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“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” - Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl
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Edward Porter Felt, 41, of Matawan, New Jersey was known as a problem solver in his job as a computer engineer at BEA Systems, a software firm, and had been awarded two patents in the field of encryption technology. After growing up in Clinton, New York, Felt graduated from Colgate University and received a Master's degree from Cornell University. Ed loved the outdoors and spending time with his wife and two children. En route to San Francisco on a last-minute business trip on September 11, Felt's response to the hijacking of United Flight 93 was to place a call on his cell phone. Just five minutes before the crash, he dialed 911, reporting, "Hijacking in progress!" and identified himself and his flight.
Ed was "a man of peace," said his wife, Sandra Valdez Felt. "He didn't approve of violence. He didn't even like cursing," she said. Her husband was a passenger aboard hijacked United Flight 93, which crashed into rural Pennsylvania. Felt, technology director at the computer software firm BEA Systems, was on a last-minute business trip to San Francisco. He left behind a wife and two daughters. "He was devoted to his church and to his children and to me," his wife said.
-=//:START-MESSAGE//
Good Morning, Sir. I trust you are well and I hope that I have not disturbed you too greatly contacting you so early. I think you will find interesting what I have to say.
You can imagine my mood was less than sunny when I was awoken in the cold pre-dawn by a call from our CIRODA Center. As I walked across the pavement to the building's doors, I confess that I harbored some murderous thoughts to our boys crunching intel and data in CIRODA. But they've really come through, sir. I know that their Tuatha project has mostly been to satiate the war hawks in politics who really think we should have let General Thomes off the leash during Operation Gypsy, as a way of saying we're keeping an eye on these strange aliens. We all would like to know where their bases are and why they are skulking about our cities and infrastructure, but they clearly aren't interested in a fight.
Well, we've found something interesting, and I am not sure we really understand the full implications of it. I appears that after Gypsy was closed down and we stuck CIRODA on watch, some sort of signal started. We don't know where it is coming from, and we aren't sure who all it is being directed to. We might not have picked it up at all if Operation Gypsy had not flushed out some of the frequencies the Tuatha use. We still haven't cracked their encryptions but we've gotten better at detecting their comm chatter. And this is some large-scale multi-system wide communications we've just picked up.
The strangest part? Something on earth seems to have answered. Nothing alive mind you, we think it’s just an automated handshake protocol, but we've managed to track it down. It’s from an old, derelict building in what used to be the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome. If this is what we think it is, then these Tuatha had contact with humanity... well, before anyone else. Before us, before Centauri, before we even had encountered Aelves. The Tuatha have at least been in contact with Earth for a long, long time. What else do we not know?
//:END-MESSAGE//=-
"Moving on to latest in business: Mars Corp, one of the biggest names in both Defense Department contracts and in the colonist outfitting industry, has announced a new diversity focused hiring initiative. According to a company press release, the growing immigration of non-human species or newly emerging human mutation offshoot species resulting from colonial expanse has presented an untapped pool of labor and expertise that Mars Corp is hoping to capitalize on as they look to expand their warehouse districts on Luna to accommodate their recent expansion into Centauri markets. Particularly, they are hoping to target the influx of Aelvish refugees coming out of the Perseus Arm. The HFECC classifies Mars Corp as an equal opportunity species employer. Now back to your planetary channel for the weather."
It may seem strange, to reach out to those you were fighting not so long ago. To the Fomorians, and to the younger Tuatha, it may be hard to understand. But for most Tuatha, our memories are as long as our lives. A moment does not eclipse a mind that has seen centuries. Though we have been in conflict with the Fomorians for so long, all Tuatha must learn that we do not fear or hate the Fomorians. These emotions control, they eclipse the mind with their strong feelings. Our long lives do not give us the luxury of giving into these primal emotions. The Tuatha must keep their eyes open, their minds clear, to see the path forward. This is how we have stayed alive, how we have stayed hidden, and this is how we have stayed ahead of the Fomorians. When we give in to fear, we lose our advantage. When we give in to hate, we are no longer one step ahead.
The elder Tuatha remember another time when we have sought the help of the Fomorians. There was a time when an unknown threat nearly stole Terra from us all. We saw it, because our hidden nature necessitated the advance of our observational technology beyond the Fomorians. We saw when the terror of the stars found its way to Terra's moon. We had not realized there was anything for us in the stars yet, and so we had no way to walk among the stars. The Fomorians, however, were locked in an intense stalemate among themselves. Two of their greatest nations intensely postured for dominance, like two rams lining up on a mountain. Each trying to be as threatening as they could without starting a fight. As an extension of this posturing, they competed to walk among the stars, for no reason other than to say they could. In secret we contacted one of these posturing Fomorian rams, and arranged transport to Terra's moon. Together, alongside the Fomorians, we extinguished the invading terror.
Then, we did what we have always done best. We made the evidence vanish. Evidence of the terror, evidence of ourselves, and evidence of the Fomorian craft. Unfortunately, this meant that the Fomorian nation who helped us lost its competition. There was no evidence that they walked the stars first, and the other nation took the victory.
This too, the older Tuatha know. That we have always done what we must to hide and protect our people. But only a fool would say that all we did was wise, all we did was right, and that all we did was necessary. We will never know where the Fomorians might be if we did not meddle so. But now the Fomorians know we are here, the time of Tuatha living in the shadows is over, and maybe one day a lasting alliance will rise with the Fomorians.
For now, though, it is simply enough to ask for their aid again. To ask for their aid as we seek to contact these... "Aelves" who live among them. Beings who look like us, but do not know us or remember us. They do not speak the elder tongue. They have no deep memories. To know who they are and where they come from, we need the Fomorian's aid. Even now, they come to Terra's moon where once so long ago we fought alongside Fomorians. We hope to meet them there and learn who these "Aelves" are.
Crypto debates Google’s quantum breakthrough as bitcoin investors urge calm
Breaking a coin to bits… The crypto industry’s head was on a swivel this week after a Google announcement that some investors feared could threaten the foundation of bitcoin. On Monday the tech giant said its latest “quantum chip” (meet Willow) solved a computation in under five minutes that’d take modern supercomputers 10 septillion years to work out. Crypto’s concern: quantum computers could one day undermine bitcoin’s encryption (as well as other coins’ security) and in the process defeat the integrity of the $2T blockchain.
