what I see as a difference between a US cypherpunk perspective and the European perspective, which I think is quite interesting. The US Second Amendment is the right to bear arms. Just recently I was watching some footage that a friend shot in the US on the right to bear arms, and above a firearms store it says 'Democracy, Locked and Loaded,' and that’s the way that you ensure that you don’t have totalitarian regimes – that people are armed and if they are pissed off enough, then they simply take their arms and they retake control by force. Whether that argument is still valid now is actually an interesting one because of the difference in the types of arms that have occurred over the past 30 years. So, we can look back to this declaration that code-making, providing secret cryptographic codes that the government couldn’t spy on, was in fact a munition, and this big war that we fought in the 1990s to try and make cryptography available to everyone, which we largely won.

JAKE:

In the West?

JULIAN:

In the West we largely won and it's in every browser – it is now perhaps being back-doored and subverted in different kinds of ways. The notion is that you cannot trust a government to implement the policies that it says that it is implementing, and so we must provide the underlying tools, cryptographic tools that we control, as a sort of use of force, in that if the ciphers are good no matter how hard it tries a government cannot break into your communications directly. Maybe it can put a bug in your house or whatever.

JAKE:

Force of authority is derived from violence. One must acknowledge with cryptography no amount of violence will ever solve the math problem.

JULIAN:

Exactly.

JAKE:

And this is the important key. It doesn't mean you can't be tortured, it doesn't mean that they can't try and bug your house or subvert it some way but it means that if they find an encrypted message it doesn't matter if they have the force of the authority behind everything that they do, they cannot solve that math problem. This is the thing though that is totally non-obvious to people that are non-technical and it has to be driven home. If we could solve all of those math problems, it would be a different story and, of course, the government will be able to solve those math problems if anyone could.

JULIAN:

But it's just a fact. It just happens to be a fact about reality, such as that you can build atomic bombs, that there are math problems that you can create that even the strongest state cannot directly break. I think that was tremendously appealing to Californian libertarians and others who believed in this sort of 'democracy locked and loaded,' and here was a very intellectual way of doing it – of a couple of individuals with cryptography standing up to the full power of the strongest suit of power in the world. And we're still doing that a little bit, but I wonder, I have a view that the likely outcome is that those are really tremendously big economic forces and tremendously big political forces, like Jérémie was saying, and that the natural efficiencies of these technologies compared to the number of human beings will mean that slowly we will end up in a global totalitarian surveillance society. By totalitarian I mean a total surveillance, and that perhaps there'll just be the last free living people – and these last free living people are those who understand how to use this cryptography to defend against this complete, total surveillance, and some people who are completely off-grid, neo-Luddites that have gone into the cave, or traditional tribes-people. And these traditional people have none of the efficiencies of a modern economy so their ability to act is very small. Are we headed for that sort of scenario?

JÉRÉMIE:

First of all, if you look at it from a market perspective, I'm convinced that there is a market in privacy that has been mostly left unexplored, so maybe there will be an economic drive for companies to develop tools that will give users the individual ability to control their data and communication. Maybe this is one way that we can solve that problem. I'm not sure it can work alone, but this may happen and we may not know it yet. Also it is interesting to see that what you’re describing is the power of the hackers, in a way – 'hackers' in the primary sense of the term, not a criminal. A hacker is a technology enthusiast, is somebody who likes to understand how technology works, not to be trapped into technology but to make it work better. I suppose that when you were five or seven you had a screwdriver and tried to open devices to understand what it was like inside. So, this is what being a hacker is, and hackers built the Internet for many reasons, also because it was fun, and they have developed it and have given the Internet to everybody else. Companies like Google and Facebook saw the opportunity to build business models based on capturing users' personal data. But still we see a form of power in the hands of hackers and what is my primary interest these days is that we see these hackers gaining power, even in the political arenas. In the US there has been these SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislations – violent copyright legislation that basically gives Hollywood the power to order any Internet company to restrict access and to censor the internet.

JULIAN:

And banking blockades like the one we're suffering from.

JÉRÉMIE:

Exactly. What happened to WikiLeaks from the banking companies was becoming the standard method to fight the evil copyright pirates that killed Hollywood and so on. And we witnessed this tremendous uproar from civil society on the Internet – and not only in the US, it couldn't have worked if it was only US citizens who rose up against SOPA and PIPA. It was people all around the world that participated, and hackers were at the core of it and were providing tools to the others to help participate in the public debate.

Star Trek, First Contact (Paramount, 1996). One Sheet , (27” X 40”)

youtu.be/wxyZQR2d6yw Trailer

youtu.be/GTQzusrfCxc?t=3s

Star Trek - 'Beyond First Contact' The Borg - Making The Movie.

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, Neal McDonough, Robert Picardo, and Dwight Schultz. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare about his Borg assimilation experience to an incoming message from Admiral Hayes. Hayes informs Picard that Deep Space Five reported that a colony has been destroyed. Completing the Admiral's sentence, Picard realizes who destroyed the colony — the Borg.

Picard calls a meeting and informs his senior officers that their ship has been instructed to patrol the Neutral Zone. Their orders are to protect the area from any possible Romulan uprising during a Borg attack. Despite protests from his officers, Picard remains faithful to his orders and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-E begins to patrol the area. Later, Picard regretfully tells Riker that it is his own fault they are stuck in the Neutral Zone. Starfleet believes Picard to be too emotionally involved with the Borg because of his previous assimilation to tactically complete a mission against them.

The men return to the bridge to learn that Starfleet has engaged in combat with the Borg. Intercepting messages between the starships, the crew learns that the Federation is losing. Picard, with his Borg experience, knows he can help the fleet. He informs his staff that he will make a decision directly in opposition to Starfleet commands. With no objections from his crew, Captain Picard gives the order and the starship Enterprise sets a course for Earth and the attacking Borg cube.

A massive battle ensues and it appears that the Federation will lose the fight. Despite serious structural damage to the Borg cube, their strength does not weaken. Even the U.S.S. Defiant, commanded by Worf, does not appear to be able to turn the tides of the battle. As the starship Defiant is about to ram the Borg ship on a suicide run, the U.S.S. Enterprise beams aboard its crew, including Worf. Picard, having an inside perspective of the Borg and their vessel, focuses the firepower of the fleet on coordinates he knows to be critical. Just as the main ship is destroyed, a spherical escape pod flies out. The sphere creates a temporal vortex, catching the starship Enterprise in its wake. Immune to the paradoxes created by the time travel, the starship's crew learns that Earth at the present time appears to be inhabited entirely by the Borg. The commanding officers realize that the Borg have gone into the past and assimilated Earth, so they follow them back in time to repair the damage the Borg have done.

On Earth, over three centuries earlier, a somber Lily Sloane accompanies a stumbling, drunk Zefram Cochrane out of a bar after a night of revelry. Then, Lily notices a fast moving light. She hardly has time to ask what the object is, when the Borg vessel attacks. Back aboard the Enterprise, Picard demands that Data tell him the exact date and location the Borg ship is attacking. The location: central Montana. The date: April 4, 2063 — the day before First Contact. Realizing that the Borg have come to prevent first contact between alien life forms and humans, the crew knows they must stop the Borg and facilitate this exchange. They destroy the Borg sphere, and Dr. Crusher, Captain Picard, Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi and other U.S.S. Enterprise crew transport down to Earth to survey the damage.

At the Borg attack site in Montana, the crew finds destruction and chaos. They split into groups to search for Cochrane. Data and Picard hunt for Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. There they encounter a very angry and confused Lily, who believes Data and Picard to be members of a coalition that broke the cease-fire after World War III. She shoots at them in a rage, but impervious to bullets, Data approaches Lily. Overcome by fear and radiation, she falls to the ground. Dr. Crusher diagnoses Lily with radiation sickness caused by the damaged Phoenix, and inoculates the entire crew. Against Picard's better judgment, Crusher takes Lily to sickbay. Geordi is called to help repair the warp vessel and Picard becomes intrigued by its historical significance. In this vessel began the future as the world would know it, and the past as Picard remembers it. He reaches out to touch the ship. Data, curious about the human need for tactile reinforcement, attempts to create the same feelings he observes in Picard, but is unsuccessful in duplicating this aspect of humanity.