Showin’ cracks: Hodlers use their private keys — an alphanumeric code generated alongside a public key — to move their bitcoin. Quantum computers have the potential to defeat this mathematical protection.
Nakamot-oh wait: The price of bitcoin slid after Google’s announcement, but as of yesterday had largely clawed back the loss.
Keep calm and hodl on?… Despite the blockchain-breaking potential of Google’s quantum breakthrough, the crypto industry largely avoided panicking. One reason: developers, including ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, have said that just as quantum tech is developed and upgraded, so too are blockchains. So quantum-proofing a blockchain like bitcoin, ethereum, or solana could be just several code upgrades away. Bitcoin’s been upgraded before: in 2021 the protocol adapted the Taproot upgrade to boost privacy, efficiency, and security.
THE TAKEAWAY
A distant threat gives time to prep… Quantum advancements on the heels of Willow could eventually help discover new drugs, improve weather forecasting, and, yes, break some forms of encryption. But for now, Willow solves a standard computation that has no commercial application, and any possible threats to crypto and bitcoin are likely years away.
With the death of Chester Nez on June 4, 2014 (yesterday) we have lost the last Navajo Code talkers -- I repost this photo of Keith Little, who, when I met him, was one of the last living Navajo Code Talkers. Keith died on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2011. I bumped into Keith, eleven of his fellow Code Talkers on New York's Fifth Avenue located toward the end of the City's 2011 Veteran's Day parade (all I was trying to do was to get across Fifth Avenue to meet friends). I first read about them in the book, "With the Old Breed," by Eugene Sledge. Keith recalls being a young Navajo boy at a reservation school and being reprimanded for speaking his native language. And yet it was this skill -- and his dignity in the face of such prejudice -- that made him and his fellow Code Talkers so exceptional. I feel as if we have lost a special link. He was recruited as a very young man in 1943 to join 420 Navajos in a special encryption unit of the US Marines. The Code Talkers transmitted and received messages in their native Navajo language. They were assigned to all Marine Units and were in the front lines of all of the Pacific battlefields of World War II (Keith was a member of the 4th Marine Division). The code proved unbreakable given its uniqueness and the fact that it was an unwritten language that depended on the tone of a word for its meaning -- so complex that it really needed to be learned in childhood. The specific code eventually grew to include 411 Navajo words.
Young Heroes Vol 2 - Issue #6 "Snowdrop and the Blizzard"
*Firework and Saltire made their way to the location of the sibling criminals, Snowdrop & Blizzard. Firework didn't know much about them except for them having ice/cold powers, they tended to be the most dangerous villains. But these two criminals were different to the regulars, it was mentioned in the mission dossier but he may have left it on the bus. He remembered something to do with them being expert hackers? Whatever, all he had to do was get Blizzard to help them with something, but he hoped Saltire knew what to do. *
Firework: "Yo, what we gotta do?"
Saltire: "Yea divnay cane fit teh dee?"
Firework: "Uh. No?"
Saltire: "Yer an affah laddie! Weh need to find oot aboot eh Polar Brithers."
*Firework is so grateful for his mask to hide his completely clueless look about what the hell Saltire just said. He picked out ”Polar Brothers“ and that was it. Guess he will just ask Blizzard to find out about them and what they're up to.
Eventually he and Saltire reach the inside of the building and look up the set of stairs and he sighs. He remembered the siblings being on the top floor, damn he wished he could fly. Like Hope or Guardia- wait what?! He stares at Saltire as he hovers up in the air and begins to fly up the stairs.*
Firework: "Whoa, whoa! Give me a lift!"
Saltire: "Da be a wuss!"
*Around 5 minutes later Firework reaches the top panting, he holds onto the railing lifting up his mask sweating through it. He looks at Saltire who seems to be playing a game on his phone and holds back the urge to hit him, although if he had the strength he would've. Firework knocks on the door pulling his mask down and he hears someone approach, probably peeking through the peephole. The handle turns and the door opens slightly where a girl with blonde hair glares at them.*
Saltire: "Far is Blizzard?"
Firework: "Let me do the talking. Yo girl, we need to talk to Blizz is he in?"
*The girl eyes burn with anger and that's when Firework notices the roots of her hair turning ice white and paint its way down to the ends. Her fingertips around the door begin to excrete wisps of frozen air as the door its self begins to ice over under her touch, Firework and Saltire back up quickly watching her step out towards them. Firework knew she was a criminal but he didn't know that she was a killer, guess he should have read that that mission file after all.*
Snowdrop: "He's not here."
Firework: "Well I mean, we know he is. So..."
Saltire: "... let us see him."
Firework: "Yo, we just wanna chat."
*Snowdrop shoots one last ice-cold glare that literally sends shivers down Fireworks spine, it's then he realizes it's absolutely freezing around him. She must've been lowering the temperature gradually as they were talking, probably to slow them down or make it easier to use her powers. Smart. She opens the door and leads the way letting him and Saltire follow. Their apartment is also cold, every room, what's with that? They expecting someone to attack, did they know he and Saltire were coming?*
Snowdrop: "Sorry, we don't feel the cold. So why pay for heat, am I right?"
Saltire: "Aye, you're quite right lass."
Firework: "Don't get much visitors then?"
Snowdrop: "Obviously."
*She rolls her eyes and opens the door to a bedroom littered with tech like an Apple Store was attacked. On the top bunk bed is a young teen probably just over 15, his hair blonde just like his sisters. However, he's not got his powers ready so it's not iced white like hers. His face lights up when he sees us and he jumps down from his bed giddy and looks at his sister with a big grin on his face.*
Snowdrop: "Snowflake, this is... Scot and um, Flamey. They're superheroes."
Blizzard/Snowflake: "W-Whoa! Cool, they came to see us?! Wait... are we in trouble? Oh no, Mrs. Mercedes changed her mind?!"
Snowdrop: "No, no, Snowflake. We're okay. In fact, these heroes want to talk to you, they need your help, don't you guys?"
Firework: "Well..."
Saltire: "Aye we do laddie. Fit you cane aboot the Polar Brithers with the M-Pill?"