Aboard the ship, two crewmembers are sent to examine unexplained maintenance problems, and both disappear. Picard is called to the ship and discovers that the survivors from the Borg sphere have transported onto the ship and are taking over Deck 16. While Picard arranges teams to fight them, the Borg manipulate the climate of the deck to suit their needs and begin to spread throughout the ship. When the Borg attack sickbay, Crusher, her staff, and Lily escape through a Jeffries tube, thanks to a distraction by the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. While Crusher leads the group down the passageway, Lily steals away in a different direction.

On Earth, Riker finds Troi and Cochrane drunk in a bar. Troi justifies that the only way she could get Cochrane to talk to her was by shooting Tequila with him. Denying her drunken state, Troi offers her professional opinion on Cochrane. She explains, "He's nuts."

Picard and his team are tracking the Borg through the starship. As Crusher and her staff find Worf's team, Picard's team encounters the Borg, who have begun to assimilate U.S.S. Enterprise crewmembers. Worf's team engages the Borg in combat, but the enemies adapt to the crew's weapons too quickly to make any difference. The teams are ordered to regroup on Deck 15, but Data is captured. Picard cannot save him, so he quickly crawls into a Jeffries tube to escape. Face to face with Picard, Lily steals his phaser and demands an explanation and escape route. Picard agrees.

Geordi shows Cochrane the starship Enterprise through a large telescope on Earth and tries to convince him to launch his vessel the next morning. Geordi glorifies Cochrane by explaining that his ship will make first contact with alien life forms. Humanity will be saved if Cochrane launches his ship. Still drunk, Cochrane agrees.

Aboard the ship, the Borg Queen introduces herself to a bound Data, claiming that she is the Collective. Reactivating Data's emotion chip, the Borg begin to graph organic, human skin onto the android's arm. As Data is overcome by this new human sensation of touch, something he never thought possible, the Borg continue their work.

Lily and Picard wander through the service deck as the captain attempts to explain what has happened between Lily's time and his own. She begins to calm down until they suddenly run into a Borg-infested area. Quickly escaping in the Holodeck, Picard activates a Dixon Hill program. At a dance, he and Lily try to blend in without being noticed by the Borg. Following the Holodeck's story, Picard searches for Nicky the Nose and takes his machine gun. Killing the Borg with the gun, Picard retrieves the memory chip that contains all of the information the Borg has received. Lily then notices that the two dead Borg were once crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Back on Earth, Cochrane keeps hearing what an amazing historical figure he is and begins to question whether or not he wants to go through with the launch. He doubts his own nobility and flees the launch site. Geordi and Riker attempt to catch up with Cochrane in the woods and are forced to stun him with a phaser to return him to the Phoenix.

Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet. Picard, Worf and Lieutenant Hawk put on space suits and venture onto the surface of the starship to stop the Borg.

Aware of Data's desire to become human, the Borg Queen offers him the chance to be entirely covered in human flesh and join the Borg, in an attempt to get the encryption codes from Data so she can obtain total control over the U.S.S. Enterprise. Outside the Enterprise, Hawk, Worf and Picard attempt to unlock the deflector dish. Attacked by a Borg, Worf's suit begins to depressurize. Two Borg are killed and Hawk is attacked. As the dish is released, a now-assimilated Hawk attempts to kill Picard. Worf saves the captain, but Hawk is killed. Picard and Worf then destroy the free-floating deflector dish.

On Earth, Cochrane explains to Riker that his only motivation for inventing warp travel was money. He never expected to save mankind, become a hero, or be instrumental in the founding of a new civilization. He simply wanted to retire in peace.

An argument ensues aboard the Enterprise as the majority of the senior officers believe that they should evacuate the ship, destroying it and the Borg. Picard won't give up, and insists they stay. Challenged by Worf, Picard orders him off the Bridge. Lily follows Picard into his ready room and demands that he explain his obsession with fighting the Borg. Picard declares he won't sacrifice the starship, and swears to finally make the Borg pay for all they've done. Lily quietly and calmly compares Picard to Captain Ahab, forever fighting his white whale — the Borg. Realizing that this fight could only destroy himself and his crew, Picard decides to evacuate the ship. Worf, Picard and Crusher activate the ship's self-destruct sequence. The countdown begins, and the crew leaves in escape pods. Picard surveys his ship and prepares to leave when he hears Data calling him.

Meanwhile , the earth-bound crew and Cochrane begin takeoff. Cochrane, Geordi and Riker take off in the Phoenix, and with music blaring, the three men launch successfully into orbit.

On the ship, Lily and Picard say good-bye and the captain goes to save Data. Entering Engineering, Picard confronts the Borg Queen, whom he knows from his experience with the Borg. The queen reminds Picard that it was not enough that he was assimilated, but that he needed to give himself freely to the Borg — she wished him to stand by her side as an equal to further the power of the Collective. Picard offers himself in exchange for Data, but the android does not comply. He refuses to leave, and at the queen's command, disarms the self-destruct sequence. He quickly enters the encryption codes, offering full control of the Enterprise to the Borg.

As Cochrane's ship nears warp, Data arms the U.S.S Enterprise's weapons and aims them at the defenseless Phoenix. At the Borg Queen's order, Data fires, but the missiles fail to hit the Phoenix. His deception of the Borg complete, Data smashes a conduit, releasing a gas that floods engineering, killing all organic material. As the Borg are destroyed, Picard climbs to safety and the Borg Queen falls into the deadly gas. With the Borg threat gone, Cochrane safely completes humanity's first warp flight.

Celebrating the flight back on Earth that night, Cochrane and the Enterprise crew see an alien ship land nearby. The doors open, and Zefram Cochrane makes Earth's first contact with an alien race — the Vulcans. Picard and his crew beam out, having witnessed this historic event, and the U.S.S Enterprise NCC 1701-E returns to the 24th century.

Motorola SECTEL 3500 STU-III phone installed with VDU (video display unit).

Allows encrypted video conferences, and attaches to larger screens & better cameras via RCA video/audio inputs and outputs in rear.

Requires 40w power adapter.

Normal daily life along a different timeline - which we cannot find - but have the feeling that it exists - but

Certainly!

Quantum computing represents a groundbreaking advancement in technology, deeply intertwined with the concepts of superposition, entanglement, and interference from quantum physics. Unlike classical computing, which processes information in a linear fashion using bits (0s and 1s), quantum computing utilizes quantum bits or qubits that can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This enables quantum computers to perform numerous calculations at once, effectively navigating through a vast landscape of potential solutions.

The idea of parallel timelines can be likened to the way quantum computers operate. Each decision or computation can be viewed as branching into multiple outcomes, similar to how different timelines might unfold based on various choices. This means that a quantum computer can explore various paths to a solution simultaneously, leading to remarkable efficiencies in solving complex problems.

In practical terms, this capability could revolutionize fields such as cryptography, where quantum computers may break existing encryption methods faster than classical computers. In material science, they could simulate quantum phenomena to discover new materials with desirable properties. Additionally, in optimization problems across various industries, quantum computing offers the potential to find the most efficient solutions more rapidly than traditional methods.

In summary, the link between quantum computing and the concept of parallel timelines highlights a fascinating intersection of technology and theoretical physics, suggesting that our understanding of reality may be more complex and interconnected than we previously imagined.

Vera Wilde, artist-in-residence at Hack42. Because Art & Science!

Hackerspace Hack42 is proudly hosting a new artist-in-residence. Dr. Vera K. Wilde (PhD PoliSci) is a (former) Harvard Kennedy School researcher. She is working on re-branding the Dark-Web to the EDTR-web, a place for Expressing, Dissenting, Teaching and Resisting.

The EDTR-web is using technologies like TOR and encrypted communications tools to create a place of freedom where centralised power cannot reach.

Vera will be using arts (oil painting and songwriting) as well as writing and political science methods to define and develop the EDTR-web as a social space and technological phenomenon.

Vera's third photo-shoot, in which we get to play with some theatrical props and explore extreme opposites.

Hackerspace Hack42 is proudly hosting a new artist-in-residence. Dr. Vera K. Wilde (PhD PoliSci) is a (former) Harvard Kennedy School researcher. She is working on re-branding the Dark-Web to the EDTR-web, a place for Expressing, Dissenting, Teaching and Resisting. The EDTR-web is using technologies like TOR and encrypted communications tools to create a place of freedom where centralised power cannot reach.

Vera will be using arts (oil painting and songwriting) as well as writing and political science methods to define and develop the EDTR-web as a social space and technological phenomenon.

I was asked to shoot a couple of photos of Vera. We connected really well and it turned into a two hour photo-shoot in which we had great fun driving around the hackerspace and Buitenplaats Koningsweg compound looking for shooting locations during golden hour.

Yep, it's me!!

Back in my apartment. Back on my high-speed internet backbone complete with 64-bit encryption. Back in my pad with my new room mates: paint fumes and eau de hardwood floor lacquer. Slowly catching up with all of you.

Simply, totally, un-aromatically, I am - in the words of Quincy Jones & Company -

Back On The Block

f/ Big Daddy Kane, Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel

(Hit the play button in the right third of the page)

Back, on the block, so we can rock

With the soul, rhythm, blues, be bop and hip hop

Back on the block

Back on the block

[ VERSE 1: Ice-T ]

Ice-T, let me kick my credentials

A young player, bred in South Central

L.A., home of the bodybag

You wanna die, wear the wrong color rag

I used to walk in stores and yell: "Lay down!"

You flinch an inch - AK spray down

But I was lucky cause I never caught the hard time

I was blessed with the skill to bust a dope rhyme

All my homies died or caught the penzo

Lost their diamonds, cops towed their Benzos

Livin that life that we thought was it

Fast lanin, but the car flipped

I'm not gonna lie to ya, cause I don't lie

I just kick thick game, some people say: why?

Cause I'm back on the block, I got my life back

So I school the fools about the fast track

I get static from the style of my technique

Profanity, the blatant way in which I speak

But the Dude knows the streets ain't no kiddie game

You don't know the Dude? Quincy's his first name

He told me: "Ice, keep doin what you're doin, man

Don't give a damn if the squares don't understand

You let em tell you what to say and what to write

Your whole career'll be over by tomorrow night

Rap from your heart, and your heart's with the street

Rap on my record, man, Kimiko, send Ice the beat"

The Dude is def no doubt, what can I say?

The man can roll with Ice-T or Michael J

[ all ]

Back

Back on the block

Back

Back on the block

Back, on the block, so we can rock

With the soul, rhythm, blues, be bop and hip hop

Back on the block

Back on the block

[ VERSE 2: Melle Mel ]

I'm back, on the block, on the screen

I'm on the wax, I'm on the stage, I'm on the scene

I'm on the case, just like an attorney

The Dude took me on a magic journey

To dance in France, alone in Rome

On the farmlands of Nebraska, the cold of Alaska

The heat of the motherland

To be with my brotherman

On top of a snowcapped mountain I'm scoutin

What another man saw in a race of people

To see him give his life for the price of equal

The highest wisdoms, the richest kingdoms

The Song of Songs we heard David sing them

He showed me me when I was young and hung out

He showed me makin love, even showed me strung out

He showed me poppin nines, standin on a rock

But tears came to my eyes when he showed me my block

[ Tevin Campbell (& Andrae Crouch Singers) ]

Stokie's just Stokie, mama

(Stokie's Stokie)

And one by one each woman he kiss

(He kiss her and she gon' fall in love)

Stokie's just Stokie, you know?

(Stokie's Stokie)

Till someone shows that they care enough

(Ain't nothin gonna bother Stokie much)

Some say they can't take it no more

(Comin here, comin here startin stuff)

But Dude is back on duty fo' sho'

(Back on the block to stay)

They say he ain't gonna be with it

(Comin back, comin back to the street)

But Dude he know you'll never forget it

(Back on the block to stay)

[ VERSE 3: Big Daddy Kane ]

Back up and give the brother room

To let poetry bloom to whom

It may concern or consume

As I reminisce before this

The bliss that exist

But now we brought about a twist

Cause I remember of my people bleedin

Put through slavery and killed for bravery

We shoulda got our freedom much sooner

You never seen a blackman on _The Honeymooners_

But now somehow we've learned to earn, to grow, to show

The elevation of a people built is so

Jesse Jackson, Miss America a black one

No more livin for just a small fraction

I was once told by the Dude that knowledge is a food

To nourish, so to conclude

This from an Asiatic descendant, Big Daddy is shocked

Yo Q, we back on the block

[ all ]

Back

Back on the block

Back

Back on the block

Back, on the block, so we can rock

With the soul, rhythm, blues, be bop and hip hop

Back on the block

Back on the block

[ VERSE 4: Kool Moe Dee ]

An everlasting omnipresence is my present

State of being, seeing the unpleasant

Sight of righteous souls live like peasants

The mind stunts growth in adolescence

My insight enables me to enlight

The weakest of minds, and I put em in flight

As I transcend, a-scend or de-scend

Re-create, re-incarnate and re-send

The powerful spirits of our ancestors

For those that don't know how God blessed us

Because man messed up, the media dressed up

Lies perpetrated as truth, and it left us

Confused, but I've seen it all before

>From Babylon to the Third World War

I'm more than a man, I'm more like an entity

Back on the block, and this time my identity

Is the Dude

Ba-ba-ba-back on the

Ba-back on

Ba-ba-back on the block

Ba-ba-back on

Ba-ba-back on the block

[ Tevin Campbell (& Andrae Crouch Singers) ]

Stoki, ke Stoki, mai-bo

(Stoki, Stoki)

Wam babma, wam bamb'u mandisa

(Wahm bamba wahm bamboo mandisa)

(Stoki ke Stoki, mai-bo)

(Stoki, Stoki)

Wam babma, wam bamb'u mandisa

(Wahm bamba wahm bamboo mandisa)

M'yeke, yeke, yeke, wena

(Kha'mye, kha'myeke wena)

Yo khala, khala, khala, u mama

(Yo khal'u mama khe)

M'yeke, yeke, yeke, wena

(Kha'mye, kha'myeke, wena)

Yo khala, kha, 'yok 'shaya u baba

(Yok shaya u baba khe)

[ Rev. Jesse Jackson ]

(Now I would - I would contend that ah -

The rappers - rap is here to stay)

The legibility of an encry

pted message does not just

depend on the complexity

of the encryption algorith

m, but also on the placeme

nt. DCT is used to describ

e a finite set of patterns

, called macroblocks, that

could be described as the

64 character making up th

e JPEG image, adding lumo

and chroma values as inton

ation. If an image is comp

ressed correctly, its macr

oblocks become invisible.

The incidental trace of th

e macroblocks is generally

ignored as atifact or err

or.Keeping this in mind, I

developed DCT. DCT uses t

he esthetics of JPEG macro

blocks to mask its secret

message as error. The encr

ypted message, hidden on i

mage is only legible by th

e ones in the know.///////

these were all on my desk about a week ago. each pattern a different financial institution.

Well-trained fighting men.

CHECK.

Newest and the best contemporary military technology on land, sea, or in the air.

CHECK.

Eager, fearless, and courageous Canadians, British, and American Infantry.

CHECK.

Hasty, cavalier plan of attack with unrealistic objectives (capture the port and hold it for two tides, gather intelligence from prisoners and captured material, lure the Luftwaffe into open battle, and steal German encryption equipment for Allied code-breakers) .

CHECK.

Imminent disaster for all involved.

CHECK. CHECK.

AUGUST 19, 1942…all of Europe was under Nazi domination.

Ignoring that sobering point that should have been reflected upon…the Raid on the French coastal town of Dieppe began in earnest, at 5am…as 6,000 men storm the six beaches of Dieppe.

While Churchill and Admiral Mountbatten presumptuously oversaw and authorized the raid, months before General Montgomery had been firmly against raiding the French sea port, or any French sea port. He predicted disaster. However, and unfortunately for Canada, Montgomery was now in North Africa heading up the desert campaign…so cooler heads would not prevail in this August of '42, as the Canadian government and the Chiefs of Staff concurred with Churchill and Mountbatten to authorize the suicidal raid that consisted mostly of Canadians.