*Blizzard runs to his laptop smiling like a kid on Christmas and begins to attack the keyboard with his fingertips with a relentless barrage of typing. His eyes reflect the screen as he stares at the various codes and encryption on the screen probably bypassing all sorts of security. Firework steps in close to lean over his shoulder to view the screens more clearly but Snowdrop blocks him off with her iced hand reached out ready to give him the worst frostbite of his life, what a weird situation these guys are in. Criminal sister and by the sounds of it innocent smart brother yet under A.N.G.E.L. protection? In a few minutes, Blizzard swivels around on his seat with a large grin spread across his face.*
Saltire: "Fit did you find oot? Anything?"
Blizzard/Snowflake: "No, I found out everything! The Polar Brothers are getting the M-Pill from people and making it into weapons then selling them to T.O.X.I.N. They then reverse the M-Pills power nullifying effects into making average humans into Metas."
Security lock console background.
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==ISA Headquarters==
The Misfits were crating up their weapons and gadgets, preparing to move out; Gar had made some calls, with Needham, Jenna and Gaige agreeing to rendezvous at Butchinsky's. Unfazed by Zoom's attack, Ito presented Sharpe with a long parcel, offering him a pleasant "Merry Christmas, Montgomery." Unwrapping it, Sharpe was delighted to find a golden sceptre, its' tip finished with a golden dragon's head. "Expecto Patronum!" he chortled excitedly, waving it above his head, only for a cloud of fire to burst forth from the dragon's metal jaws.
"Perhaps you should hone your skills, first," Ito spoke politely, if not a little disappointedly.
Preparing to transfer his files, Kuttler's monitor whirred into life, as an encrypted file filled the screen, emblazoned with a large bat-logo.
"What on Earth?" he pondered aloud, as he began the long encryption process. Whether Kuttler had realised it or not, though unconscious and incapacitated, The Batman had just given the Misfits a fighting chance.
==Arkham Asylum==
Hour One
Drury was lying face up on a grotty, bloodstained mattress, watching the large ceiling fan above him churn slowly. He was in his old cell; Billings' book was placed by the pillow, its' cover obscured by a thin layer of dust; one of Hopper's empty beer bottles was rolling around on the ground and the air was warm and stale as though he'd never left its' confining concrete walls. For a brief moment, he felt like he hadn't, that he'd been thrown back in time; that Miranda was still alive, waiting for him to come home and that all he had to do, was run. An impossibility of course, and soon his jumbled thoughts and hopeless aspirations were shattered by the high pitched tones of the Pointer Sisters' 'I'm So Excited' blasting in his ears, dragging him back to reality: Joker was standing against the bars, lip syncing, as he held a boom box over his head in a perverse homage to 'Say Anything.'
"Good mourning, buttercup," he cooed with a sickeningly sweet smile, blowing Drury a kiss through the metal bars.
Drury turned over. If this was to be his life now, then he'd rather drift off into the lands of wandering consciousness and bittersweet fantasies. But part of him knew it wouldn't be that easy: The edges of Joker's red lips turned downwards in glum disapproval, as he lowered the boom box, then kicked it as though blaming it for his own shortcomings. He stuck an pair of un-gloved fingers in his mouth, and whistled. On command, and coming seemingly out of nowhere, Zoom blew an air horn into Drury's ear.
Startled, Drury fell off the bed, taking the bedsheet with him; emerging from the white mass of blanket and pillow, he grabbed the closest object he could find, missing the more tactically sound glass bottle, and instead pointing Billings' book at Zoom like a particularly egotistical weapon.
"That's it, Drury! Throw the book at him!" Joker called through the bars.
But before Drury could do anything, book related or otherwise, Zoom had tugged on the bedsheet he was standing on, and Drury toppled back, slamming his back against the bars of his cell.
"Why me?" Drury wheezed breathlessly, as he found himself asking that same question for the second time in as many days.
"Why not?" Joker repeated, gleefully evasive.
"No, this time I want an answer: I'm serious," Drury swore, standing up to face Joker. Unfazed, Joker stuck his hand through the bars and booped him on the nose.
"Ahh! And that's your first mistake!" he teased. "Stone-faced intimidation really isn't in your wheelhouse. You lack the jawline to carry it off!"
Taken aback, Drury felt his jaw, surprisingly hurt by the clown's comment, but pressed on. "You want a Batman rebound? We're a dime a dozen. Get Prometheus, get March, get that owl guy from that phony Justice League. Or Wrath, why not use Wrath?"
Caldwell, of course, was dead. Crushed by a whale carcass if Gaige's confession held any truth (it probably didn't). But his predecessor had resurfaced during the Society's first assault on Gotham and was surprisingly virile. For a man who was also presumed dead.
"Oh, he's lovely," Joker's eyes twinkled. "Pointy-headed, gravelly-voiced, actually pretty liberal... But here's the thing. He might shoot me. Actually shoot me! Click. Boom. Roll credits. And I can't die to Wrath!" he giggled, amused by his hypothetical death at the hands of the pioneer behind the 'Wratharang.'
"I might kill you," Drury interrupted.
Joker paused for a moment; his eyes locked on Drury as though there was something about him he couldn't quite figure out. "Well... You haven't yet," he refuted. "But the day's just getting started... plenty of time."
'Annoyingly cryptic. Figures,' Drury thought to himself. "And you? What are you meant to get out of this?" he interrogated Zoom.
Zoom, folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. "Thejokeeeeeer is notorious. Infaaaaaaaaamous. Hemakesbatman better. Bykilling. Bycrippling. By laaaaaaaaauuuuuuuughing. He willmake youbettertoo," he stated with his usual, muddled enunciation. "Youhadaspirations once. To beeeeeeee the Batmaaaaaaan's opposite nuuuuuuumber. Hisrival. Hisreverse. You haaaaaaave that chance now. Andwewillbe yooouuuuur teachers.
You haaaaaaaave twochoices now. Two paaaaaaaaaaths. You caneitherbehis equaaaaaal. Oryoucan supplaaaaaaaaant him."
"And remember, it all starts with a smile!" Joker lips parted, as he continued his serenade, this time without the aid of a boombox. "We shouldn't even think about tomorrow. Sweet memories will last a long, long time. We'll have a good time, baby, don't you worry. And if we're still playin' around, boy, that's just fine."
Drury stared back at him blankly. Joker, rested his hands on his hips in mock resignation: "So I'm no Sinatra. But someone threw the Music Meister off a balcony, so whose fault is that? For future reference, when someone says "Kill the music," they don't mean feed the conductor to a crocodile!"
Drury didn't respond.
"Hmph. Get some sleep while ya can, Pumpkin, you've got a looooong day ahead!"
Hour Three
Drury's quiet solitude was interrupted by a faint blue glow and a robotic clicking from outside; he rubbed his tired eyes and looked up; The metal door had receded into the wall, the action accompanied by a mechanic whirring. It was a trap, of course. Another game.
But if he didn't play along, what then? Would Zoom come for his family? For The Misfits? Could he take that chance?
The answer, of course, was no. Drury rose from the mattress, and stuck his head around the corner. On first glance, the coast was clear; but with a speedster on patrol, that could change in an instant.
Drury walked down the hallway, following a path laid out for him made up of gingerbread crumbs. 'Breadcrumbs, cute...' he rolled his eyes; among other things, he was particularly irritated that the soles of his orange crocs were now marred by crushed bits of biscuit. The trail, led him into the Recreation Centre; a room built for the more docile inmates; filled with toys, books and a film projector and decorated with a large rainbow painted across the pastel blue walls. At the end of the room, Joker was perched on a red space hopper, flanked by Zolomon on his left and to his right, a man in a black tuxedo and a flowing red cape, a large camera mounted on his head. Two more silhouettes were just barely visible behind the thick layers of glass behind them, but Drury still recognised Crane's tall witch's hat, and Billings' inebriated swaying. The door slammed shut behind him, with The King of Cats and Hayden taking their places on either side of the entrance. If Krill was there, they'd have a full house.
'Where was Krill?' Drury pondered for a brief moment before returning to the matter at hand.
The tuxedoed man, was the first to greet their guest of honour. "Hello, Drury. You might not remember me. My name is Harry. But you can call me Mr Camera," he reintroduced himself, offering him his hand.
"I remember," Drury spat back. "You carved up Ten like a fucking animal! Left him to bleed out in the middle of a goddamn riot!" He was on edge now, surrounded by psychopaths; some with grudges, some with agendas; half, he was certain, would kill him just for fun.
"Well, we are animals, Drury," Sims countered. "All of us. That's why they cage us... Sedate us. Hunt us. But their mistake has always been to treat us like prey."
As he spoke, the walls started to change; distort; revealing the room's true condition; Drury stepped back, eyes widening, as the painted walls became cracked and chipped, as the tiled floors gave way to unveil pools of dried blood. As rows of Polaroids blotted out the now-faded rainbow mural.
He looked at Sims, then at Joker, his face gaunt.
"Like what I've done with the place?" Joker teased.
Drury cautiously stepped towards the photos along the wall, and his mouth went dry. Some, he recognised; wedding photos, birthday parties... picnics in Robinson Parks... And then some, he didn't; those were newer; close up, personal pictures in dust filled rooms... But they all led him to one, horrifying conclusion:
"YOU LET THIS BASTARD INTO MY HOME? MY CHILDREN'S HOME?" he stormed forward, with a rage unfamiliar to Joker, but one he was enjoying immensely.
"Now, Drury. I could have sent Karlie," he teased, wagging a finger in Drury's face. "Talk about a White Christmas!"
"Actually, let's strike that one from the record, shall we? Not my finest jape."
Behind him, Sims sniffled awkwardly, reaching into his black dinner jacket. "Oh, silly me," he feigned forgetfullness. "I forgot one."
He inhaled, and removed a battered, bloodied photograph out of his breast pocket. He threw it in the air, and Drury caught in with his dirt-encrusted fingers. His eyes widened. It was the photo. The photo he'd brought with him to Blackgate, the photo he had when he had nothing else, the photo he entrusted to Ten.
The photo that cost him his hands.
"That's better," Sims chuckled knowingly, with a casualness that made Drury's blood boil.
That was it.
The Outcasts could tear him apart and he wouldn't have cared. In that moment, Drury could only see red: His first punch knocked Sims to the ground, then he kept going; Sims fruitlessly tried fighting back; his camera flash activated in a vain attempt to distract Walker, but he fought through the pain and continued his onslaught.
On the sidelines, Zoom, made a disagreeable hissing noise; The King licked his lips, and Joker laughed. "Drury! It's impolite to hold grudges!" he chortled. "Ten can't! Well, he can't really hold anything, can he?"
The camera's lens fractured under Drury's rage filled fists; his hand went through the glass; the shards ripped his fist open, but he still persisted. Blood dripped down onto Sim’s pale face; his glass-like eyes widened in petrified fear. But before he could do anything worse, a yellow arm grabbed Drury's. At first, he thought it was Zoom's; the red lightning bolt pattern around his wrist matched, and no other living assailant could have grabbed him that fast.
'Living.'
Drury looked back, and for the first time in a while he was overcome by pure, overwhelming fear.
Billings dropped his hip flask. A single whisper of "impossible" escaped Crane's lips. Hayden, waved. And for a second, the Joker's smile faltered.
"You-? You can't be- You're-"
"Oh, but I can be," Eobard Thawne smiled, his eyes glowing a blood red. "Pay attention now, Drury. Class is in session."
"Ahem."
Thawne exhaled and turned his head slowly and purposefully: Joker had risen from the Space Hopper and was clearing his throat loudly and intrusively. "Right! Good work everyone! We've covered a lot of ground today! Physical Exercise, psychological torment, a touch of necromancy... Read chapter seven, strangle a couple of cats and we shall resume after lunch!"
He clapped his hands, and the next thing Drury knew, he was back in his cell, leaving the Outcasts alone with The Professor to decide their next course of action.
==Jeremiah Arkham's Office==
The room was organised like a Parent-Teacher conference; Joker, was sat in Arkham's chair, playing with the silver Newton's Cradle on the desk; Zoom, was sat across from him, with an expression that was uncharacteristically sheepish; his back slouched and his hands placed in his lap. Billings stood at the side beside Crane, shaking between sips from his flask. At last, Thawne entered, bringing with him a trail of red lightning.
"Professor Thawne," Crane drawled, moving in to intercept him.
"Doctor Crane," Thawne smiled condescendingly, looking down at the once-proud Scarecrow. "I recall you were taller, once."