Since June, months before the ill-fated raid, the BBC had been warning the occupied French coastal towns to evacuate because war was coming to the neighbourhood. Typical misguided leftist sympathies. And what was the actual effect of these dire BBC radio warnings? Did the French citizens leave?

Nope.

But the Germans listened and dug in even deeper and reinforced the entire French coast against such an attack!

Good one, BBC!

Air recon units of the Nazi Luftwaffe confirmed a build up of Allied military activity along the Southern English coast, while simultaneously French double-agents warned of a British interest in Dieppe.

And to add a final stupidity to the mix, those emasculated Canadian and British military personnel ninnies that planned the Dieppe Raid felt they should play nice, avoid civilian losses, and not anger the traitorous collaborating Vichy government by letting the beach area reap the whirlwind.

So the trusting Canadians were expected to make a full frontal assault on those fortified beaches of Dieppe without prior air and naval bombardment of the port city's defences!

Huh?

THAT was never done before. Ever.

You always bomb the hell out of the landing arena.

How do you spell die, as one of the Canadian soldiers from the 2nd Canadian Infantry noted while enroute to his demise at Dieppe?

"Why look the first three letters of Dieppe are D-I-E …" he noted ominously.

Two days before the raid, on August 17, former footballer turned high school teacher, Leonard Dawe compiled the Daily Telegraph crossword with the clue "French port". The answer appeared in the English newspaper the following day. The answer was Dieppe!

Was Dawe passing intelligence on to the enemy?

The War Office called up the Scot, Lord Tweedsmuir, who was then assisting the Canadian Army as a senior intelligence officer. Dawe needed to be investigated. Tweedsmuir called upon MI5, the counter-intelligence and security agency of Great Britain.

After an immediate and intense inquiry of Dawe, at his home, it was determined the crossword containing the solution, was a complete fluke, a MERE coincidence!

Dawe was cleared of any suspicion.

Fast forward to 1944, one month before D-Day. Another crossword coincidence authored by Dawe appears in the Telegraph. This time there are multiple references to Operation Overlord, or D-Day, the Allied invasion of North Eastern Europe. Heck, even Overlord appeared in the crossword on May 27! Previous Dawe crosswords had contained, Juno, Gold, Sword and Omaha which were all code names for beaches assigned to various Allied forces. Juno was the beach assigned to the Canadian attack force. This was too much. MI5 was again called in to investigate the crossword compiler, Dawe.

In the end it is again concluded that relevant invasion terms that appear in Dawe's Telegraph crossword were an explainable coincidence.

However, the general public didn't find out the "rest of the story" until 1958 when Dawe appeared in a BBC TV interview. At the time, during the war, Dawe would encourage his school kids to come into his study and help him fill in the blank crossword puzzles. They provided the solution word. Then Dawe would create the clues for their chosen words.

In the end, the British teenagers were getting the code words from Canadian and American soldiers who were billeted close to Dawe's school!

Mystery solved. Now, back to the raid.

When the Dieppe Raid was over at 10:50 am that morning, 3,367 Canadians were dead, wounded or captured! The Canadians had landed on the beach only to be pinned down, and trapped on that beach by the high sea wall and the German machine guns.

The British suffered 934 dead, wounded, or captured.

The Germans were unimpressed with the raid.

General Conrad Haase described the Dieppe Raid as "incomprehensible". How could a single division be expected to overrun a German regiment that was heavily fortified in its surroundings and supported in that position by heavy artillery.

The Churchill tanks although a new and fresh British design were "easy to fight", "poor and obsolete".

German Field Marshall Von Rundstedt noted the Allies would not have another Dieppe because "it has gained that experience dearly."

…and notably, from Wikipedia,

ALLIED ANAYSIS of the DIEPPE RAIDTHE LESSONS LEARNED AT DIEPPE essentially became the textbook of “what not to do” in future amphibious operations, and laid the framework for the Normandy landings two years later.

Most notably, Dieppe highlighted:

1. the need for preliminary artillery support, including aerial bombardment;

2. the need for a sustained element of surprise;

3. the need for proper intelligence concerning enemy fortifications;

4. the avoidance of a direct frontal attack on a defended port city; and,

5. the need for proper re-embarkation craft.

As a consequence of the lessons learned at Dieppe, the British developed a whole range of specialist armoured vehicles which allowed their engineers to perform many of their tasks protected by armour, most famously Hobart's Funnies. The operation showed major deficiencies in RAF ground support techniques, and this led to the creation of a fully integrated Tactical Air Force to support major ground offensives.

Another effect of the raid was change in the Allies' previously held belief that seizure of a major port would be essential in the creation of a second front. Their revised view was that the amount of damage that would be done to a port by the necessary bombardment to take it, would almost certainly render it useless as a port afterwards. As a result, the decision was taken to construct prefabricated harbours, codenamed "Mulberry", and tow them to lightly defended beaches as part of a large-scale invasion.

(FAMOUS DIEPPE photos tinted, cropped, blown out by me)

Headline news states that in the UK many businesses and NHS Trusts ave been victims of a computer encryption virus - here is how it may have happened. An incoming eMail to an employee refers to an unpaid invoice, the employee clicks on a link to an external website (eg. Sharepoint) where the criminal hackers have been allowed to host their encryption ransomware / malware.

170510-BTInvoiceMalicious-SharepointUsedA

How to password protect a folder or directory on Linux

If you would like to use this photo, be sure to place a proper attribution linking to xmodulo.com

motherboard, unlock computer, computer password, computer key, tokenization, authentication, encryption, public key, private key

When using this image please provide photo credit (link) to: www.bluecoat.com/

All local companies in Karlsruhe that are in the frontline of IT security have shown up united at the Anti-PRISM-Party www.anti-prism-party.de/programm/programm.html, providing educational contents to protect unauthorized access to citizens’ emails, browser searches and social media interaction. The bottomline answer is encryption.

Geheimschreiber

Although the ENIGMA remains the best know German cryptographic machine of World War II, in the early 1940's the German military introduced several new cryptographic teletypewriters known under the name Geheimschreiber - sometimes translated as "private secretary", sometimes as "secret writer".

These machines offered on-line encryption and decryption, that is plain test could be typed directly into the machine, automatically converted to encrypted text, and sent directly to the transmitter. In addtion to security, these "secret writers" provided the Germans with the ability to encrypt large volumes of test at high speed.

Learning that the Germans had named an early version of these machines SWORDFISH, the British and Americans bestowed nicknames associated with fish on the machines and the communications links in which they were used. The two most famous are TUNNY and STURGEON.

Just as they developed the Bombe to assist decryption of ENIGMA , the British developed data processing to attack the fish family of machine ciphers. (I must add: This was a whale of a job!) This led to the construction of the COLOSSUS which British historian F. H. Hinsley is "justly claimed as a pioneer programmable electronic digital computer."

The 40 (SZ40) when first encountered in 1940 was nicknamed TUNNY by the British - after a fish better known to Americans as TUNA.

The Schlüsselzusatz SZ40, manufactured by the German firm Lorenz, was used by the German Army for high-level communications, generally between Army groups. It provided on-line encryption and decryption and was capable of handling large volumes f traffic at high speed. The TUNNY depended on wheels for encryption and decryption but unlike ENIGMA it did nut substitute letters but insted encrypted elements of the electrically generated Baudot code used in normal telegraphic transmissions.

Source: National Cryptologic Museum 13 February 2009 with some hyperlinks added

Link to report on TUNNY

A modern day COLLOSSUS

i09_0214 086

I just got a television with an HDMI hookup, a new Series 3 Tivo, and I already had a Slingbox. This is what I see through my Slingbox now when I try to view it. Why? DRM, Digital Restrictions Management.

www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm

Star Trek, First Contact (Paramount, 1996).

youtu.be/wxyZQR2d6yw Trailer

youtu.be/GTQzusrfCxc?t=3s

Star Trek - 'Beyond First Contact' The Borg - Making The Movie.

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, Neal McDonough, Robert Picardo, and Dwight Schultz. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare about his Borg assimilation experience to an incoming message from Admiral Hayes. Hayes informs Picard that Deep Space Five reported that a colony has been destroyed. Completing the Admiral's sentence, Picard realizes who destroyed the colony — the Borg.