"I don't understand.... Where... Where's Krill?" Billings stammered, scratching his dandruff-ridden scalp. Then he looked down, his eyes drawn to a familiar red belt wrapped around Thawne's waist like a trophy. Thawne didn't have to say a thing: the implication was clear.
"R-right..." Billings paused, choosing his next words with caution. "Good call. The right call. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that, eh? Man was entirely unprofessional!" he added, a tad unconvincingly.
Thawne smiled back, but there was no warmth behind his crimson gaze: "Perhaps. But at least he knew when to hold his tongue. I hear you're something of a celebrity these days, Mr Billings."
Billings gulped. His book 'Heroes or Villains' contained a less than flattering portrayal of his former allies in the Society, Thawne included, and although he had assumed his illusion tech made him indispensable, he had thought the same thing about Krill's portals.
The exchange no longer holding his interest, Thawne shot off again; in an instant, he was sat beside his protégé and sipping coffee from Joker's mug. "Shall we begin?" he asked presumptuously.
Joker grinned back, but there was an intensity behind his eyes. Above all else, he despised being upstaged. "I admit, Bardy, I'm a little disappointed in you! We had such grand designs for Abner and for you to unceremoniously krill him without consulting me- Well, it wounds me! Considering all our history-!"
Thawne raised his index finger. "We don't have history, clown. You, Crane and the screensaver formerly known as Signalman voted to annihilate my future. Yes, Cobb, I did see you bouncing around Joker's monitor. I'm not impressed, DeVoe mastered that little trick decades ago."
Phillip Cobb materialised as a rather disgruntled red and yellow hologram, waiting in deference to Joker.
"Well, it was everyone's future," Joker's nose wrinkled. "No need to make it personal."
Hour Five
The cell door opened a final time. Drury looked up; Joker was in the doorway, holding a large, wrapped parcel in his arms; he placed it on the floor and slid it across the ground over to him.
"Put it on."
Hesitantly, Drury opened it: It was his Moth costume, well, one of them; it was a stripped-down approximation of the one Twag stole from his Cave. Within the box was a neatly-folded assortment of clothing consisting of a deep purple bodysuit, a pair of striped purple and lavender tights, boots, gloves, a black belt and a metallic, bug-like helmet with glass lenses.
"I won't peek!" Joker swore, putting his hand over his eyes.
Drury was lost in thought for a moment, simply staring into the eyes of his bluish grey helmet, reflecting on the pain Killer Moth had inflicted on himself and others. And when it came time to suit up once more, he refused.
It didn't matter.
What little control he thought he had was ripped away from him faster than he could blink. In a flash, he was back in the familiar purple bodysuit and striped tights; his orange jumpsuit lay at Zoom's feet. And he suspected the night's humiliations, its' violations, were just beginning. 'The utility belt was empty, of course they'd have checked...' he sighed, checking his pouches for anything he might be able to use.
He stepped forward, squirming as Joker planted a kiss on his cheek "For luck," and shuddering as he clapped his bony hand against his buttocks to further 'motivate' him.
As Drury walked down the hallway, his stomach lurched; Billings, The King of Cats, Hayden and Sims were all stationed along the hall, positioned like a perverse wedding procession. As he passed them, they took turns tossing clumps of confetti at his head. He kept his head down, avoiding eye contact, until he at last reached his destination, a dingy cell in the low security wing of the penitentiary. He paused as he noticed a rusted plaque above the doorway:
"126959
TED CARSON,
ALIAS FIREFLY II"
He took a deep breath, and entered the room, the door locking behind him.
"Hello, Drury," a voice called out from behind him.
Thawne's.
Drury's mind started to race; just like that the 'wedding' procession was recontextualized: It was a funeral. His funeral. And just like everything else in this damn Asylum, it had been backwards and twisted. 'This was it,' he was certain. His death. He breathed in, and at last turned around, his eyes drawn to Thawne's belt. Krill's belt.
Thawne's eyes crinkled slightly, a thin smile across his face. "You want to escape? Take the belt," he spoke with a concerning casualness.
Drury said nothing.
"You can go anywhere. Be free."
No, it couldn't be that easy. Could it?
"You'd find me," Drury shook his head.
"True," Thawne admitted. "But a little time is better than no time, isn't it?"
"Take the belt."
"Take the belt and it all ends."
Channelling all his rage and desperation, Drury swiped at Thawne; the Professor evaded, of course. And before Drury could muster a defence, Thawne was on him, slapping him across the face. Drury stumbled back, his lip split.
"Take the belt," Thawne repeated.
Drury tried again. And again, only ever managing to injure himself. And with every failed attempt, Thawne hit back.
"Take the belt," Thawne demanded once more.
Drury lunged; Thawne caught his fist, effortlessly, and hurled him over his shoulder.
"Take the belt."
Drury charged forth; Thawne stuck his arm in his path, clotheslining him.
Drury fell to his knees, his blood coating the slabs below. "I'm going to kill you," he wheezed.
"You'll have to catch me first. Take the belt."
Another blind lunge. Another miss.
"Tsk tsk. Still too slow. Maybe if you were faster, your wife would still be alive..."
"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrr-"
All Thawne had to do was step aside, let Drury hit the wall. He struck the brick and it felt like his head had split open; Drury landed on the floor, his eyes drooped shut, and as he drifted into unconsciousness, he hoped that everything he knew would be different when he awoke.
We often overlook the obvious when searching for answers. They say there are two sides to every story. I think that is an understatement, but on the surface it appears to be true and essential to figuring out this mystery.
MonoDisc Revelations may have raised more questions than answers to this quandary, but fear not this isn't just another open ended story. On my SD card I have over 900 jpeg and plain text files that due to encryption required the assistance of my hacker friend to access.
They provided many revelations about the MonoDisc and what it means, but the later jpegs, starting with the one you see here, begins to tell the other side of the story. More to come...
This is a dual-purpose build for the Survivors RPG - introducing the secondary characters, and setting up the probably overcomplicated plot for my future submission to the Tatooine challenge.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The team, left to right...
Keldon Velius: New Republic Intelligence (on leave), full backstory here... flic.kr/p/2jNumU8
Lin: Genius level IQ, triple advanced degrees in engineering, mathematics, and (oddly) history by age 21, and professor of engineering. Vowed to fight the Remnant after they blew up his university. Can build or fix essentially anything.
Rhodes: Professional concert musician. Vowed to fight the Remnant after they blew up his favorite concert hall. Decided to put his talented fingers to new use as a slicer, programmer, and technology expert.
Penn: Weapons and demolitions extraordinaire. Has always enjoyed big guns and bigger explosions, so fighting the Remnant is an excuse to pursue his hobbies. Childhood friend of Lin and Rhodes and happy to drag them into the fight.
-=-=-=-=-=-
[7 days before the Tatooine assault]
///Begin Meeting Recording\\\
Velius: "Alright team, circle up. I've talked to Kevin and they've received an outstanding response - the team for the main base assault is solid, and honestly, they don't need four more guys. I asked about secondary targets, and here's what we were assigned."
"The main Imperial installation has a commanding view of the surrounding area in every direction, except overlooking the valley to the southeast. About 10 years ago - which unfortunately is the newest data we have - they built a secondary tower at the mouth of the valley. It's about 500 yards from the main facility, and has a direct line of sight for secure comms. And according to this 10-year-old intelligence, it was also built with longer range off-planet comm capability, since the original base could only reach orbit...and the Empire wasn't in the habit of keeping a Star Destroyer stationed at Tatooine full-time."
"Mission requirements: incapacitate the tower at the same time as the main facility, and prevent them from calling in reinforcements from another system. What do you guys think?"
Penn: "Seems easy enough. Lin rigs up a remote control speeder bike that Rhodes can drive from his computer, then I load it up with a dozen thermal detonators and we hit the front door. Boom."
Velius: (awkward pause) "Okay, well... pros... speeder bike of exploding doom. And cons... that would be challenging to time with the rest of the group, which is one of the key requirements."
Rhodes: "A lot of room for error, too - driving remotely down a canyon at high speed."
Velius: "Let's make that plan B?"
Rhodes: "Hypothetically, if we could get inside--"
Penn: "--because you can just stroll right into an Imperial facility--"
Rhodes: "Hey, I didn't say I had a plan to get in, I'm just saying *if* we could... we'd be able to hack their comms."
Velius: "Meaning that we could listen in to the tower before the attack?"
Rhodes: "The tower, and most likely the main facility too. If the Remnant is so low on funds that they're using abandoned bases, I highly doubt they're using separate encryption keys for two buildings next door."
Velius: "Probably true."
Rhodes: "And not just listening in - we could make their comms conveniently break down shortly before the attack. That would keep patrols from reporting anything suspicious they notice as the Survivors are planting explosives...or we could even intercept calls from patrols so they don't realize comms are down, which might be suspicious to begin with. We could also handicap the response from anyone not taken out by the blast, since they'd be reduced to low-range helmet comms."
Velius: "I'm sold. How do we get inside?"
Lin: (looking up for the first time) "Let's make them sweat."
Velius: "Get them nervous?"
Lin: "No, literally...sweating. Studying this tower, the only exposed machinery I see on the outside is the fan for the ventilation and climate control system. We sabotage their VACC unit, and then go in to fix it."
Velius: "First obstacle: how will you sabotage something five stories up without being detected?"
Rhodes: "We've got the mini spider droid prototype working - that could climb right up the wall without detection."
Lin: "Great idea - I can make that work."
Velius: "Second obstacle: don't they have their own mechanics?"
Lin: "Sure, but they're generalists, and they'll be looking for signs of normal wear and tear, not well-hidden sabotage. Besides, that's a specialty VACC unit developed here on Tatooine, not standard Imperial equipment. They'll try for a couple days, then give up and call one of the VACC outfits here in town."
Rhodes: "And we can tap all of those comms in advance to intercept the call and hijack the appointment."
Velius: "And we stroll right in as VACC techs. That might actually work. You and me, Lin? You'll have to fix whatever you break."
Lin: "Definitely. Penn, I bet you can hook me up with some hydrospanner-shaped timed explosives that will make it through a security scan and just so happen to be forgotten in the VACC unit?"
Penn: "Sure, no problem. Probably not strong enough to take out the whole tower, but enough to wipe out all electronics."
Velius: "That'll work. You're coming too, Rhodes?"
Rhodes: "No, better if I'm here. Ever tapped comms before?"
Velius: "A few times back in my pirate hunting days, but I'm sure an Imperial control room has more sophisticated equipment."
Rhodes: "No problem, I can give you a demo. Which is the third obstacle: how are you going to touch an Imperial computer without an Imperial looking over your shoulder?"
Velius: "I think it's time to call an old friend... the best distraction I've ever met. Trust me, if she's in the room, we'll be invisible."
Rhodes: "I'm intrigued."
Velius: "Don't get excited, she's lightyears out of your league. Alright, this crazy plan is officially on. I'll call my friend, and I'll also let Kevin and Zach know what we're up to...."
\\\End Meeting Recording///
-=-=-=-=-=-
Somehow the idea of something dramatic and slightly absurd, like going undercover as A/C repairmen, was irresistible. Let me know what you think, and check out a slew of fun Star Wars scenes from other builders in the Survivors RPG:
www.flickr.com/groups/thesurvivorsrpg/
(I also apologize for the less than amazing photo quality...working with a three year old smartphone and struggling with clarity.)
Day 334 of 365 - SSL
Macro Monday 11/30/09 - Security
Nicer Large on Black
Posted for this week's Macro Monday challenge, the theme was Security. The image is of a digital certificate used by a web site to provide encryption between a browser and the server. I thought it appropriate for this week's challenge **but it is a shot I could have basically screenshotted so I may post something a bit more photographically interesting as well later today** (I didn't get around to another and this seems to have been well received :) yay!).
This was done with a lensbaby composer, no aperture ring which I think makes it f/2.
www.mosotechnology.com/ssl-certificates/features-one-shou...
Usage Log:
10/9/2010 - Found this in use over on MoSo Web Hosting.
Encryption Keys.