Picard calls a meeting and informs his senior officers that their ship has been instructed to patrol the Neutral Zone. Their orders are to protect the area from any possible Romulan uprising during a Borg attack. Despite protests from his officers, Picard remains faithful to his orders and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-E begins to patrol the area. Later, Picard regretfully tells Riker that it is his own fault they are stuck in the Neutral Zone. Starfleet believes Picard to be too emotionally involved with the Borg because of his previous assimilation to tactically complete a mission against them.

The men return to the bridge to learn that Starfleet has engaged in combat with the Borg. Intercepting messages between the starships, the crew learns that the Federation is losing. Picard, with his Borg experience, knows he can help the fleet. He informs his staff that he will make a decision directly in opposition to Starfleet commands. With no objections from his crew, Captain Picard gives the order and the starship Enterprise sets a course for Earth and the attacking Borg cube.

A massive battle ensues and it appears that the Federation will lose the fight. Despite serious structural damage to the Borg cube, their strength does not weaken. Even the U.S.S. Defiant, commanded by Worf, does not appear to be able to turn the tides of the battle. As the starship Defiant is about to ram the Borg ship on a suicide run, the U.S.S. Enterprise beams aboard its crew, including Worf. Picard, having an inside perspective of the Borg and their vessel, focuses the firepower of the fleet on coordinates he knows to be critical. Just as the main ship is destroyed, a spherical escape pod flies out. The sphere creates a temporal vortex, catching the starship Enterprise in its wake. Immune to the paradoxes created by the time travel, the starship's crew learns that Earth at the present time appears to be inhabited entirely by the Borg. The commanding officers realize that the Borg have gone into the past and assimilated Earth, so they follow them back in time to repair the damage the Borg have done.

On Earth, over three centuries earlier, a somber Lily Sloane accompanies a stumbling, drunk Zefram Cochrane out of a bar after a night of revelry. Then, Lily notices a fast moving light. She hardly has time to ask what the object is, when the Borg vessel attacks. Back aboard the Enterprise, Picard demands that Data tell him the exact date and location the Borg ship is attacking. The location: central Montana. The date: April 4, 2063 — the day before First Contact. Realizing that the Borg have come to prevent first contact between alien life forms and humans, the crew knows they must stop the Borg and facilitate this exchange. They destroy the Borg sphere, and Dr. Crusher, Captain Picard, Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi and other U.S.S. Enterprise crew transport down to Earth to survey the damage.

At the Borg attack site in Montana, the crew finds destruction and chaos. They split into groups to search for Cochrane. Data and Picard hunt for Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. There they encounter a very angry and confused Lily, who believes Data and Picard to be members of a coalition that broke the cease-fire after World War III. She shoots at them in a rage, but impervious to bullets, Data approaches Lily. Overcome by fear and radiation, she falls to the ground. Dr. Crusher diagnoses Lily with radiation sickness caused by the damaged Phoenix, and inoculates the entire crew. Against Picard's better judgment, Crusher takes Lily to sickbay. Geordi is called to help repair the warp vessel and Picard becomes intrigued by its historical significance. In this vessel began the future as the world would know it, and the past as Picard remembers it. He reaches out to touch the ship. Data, curious about the human need for tactile reinforcement, attempts to create the same feelings he observes in Picard, but is unsuccessful in duplicating this aspect of humanity.

Aboard the ship, two crewmembers are sent to examine unexplained maintenance problems, and both disappear. Picard is called to the ship and discovers that the survivors from the Borg sphere have transported onto the ship and are taking over Deck 16. While Picard arranges teams to fight them, the Borg manipulate the climate of the deck to suit their needs and begin to spread throughout the ship. When the Borg attack sickbay, Crusher, her staff, and Lily escape through a Jeffries tube, thanks to a distraction by the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. While Crusher leads the group down the passageway, Lily steals away in a different direction.

On Earth, Riker finds Troi and Cochrane drunk in a bar. Troi justifies that the only way she could get Cochrane to talk to her was by shooting Tequila with him. Denying her drunken state, Troi offers her professional opinion on Cochrane. She explains, "He's nuts."

Picard and his team are tracking the Borg through the starship. As Crusher and her staff find Worf's team, Picard's team encounters the Borg, who have begun to assimilate U.S.S. Enterprise crewmembers. Worf's team engages the Borg in combat, but the enemies adapt to the crew's weapons too quickly to make any difference. The teams are ordered to regroup on Deck 15, but Data is captured. Picard cannot save him, so he quickly crawls into a Jeffries tube to escape. Face to face with Picard, Lily steals his phaser and demands an explanation and escape route. Picard agrees.

Geordi shows Cochrane the starship Enterprise through a large telescope on Earth and tries to convince him to launch his vessel the next morning. Geordi glorifies Cochrane by explaining that his ship will make first contact with alien life forms. Humanity will be saved if Cochrane launches his ship. Still drunk, Cochrane agrees.

Aboard the ship, the Borg Queen introduces herself to a bound Data, claiming that she is the Collective. Reactivating Data's emotion chip, the Borg begin to graph organic, human skin onto the android's arm. As Data is overcome by this new human sensation of touch, something he never thought possible, the Borg continue their work.

Lily and Picard wander through the service deck as the captain attempts to explain what has happened between Lily's time and his own. She begins to calm down until they suddenly run into a Borg-infested area. Quickly escaping in the Holodeck, Picard activates a Dixon Hill program. At a dance, he and Lily try to blend in without being noticed by the Borg. Following the Holodeck's story, Picard searches for Nicky the Nose and takes his machine gun. Killing the Borg with the gun, Picard retrieves the memory chip that contains all of the information the Borg has received. Lily then notices that the two dead Borg were once crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Back on Earth, Cochrane keeps hearing what an amazing historical figure he is and begins to question whether or not he wants to go through with the launch. He doubts his own nobility and flees the launch site. Geordi and Riker attempt to catch up with Cochrane in the woods and are forced to stun him with a phaser to return him to the Phoenix.

Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet. Picard, Worf and Lieutenant Hawk put on space suits and venture onto the surface of the starship to stop the Borg.

Aware of Data's desire to become human, the Borg Queen offers him the chance to be entirely covered in human flesh and join the Borg, in an attempt to get the encryption codes from Data so she can obtain total control over the U.S.S. Enterprise. Outside the Enterprise, Hawk, Worf and Picard attempt to unlock the deflector dish. Attacked by a Borg, Worf's suit begins to depressurize. Two Borg are killed and Hawk is attacked. As the dish is released, a now-assimilated Hawk attempts to kill Picard. Worf saves the captain, but Hawk is killed. Picard and Worf then destroy the free-floating deflector dish.

On Earth, Cochrane explains to Riker that his only motivation for inventing warp travel was money. He never expected to save mankind, become a hero, or be instrumental in the founding of a new civilization. He simply wanted to retire in peace.

An argument ensues aboard the Enterprise as the majority of the senior officers believe that they should evacuate the ship, destroying it and the Borg. Picard won't give up, and insists they stay. Challenged by Worf, Picard orders him off the Bridge. Lily follows Picard into his ready room and demands that he explain his obsession with fighting the Borg. Picard declares he won't sacrifice the starship, and swears to finally make the Borg pay for all they've done. Lily quietly and calmly compares Picard to Captain Ahab, forever fighting his white whale — the Borg. Realizing that this fight could only destroy himself and his crew, Picard decides to evacuate the ship. Worf, Picard and Crusher activate the ship's self-destruct sequence. The countdown begins, and the crew leaves in escape pods. Picard surveys his ship and prepares to leave when he hears Data calling him.

Meanwhile , the earth-bound crew and Cochrane begin takeoff. Cochrane, Geordi and Riker take off in the Phoenix, and with music blaring, the three men launch successfully into orbit.

On the ship, Lily and Picard say good-bye and the captain goes to save Data. Entering Engineering, Picard confronts the Borg Queen, whom he knows from his experience with the Borg. The queen reminds Picard that it was not enough that he was assimilated, but that he needed to give himself freely to the Borg — she wished him to stand by her side as an equal to further the power of the Collective. Picard offers himself in exchange for Data, but the android does not comply. He refuses to leave, and at the queen's command, disarms the self-destruct sequence. He quickly enters the encryption codes, offering full control of the Enterprise to the Borg.