Contradictions anarchies incertitudes destructrices paralysantes mensonges énigmatiques énigmatiques ennemis qui luttent pour dominer la génération,
والخدمات المكتبية غير مريح اختراق الحكم عيون مثيرة للاهتمام تشكيلات دائمة تغرق تعتبر التألق ذكاء أقفال متعددة الأوجه فتح,
קינדעריש פּראַוואַקיישאַנז יגנאַמיניאַס מיסטייקס טראַונסט פאַרברעכער נשמות פארוואנדלען קאַמפּאָוזער טעראַפייינג ינספּעריישאַנז עדיפיינג ביישפילן,
Нийлмэл үеийг хэрцгий догшрох хаалгануудыг зарлаж, хэрцгий хэрцгий хаалгануудыг зарладаг,
buntownicze efekty głośne zrozumienie deklamacja produkcja zmierzch języki bezbarwna opera dramat drżenie pasji,
soustružení zkroucení zrezivělý omezování sentimentální výjimky rušivá civilizace brutální divadlo blikání zákony mlha pravidla extrémní názory,
息を呑むような公共の貴重な石のコンサート勤勉な時間を発見悪人の心の表現住んでいた解決策喜びを呼び起こすおいしいパラドックス大.
Steve.D.Hammond.
A compact experiment aimed at enhancing cybersecurity for future space missions is operational in Europe’s Columbus module of the International Space Station, running in part on a Raspberry Pi Zero computer costing just a few euros.
“Our CryptIC experiment is testing technological solutions to make encryption-based secure communication feasible for even the smallest of space missions,” explains ESA software product assurance engineer Emmanuel Lesser. “This is commonplace on Earth, using for example symmetric encryption where both sides of the communication link share the same encryption key.
“In orbit the problem has been that space radiation effects can compromise the key within computer memory causing ‘bit-flips’. This disrupts the communication, as the key on ground and the one in space no longer match. Up to now this had been a problem that requires dedicated – and expensive – rad-hardened devices to overcome.”
Satellites in Earth orbit might be physically remote, but still potentially vulnerable to hacking. Up until recently most satellite signals went unencrypted, and this remains true for many of the smallest, cheapest mission types, such as miniature CubeSats
But as services delivered by satellites of all sizes form an increasing element of everyday life, interest in assured satellite cybersecurity is growing, and a focus of ESA’s new Technology Strategy for this November’s Space19+ Ministerial Council
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CryptIC, or Cryptography ICE Cube, - the beige box towards the top of the image, has been a low-cost development, developed in-house by ESA’s Software Product Assurance section and flown on the ISS as part of the International Commercial Experiments service – ICE Cubes for short. ICE Cubes offer fast, simple and affordable access for research and technology experiments in microgravity using compact cubes. CryptIC measures just 10x10x10 cm.
“A major part of the experiment relies on a standard Raspberry Pi Zero computer,” adds Emmanuel. “This cheap hardware is more or less flying exactly as we bought it; the only difference is it has had to be covered with a plastic ‘conformal’ coating, to fulfil standard ISS safety requirements.”
The orbital experiment is operated simply via a laptop at ESA’s ESTEC
technical centre in the Netherlands, routed via the ICE Cubes operator, Space Applications Services in Brussels.
“We’re testing two related approaches to the encryption problem for non rad-hardened systems,” explains ESA Young Graduate Trainee Lukas Armborst. “The first is a method of re-exchanging the encryption key if it gets corrupted. This needs to be done in a secure and reliable way, to restore the secure link very quickly. This relies on a secondary fall-back base key, which is wired into the hardware so it cannot be compromised. However, this hardware solution can only be done for a limited number of keys, reducing flexibility.
“The second is an experimental hardware reconfiguration approach which can recover rapidly if the encryption key is compromised by radiation-triggered memory ‘bit flips’. A number of microprocessor cores are inside CryptIC as customisable, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), rather than fixed computer chips. These cores are redundant copies of the same functionality. Accordingly, if one core fails then another can step in, while the faulty core reloads its configuration, thereby repairing itself.”
In addition the payload carries a compact ‘floating gate’ dosimeter to measure radiation levels co-developed by CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, as part of a broader cooperation agreement
.
And as a guest payload, a number of computer flash memories are being evaluated for their orbital performance, a follow-on version of ESA’s ‘Chimera’ experiment which flew on last year’s GomX-4B CubeSat
.
The experiment had its ISS-mandated electromagnetic compatibility testing carried out in ESTEC’s EMC Laboratory
.
“CryptIC has now completed commissioning and is already returning radiation data, being shared with our CERN colleagues,” adds Emmanuel. “Our encryption testing is set to begin in a few weeks, once we’ve automated the operating process, and is expected to run continuously for at least a year.”
Credits: ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
====Sionis Industries====
Sionis- I see Clayface, I see Orca, but I don't see Penguin. Freeze?
Freeze- We found surveillance equipment in the subbasement. Sionis Industries. Ace Chemicals. He's been watching it all. Except... for you, Brown. You, haven't been worth his time.
Chuck stands beside Freeze quietly, thinking to himself. "Once this is over, once I have clean electronics and my own place again, I'm going to need a long hot shower"
"This, we recovered from Hagen. A radio."
Freeze hands it to Sionis. For a moment, he just stares at it, and then, presses play. He's met with a familiar breathing sound on the other end.
"Penguin."
Penguin- Roman.
...
Sionis- Let's make this quick. Where, are you?
Penguin- You know I can't answer that.
Sionis- Then, you know this isn't worth my time.
Penguin- Just hear me out. If you give me five minutes-
Sionis- You tried to kill me, Oswald. And you didn't even admit it. You know, I always knew it'd come to this. But you didn't even have the decency to do it honestly.
Penguin- Just. Hear me out. Five minutes.
Sionis- Five minutes. And, you better skip the poetry.
Penguin- Thank you. How to explain it... The inmates here consider Arkham a waking nightmare. Hell, they say. I disagree. It is only a nightmare, because we allowed it to be one. Because we declared it as such.
During my last incarceration in Blackgate Penitentiary, I was, over four months, able to take control of the prison's east side. In six months, the Monarch, The Monarch of Menace, owned the South. Together, we formed an alliance- to escape. But to do so, we needed control of the West Wing- built atop a series of tunnels, not unlike the tunnels here in Arkham. This, was controlled by the Music Meister. Those who even knew he existed were few and far between, but there he was. King of Blackgate. He had, let's say, a way with words. The stories you've heard? They're all true. We offered him a place in our alliance- the two of us had heard rumours of a plan he had developed, so of course, our combined manpower would surely be unstoppable. But the Meister doesn't share power. Do you know what he bragged about, as he had Tockman and Kyle drag us down to Croc's lair? His friends. His friends on the other side. We had him killed a week later, through the very method he had intended for us. As Blackgate fell, so did he, and Gotham, Gotham was mine once more. Well, if not for you of course. Ha. With the monarch acting as my regent, I left for Japan. I intended to track down Meister's compatriots. And I did.