As Cochrane's ship nears warp, Data arms the U.S.S Enterprise's weapons and aims them at the defenseless Phoenix. At the Borg Queen's order, Data fires, but the missiles fail to hit the Phoenix. His deception of the Borg complete, Data smashes a conduit, releasing a gas that floods engineering, killing all organic material. As the Borg are destroyed, Picard climbs to safety and the Borg Queen falls into the deadly gas. With the Borg threat gone, Cochrane safely completes humanity's first warp flight.

Celebrating the flight back on Earth that night, Cochrane and the Enterprise crew see an alien ship land nearby. The doors open, and Zefram Cochrane makes Earth's first contact with an alien race — the Vulcans. Picard and his crew beam out, having witnessed this historic event, and the U.S.S Enterprise NCC 1701-E returns to the 24th century.

graphite on archival paper, each pannel 22inx15in, 2017

Vera Wilde, artist-in-residence at Hack42. Because Art & Science!

Hackerspace Hack42 is proudly hosting a new artist-in-residence. Dr. Vera K. Wilde (PhD PoliSci) is a (former) Harvard Kennedy School researcher. She is working on re-branding the Dark-Web to the EDTR-web, a place for Expressing, Dissenting, Teaching and Resisting.

The EDTR-web is using technologies like TOR and encrypted communications tools to create a place of freedom where centralised power cannot reach.

Vera will be using arts (oil painting and songwriting) as well as writing and political science methods to define and develop the EDTR-web as a social space and technological phenomenon.

Vera's third photo-shoot, in which we get to play with some theatrical props and explore extreme opposites.

Special thanks go to Moem for mixing up a batch of red paint and for producing the mad-mad-mad bloody special FX on the baseball-bat.

Star Trek, First Contact (Paramount, 1996).

youtu.be/wxyZQR2d6yw Trailer

youtu.be/GTQzusrfCxc?t=3s

Star Trek - 'Beyond First Contact' The Borg - Making The Movie.

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, Neal McDonough, Robert Picardo, and Dwight Schultz. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare about his Borg assimilation experience to an incoming message from Admiral Hayes. Hayes informs Picard that Deep Space Five reported that a colony has been destroyed. Completing the Admiral's sentence, Picard realizes who destroyed the colony — the Borg.

Picard calls a meeting and informs his senior officers that their ship has been instructed to patrol the Neutral Zone. Their orders are to protect the area from any possible Romulan uprising during a Borg attack. Despite protests from his officers, Picard remains faithful to his orders and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-E begins to patrol the area. Later, Picard regretfully tells Riker that it is his own fault they are stuck in the Neutral Zone. Starfleet believes Picard to be too emotionally involved with the Borg because of his previous assimilation to tactically complete a mission against them.

The men return to the bridge to learn that Starfleet has engaged in combat with the Borg. Intercepting messages between the starships, the crew learns that the Federation is losing. Picard, with his Borg experience, knows he can help the fleet. He informs his staff that he will make a decision directly in opposition to Starfleet commands. With no objections from his crew, Captain Picard gives the order and the starship Enterprise sets a course for Earth and the attacking Borg cube.

A massive battle ensues and it appears that the Federation will lose the fight. Despite serious structural damage to the Borg cube, their strength does not weaken. Even the U.S.S. Defiant, commanded by Worf, does not appear to be able to turn the tides of the battle. As the starship Defiant is about to ram the Borg ship on a suicide run, the U.S.S. Enterprise beams aboard its crew, including Worf. Picard, having an inside perspective of the Borg and their vessel, focuses the firepower of the fleet on coordinates he knows to be critical. Just as the main ship is destroyed, a spherical escape pod flies out. The sphere creates a temporal vortex, catching the starship Enterprise in its wake. Immune to the paradoxes created by the time travel, the starship's crew learns that Earth at the present time appears to be inhabited entirely by the Borg. The commanding officers realize that the Borg have gone into the past and assimilated Earth, so they follow them back in time to repair the damage the Borg have done.

On Earth, over three centuries earlier, a somber Lily Sloane accompanies a stumbling, drunk Zefram Cochrane out of a bar after a night of revelry. Then, Lily notices a fast moving light. She hardly has time to ask what the object is, when the Borg vessel attacks. Back aboard the Enterprise, Picard demands that Data tell him the exact date and location the Borg ship is attacking. The location: central Montana. The date: April 4, 2063 — the day before First Contact. Realizing that the Borg have come to prevent first contact between alien life forms and humans, the crew knows they must stop the Borg and facilitate this exchange. They destroy the Borg sphere, and Dr. Crusher, Captain Picard, Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi and other U.S.S. Enterprise crew transport down to Earth to survey the damage.

At the Borg attack site in Montana, the crew finds destruction and chaos. They split into groups to search for Cochrane. Data and Picard hunt for Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. There they encounter a very angry and confused Lily, who believes Data and Picard to be members of a coalition that broke the cease-fire after World War III. She shoots at them in a rage, but impervious to bullets, Data approaches Lily. Overcome by fear and radiation, she falls to the ground. Dr. Crusher diagnoses Lily with radiation sickness caused by the damaged Phoenix, and inoculates the entire crew. Against Picard's better judgment, Crusher takes Lily to sickbay. Geordi is called to help repair the warp vessel and Picard becomes intrigued by its historical significance. In this vessel began the future as the world would know it, and the past as Picard remembers it. He reaches out to touch the ship. Data, curious about the human need for tactile reinforcement, attempts to create the same feelings he observes in Picard, but is unsuccessful in duplicating this aspect of humanity.

Aboard the ship, two crewmembers are sent to examine unexplained maintenance problems, and both disappear. Picard is called to the ship and discovers that the survivors from the Borg sphere have transported onto the ship and are taking over Deck 16. While Picard arranges teams to fight them, the Borg manipulate the climate of the deck to suit their needs and begin to spread throughout the ship. When the Borg attack sickbay, Crusher, her staff, and Lily escape through a Jeffries tube, thanks to a distraction by the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. While Crusher leads the group down the passageway, Lily steals away in a different direction.

On Earth, Riker finds Troi and Cochrane drunk in a bar. Troi justifies that the only way she could get Cochrane to talk to her was by shooting Tequila with him. Denying her drunken state, Troi offers her professional opinion on Cochrane. She explains, "He's nuts."

Picard and his team are tracking the Borg through the starship. As Crusher and her staff find Worf's team, Picard's team encounters the Borg, who have begun to assimilate U.S.S. Enterprise crewmembers. Worf's team engages the Borg in combat, but the enemies adapt to the crew's weapons too quickly to make any difference. The teams are ordered to regroup on Deck 15, but Data is captured. Picard cannot save him, so he quickly crawls into a Jeffries tube to escape. Face to face with Picard, Lily steals his phaser and demands an explanation and escape route. Picard agrees.

Geordi shows Cochrane the starship Enterprise through a large telescope on Earth and tries to convince him to launch his vessel the next morning. Geordi glorifies Cochrane by explaining that his ship will make first contact with alien life forms. Humanity will be saved if Cochrane launches his ship. Still drunk, Cochrane agrees.

Aboard the ship, the Borg Queen introduces herself to a bound Data, claiming that she is the Collective. Reactivating Data's emotion chip, the Borg begin to graph organic, human skin onto the android's arm. As Data is overcome by this new human sensation of touch, something he never thought possible, the Borg continue their work.

Lily and Picard wander through the service deck as the captain attempts to explain what has happened between Lily's time and his own. She begins to calm down until they suddenly run into a Borg-infested area. Quickly escaping in the Holodeck, Picard activates a Dixon Hill program. At a dance, he and Lily try to blend in without being noticed by the Borg. Following the Holodeck's story, Picard searches for Nicky the Nose and takes his machine gun. Killing the Borg with the gun, Picard retrieves the memory chip that contains all of the information the Borg has received. Lily then notices that the two dead Borg were once crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Back on Earth, Cochrane keeps hearing what an amazing historical figure he is and begins to question whether or not he wants to go through with the launch. He doubts his own nobility and flees the launch site. Geordi and Riker attempt to catch up with Cochrane in the woods and are forced to stun him with a phaser to return him to the Phoenix.

Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet. Picard, Worf and Lieutenant Hawk put on space suits and venture onto the surface of the starship to stop the Borg.

Aware of Data's desire to become human, the Borg Queen offers him the chance to be entirely covered in human flesh and join the Borg, in an attempt to get the encryption codes from Data so she can obtain total control over the U.S.S. Enterprise. Outside the Enterprise, Hawk, Worf and Picard attempt to unlock the deflector dish. Attacked by a Borg, Worf's suit begins to depressurize. Two Borg are killed and Hawk is attacked. As the dish is released, a now-assimilated Hawk attempts to kill Picard. Worf saves the captain, but Hawk is killed. Picard and Worf then destroy the free-floating deflector dish.

On Earth, Cochrane explains to Riker that his only motivation for inventing warp travel was money. He never expected to save mankind, become a hero, or be instrumental in the founding of a new civilization. He simply wanted to retire in peace.

An argument ensues aboard the Enterprise as the majority of the senior officers believe that they should evacuate the ship, destroying it and the Borg. Picard won't give up, and insists they stay. Challenged by Worf, Picard orders him off the Bridge. Lily follows Picard into his ready room and demands that he explain his obsession with fighting the Borg. Picard declares he won't sacrifice the starship, and swears to finally make the Borg pay for all they've done. Lily quietly and calmly compares Picard to Captain Ahab, forever fighting his white whale — the Borg. Realizing that this fight could only destroy himself and his crew, Picard decides to evacuate the ship. Worf, Picard and Crusher activate the ship's self-destruct sequence. The countdown begins, and the crew leaves in escape pods. Picard surveys his ship and prepares to leave when he hears Data calling him.

Meanwhile , the earth-bound crew and Cochrane begin takeoff. Cochrane, Geordi and Riker take off in the Phoenix, and with music blaring, the three men launch successfully into orbit.

On the ship, Lily and Picard say good-bye and the captain goes to save Data. Entering Engineering, Picard confronts the Borg Queen, whom he knows from his experience with the Borg. The queen reminds Picard that it was not enough that he was assimilated, but that he needed to give himself freely to the Borg — she wished him to stand by her side as an equal to further the power of the Collective. Picard offers himself in exchange for Data, but the android does not comply. He refuses to leave, and at the queen's command, disarms the self-destruct sequence. He quickly enters the encryption codes, offering full control of the Enterprise to the Borg.

As Cochrane's ship nears warp, Data arms the U.S.S Enterprise's weapons and aims them at the defenseless Phoenix. At the Borg Queen's order, Data fires, but the missiles fail to hit the Phoenix. His deception of the Borg complete, Data smashes a conduit, releasing a gas that floods engineering, killing all organic material. As the Borg are destroyed, Picard climbs to safety and the Borg Queen falls into the deadly gas. With the Borg threat gone, Cochrane safely completes humanity's first warp flight.

Celebrating the flight back on Earth that night, Cochrane and the Enterprise crew see an alien ship land nearby. The doors open, and Zefram Cochrane makes Earth's first contact with an alien race — the Vulcans. Picard and his crew beam out, having witnessed this historic event, and the U.S.S Enterprise NCC 1701-E returns to the 24th century.

Taken at the National Cryptologic Museum, NSA.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of ideonexus, please feel free to use for your own purposes.

Example of a Linux 'shadow file' that contains the encrypted passwords for the users.

With Ted Davis

Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau works for the benefit of cipherspace. Cipherspace is the state of crypto anarchy. This means that your identity is anonymous as long as you stay protected. There are no identities or authorities in cipherspace, and it is not possible to enforce laws where there is no identity, or where there are no authorities.

Today there are several threats to the inhabitants of the internet. The politicians of oppressive regimes in the east and in the west, in north and south, are imposing surveillance. Surveillance of the entire networks. What people say to each other, what information is transmitted between bots and humans alike.

This aggression must be met with the strongest encryption algorithms available to modern computers. With onion and garlic routing it is possible to erect the fractal cipherspace. With distributed hash tables it is possible to create networks that has no central node. There is no one that controls the fractal cipherspace. Internet as we know it, turns into darknet.

Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau recommends that you use the following software: i2p, for anonymous and secure communications, Gnu Privacy Guard, for direct and verified communication. The onion router, TOR, to access the internets.

Telecomix Munitions is a defense bureau.

You can change the future of the internets by joining us in defending the networks and creating cipherspace.

You can help defending yourself and your friends, yes, all inhabitants of the networks.

By learning a few skills you can take control over technology.

Telecomix munitions are currently developing and promoting advanced security devices, which can endure even the harshest forms of government or corporation surveillance.

Your personal computer is an encryption device. Modern hardware can transform plain text to ciphertext with ease. So rapidly you barely notice the difference between unencrypted and encrypted data.

The laws of mathematics are infinitely stronger than the laws of nations and corporations, as the human laws are really only ink on paper. The laws of mathematics, on the other hand, are the laws that define our very universe. With the use of modern crypto algorithms we can use this fact to defend free speech and the integrity of both bots and humans. Information is nothing but numbers, numbers governed not by human laws, but by the laws of mathematics.

Networks that utilize the power of cryptography already exist. It will not be possible to stop the spread of the fractal cipherspace.

To find out more, come to telecomix.org or visit us in cipherspace on telecomix.i2p.

Feel free to visit my works on Deviant Art: xp0s3.deviantart.com/

Cards and padlock

online banking, credit card transactions, trading, protection, fraud, identity theft, etc.

Vera Wilde, artist-in-residence at Hack42. Because Art & Science!

Hackerspace Hack42 is proudly hosting a new artist-in-residence. Dr. Vera K. Wilde (PhD PoliSci) is a (former) Harvard Kennedy School researcher. She is working on re-branding the Dark-Web to the EDTR-web, a place for Expressing, Dissenting, Teaching and Resisting.

The EDTR-web is using technologies like TOR and encrypted communications tools to create a place of freedom where centralised power cannot reach.

Vera will be using arts (oil painting and songwriting) as well as writing and political science methods to define and develop the EDTR-web as a social space and technological phenomenon.

Vera's third photo-shoot, in which we get to play with some theatrical props and explore extreme opposites.

Star Trek, First Contact (Paramount, 1996).

youtu.be/wxyZQR2d6yw Trailer

youtu.be/GTQzusrfCxc?t=3s

Star Trek - 'Beyond First Contact' The Borg - Making The Movie.

Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, Alice Krige, Neal McDonough, Robert Picardo, and Dwight Schultz. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare about his Borg assimilation experience to an incoming message from Admiral Hayes. Hayes informs Picard that Deep Space Five reported that a colony has been destroyed. Completing the Admiral's sentence, Picard realizes who destroyed the colony — the Borg.

Picard calls a meeting and informs his senior officers that their ship has been instructed to patrol the Neutral Zone. Their orders are to protect the area from any possible Romulan uprising during a Borg attack. Despite protests from his officers, Picard remains faithful to his orders and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701-E begins to patrol the area. Later, Picard regretfully tells Riker that it is his own fault they are stuck in the Neutral Zone. Starfleet believes Picard to be too emotionally involved with the Borg because of his previous assimilation to tactically complete a mission against them.

The men return to the bridge to learn that Starfleet has engaged in combat with the Borg. Intercepting messages between the starships, the crew learns that the Federation is losing. Picard, with his Borg experience, knows he can help the fleet. He informs his staff that he will make a decision directly in opposition to Starfleet commands. With no objections from his crew, Captain Picard gives the order and the starship Enterprise sets a course for Earth and the attacking Borg cube.

A massive battle ensues and it appears that the Federation will lose the fight. Despite serious structural damage to the Borg cube, their strength does not weaken. Even the U.S.S. Defiant, commanded by Worf, does not appear to be able to turn the tides of the battle. As the starship Defiant is about to ram the Borg ship on a suicide run, the U.S.S. Enterprise beams aboard its crew, including Worf. Picard, having an inside perspective of the Borg and their vessel, focuses the firepower of the fleet on coordinates he knows to be critical. Just as the main ship is destroyed, a spherical escape pod flies out. The sphere creates a temporal vortex, catching the starship Enterprise in its wake. Immune to the paradoxes created by the time travel, the starship's crew learns that Earth at the present time appears to be inhabited entirely by the Borg. The commanding officers realize that the Borg have gone into the past and assimilated Earth, so they follow them back in time to repair the damage the Borg have done.

On Earth, over three centuries earlier, a somber Lily Sloane accompanies a stumbling, drunk Zefram Cochrane out of a bar after a night of revelry. Then, Lily notices a fast moving light. She hardly has time to ask what the object is, when the Borg vessel attacks. Back aboard the Enterprise, Picard demands that Data tell him the exact date and location the Borg ship is attacking. The location: central Montana. The date: April 4, 2063 — the day before First Contact. Realizing that the Borg have come to prevent first contact between alien life forms and humans, the crew knows they must stop the Borg and facilitate this exchange. They destroy the Borg sphere, and Dr. Crusher, Captain Picard, Commander Data, Commander Riker, Counselor Troi and other U.S.S. Enterprise crew transport down to Earth to survey the damage.

At the Borg attack site in Montana, the crew finds destruction and chaos. They split into groups to search for Cochrane. Data and Picard hunt for Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. There they encounter a very angry and confused Lily, who believes Data and Picard to be members of a coalition that broke the cease-fire after World War III. She shoots at them in a rage, but impervious to bullets, Data approaches Lily. Overcome by fear and radiation, she falls to the ground. Dr. Crusher diagnoses Lily with radiation sickness caused by the damaged Phoenix, and inoculates the entire crew. Against Picard's better judgment, Crusher takes Lily to sickbay. Geordi is called to help repair the warp vessel and Picard becomes intrigued by its historical significance. In this vessel began the future as the world would know it, and the past as Picard remembers it. He reaches out to touch the ship. Data, curious about the human need for tactile reinforcement, attempts to create the same feelings he observes in Picard, but is unsuccessful in duplicating this aspect of humanity.

Aboard the ship, two crewmembers are sent to examine unexplained maintenance problems, and both disappear. Picard is called to the ship and discovers that the survivors from the Borg sphere have transported onto the ship and are taking over Deck 16. While Picard arranges teams to fight them, the Borg manipulate the climate of the deck to suit their needs and begin to spread throughout the ship. When the Borg attack sickbay, Crusher, her staff, and Lily escape through a Jeffries tube, thanks to a distraction by the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. While Crusher leads the group down the passageway, Lily steals away in a different direction.

On Earth, Riker finds Troi and Cochrane drunk in a bar. Troi justifies that the only way she could get Cochrane to talk to her was by shooting Tequila with him. Denying her drunken state, Troi offers her professional opinion on Cochrane. She explains, "He's nuts."

Picard and his team are tracking the Borg through the starship. As Crusher and her staff find Worf's team, Picard's team encounters the Borg, who have begun to assimilate U.S.S. Enterprise crewmembers. Worf's team engages the Borg in combat, but the enemies adapt to the crew's weapons too quickly to make any difference. The teams are ordered to regroup on Deck 15, but Data is captured. Picard cannot save him, so he quickly crawls into a Jeffries tube to escape. Face to face with Picard, Lily steals his phaser and demands an explanation and escape route. Picard agrees.

Geordi shows Cochrane the starship Enterprise through a large telescope on Earth and tries to convince him to launch his vessel the next morning. Geordi glorifies Cochrane by explaining that his ship will make first contact with alien life forms. Humanity will be saved if Cochrane launches his ship. Still drunk, Cochrane agrees.

Aboard the ship, the Borg Queen introduces herself to a bound Data, claiming that she is the Collective. Reactivating Data's emotion chip, the Borg begin to graph organic, human skin onto the android's arm. As Data is overcome by this new human sensation of touch, something he never thought possible, the Borg continue their work.

Lily and Picard wander through the service deck as the captain attempts to explain what has happened between Lily's time and his own. She begins to calm down until they suddenly run into a Borg-infested area. Quickly escaping in the Holodeck, Picard activates a Dixon Hill program. At a dance, he and Lily try to blend in without being noticed by the Borg. Following the Holodeck's story, Picard searches for Nicky the Nose and takes his machine gun. Killing the Borg with the gun, Picard retrieves the memory chip that contains all of the information the Borg has received. Lily then notices that the two dead Borg were once crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Back on Earth, Cochrane keeps hearing what an amazing historical figure he is and begins to question whether or not he wants to go through with the launch. He doubts his own nobility and flees the launch site. Geordi and Riker attempt to catch up with Cochrane in the woods and are forced to stun him with a phaser to return him to the Phoenix.

Lily and Picard join the rest of the surviving crew and discover that the Borg are outside of the ship. The retrieved memory chip reveals that they are reconfiguring the main deflector in order to contact the Borg of this century, calling them to Earth to assimilate the planet. Picard, Worf and Lieutenant Hawk put on space suits and venture onto the surface of the starship to stop the Borg.

Aware of Data's desire to become human, the Borg Queen offers him the chance to be entirely covered in human flesh and join the Borg, in an attempt to get the encryption codes from Data so she can obtain total control over the U.S.S. Enterprise. Outside the Enterprise, Hawk, Worf and Picard attempt to unlock the deflector dish. Attacked by a Borg, Worf's suit begins to depressurize. Two Borg are killed and Hawk is attacked. As the dish is released, a now-assimilated Hawk attempts to kill Picard. Worf saves the captain, but Hawk is killed. Picard and Worf then destroy the free-floating deflector dish.

On Earth, Cochrane explains to Riker that his only motivation for inventing warp travel was money. He never expected to save mankind, become a hero, or be instrumental in the founding of a new civilization. He simply wanted to retire in peace.

An argument ensues aboard the Enterprise as the majority of the senior officers believe that they should evacuate the ship, destroying it and the Borg. Picard won't give up, and insists they stay. Challenged by Worf, Picard orders him off the Bridge. Lily follows Picard into his ready room and demands that he explain his obsession with fighting the Borg. Picard declares he won't sacrifice the starship, and swears to finally make the Borg pay for all they've done. Lily quietly and calmly compares Picard to Captain Ahab, forever fighting his white whale — the Borg. Realizing that this fight could only destroy himself and his crew, Picard decides to evacuate the ship. Worf, Picard and Crusher activate the ship's self-destruct sequence. The countdown begins, and the crew leaves in escape pods. Picard surveys his ship and prepares to leave when he hears Data calling him.

Meanwhile , the earth-bound crew and Cochrane begin takeoff. Cochrane, Geordi and Riker take off in the Phoenix, and with music blaring, the three men launch successfully into orbit.

On the ship, Lily and Picard say good-bye and the captain goes to save Data. Entering Engineering, Picard confronts the Borg Queen, whom he knows from his experience with the Borg. The queen reminds Picard that it was not enough that he was assimilated, but that he needed to give himself freely to the Borg — she wished him to stand by her side as an equal to further the power of the Collective. Picard offers himself in exchange for Data, but the android does not comply. He refuses to leave, and at the queen's command, disarms the self-destruct sequence. He quickly enters the encryption codes, offering full control of the Enterprise to the Borg.

As Cochrane's ship nears warp, Data arms the U.S.S Enterprise's weapons and aims them at the defenseless Phoenix. At the Borg Queen's order, Data fires, but the missiles fail to hit the Phoenix. His deception of the Borg complete, Data smashes a conduit, releasing a gas that floods engineering, killing all organic material. As the Borg are destroyed, Picard climbs to safety and the Borg Queen falls into the deadly gas. With the Borg threat gone, Cochrane safely completes humanity's first warp flight.

Celebrating the flight back on Earth that night, Cochrane and the Enterprise crew see an alien ship land nearby. The doors open, and Zefram Cochrane makes Earth's first contact with an alien race — the Vulcans. Picard and his crew beam out, having witnessed this historic event, and the U.S.S Enterprise NCC 1701-E returns to the 24th century.