For you see, in Tokyo, I met a renegade faction, a group of warriors who opposed Meister's allies, led by this man, Osaki- I asked him for answers, and he told me all he knew. They had infiltrated the Yakuza decades ago, converted their most influential members into servitude, into part of a "higher cause." In Italy, they'd taken over the Mafia, its' Don's sport their porcelain masks, their signature, behind closed doors. They supplied them both, supplied them all, with hitmen, the kind of assassin that was utterly loyal, and unable to be captured. And it led me home. To Gotham. These... Owls, had reached Music Meister in Blackgate, leaving him in charge, keeping order until... Until they could unleash a riot, the kind that would give their chosen champion a platform to battle on. You'd know him, as Daniel, "Danto" Twag.
Chuck- God, you're working with them aren't you? That's why you sent Needham, why you-
Sionis- Ran off like a good little coward.
Penguin- I am not a coward! I came here, to prepare for the inevitable. Six months ago, on Easter Sunday, I brought all of you together. Through blood? Yes. Through deception? Of course. But I needed you, all of you, to work past your incessant *bullshit* so we could survive. And even then, you people just couldn't let things be.
Sionis- Because you tried to kill me, Oswald, me.
"Because you can't change Roman. You would always be bickering with some poor sod, always one hand on your holster and the other down your pants."
Sionis- Five minutes, did we say? Li!
Penguin- No! Don't you get it? We're pawns, Roman, I'm just one who's seen through it. The Owls wanted us fractured, focused on warring with each other, instead of focusing on the whys, the whos, the what. Because who's left to ask "why" when we're all shooting at each other?
Sionis- Oh Oswald... I know you. Really know you. You might, *might* have noble goals, but deep down, you really just want more power, more people to control. Today, it'll be Owls, tomorrow it'll be Bane or, heck, the day after it might be Brainiac. You want us scared, because, well, it's like you said, who's left to ask why when we're all crapping ourselves in terror.
Penguin- Perhaps Roman. Perhaps. But right now, I'm also the only person you can truly depend on. What do you say?
====Louisiana=====
The hypersonics are working. A black blur in the distance confirms as much. He'll be here in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Impact imminent.
"Zod?"
No. *Uhn* The creature has his powers, but it is feral, brutish. One of his underlings then. A waste of time. The Kryptonite in my veins may dull it's senses, the red sunlight emitters may sap it's strength, but each tool I use, is a tool I can't use on my intended target. And I know now that he's been watching me all along.
"From the sound of your breaking bones, I assume you've engaged Zod?"
Bane- Not now, Kuttler. I'm busy.
The longer the creature's in red sunlight, the weaker it becomes. Each strike that lands hurts it harder, and harder and-
"Can you hear me, human? I do hope you can. I don't care for your politics. On Krypton, it was the politicians who had Non lobotomised. It was the politicians who refused to act when Krypton needed them. I have seen your planet, Earth Man, I see very little difference between our governments, and I see very little reason to care for your plight. You have one chance. Impress me."
====Under Arkham====
Drury- Hey! Hey Norbert, I just wanted to talk, is that alright?
Norbert nods, but doesn't say anything.
Drury- It's about what you said, just before Deathstroke- Look, I need you to know this. I didn't bring you for the muscle. And I didn't bring you because I miss having Gar around. Like I said in Washington, I want to give you a choice. ... His name is Kirk Langstrom. He was taken to Arkham two months ago, brilliant scientist- I worked with him before... But he's also a Bat thing.
Norbert- Like Batman?
Drury-Not exactly... Look, the thing is... I robbed you of the chance to be normal when I blew Strange's lab up, because chances are, he would've just reprogrammed you like Hatter did. But Langstrom... He's a good guy. Mostly. And if anyone can cure you, he can.
Norbert- But he's a bat man.
Drury- Yeah, well, different strokes. I know, I know, it probably doesn't make much sense to you "if he's so great, he probably wouldn't have turned into a bat in the first place," but nonetheless! He can help. Just need to find him.
Norbert- You really... You really want to help, don't you?
Drury- I do. And if I know Kirk, which I ought to, we've had dinner before, he will too. You're with good people, Norbert, and, marital problems aside, Batman over there is one of the best there is, right Bats?
Batman- Another 500 yards. Just remember, stick to the plan. You go off script, and they *will* kill you.
Drury- Yeah, no, I figured. I was just-
Batman puts his hand out to silence Drury, as he puts his other hand on his earpiece.
Batman- -Something's wrong. Oracle, I'm putting you on video what's the situation?
Oracle- Oh. Hi, everyone. Selina
Selina- *smiling* Babs.
Batman- Oracle-?
Oracle- Sorry, I just- Good for- *ahem* Batman, I'm trying to access the Arkham security protocols, but there's some kind of encryption, unlike anything I've seen, like it's a reflex, like a pulse.
Batman- It's alive... Oracle, is there a manual override, a terminal I can download the codes from?
...
Oracle- Yes, but you're not going to like where it is.
Selina- Let me guess, the top of Evil HQ?
Oracle- Ha, how did you know?
Selina- We're on it. Ra's can wait, we have to get those people out of here.
Miranda- Hang on, if we wait any longer, The Demon could already have rejuvenated himself. He *has* to be the priority.
Drury- Honey, if we can't stop him, hundreds of people, *our* people will die
...
Batman- I don't like splitting up like this.
Norbert- *Ahem* *We* can deal with him. Probably. You, can open doors. Minimise collateral.
...
Batman- ...He's right. Good luck, the three of you.
"God knows they'll need it...," Selina quips as she and Batman depart for the Belfry, disappearing into the distance.
Drury and Miranda share a weak smile, reciprocated by Norbert, as they too head off. All that stands in their way are 500 yards, and an army of ninjas.
The SZ-40 was an electro-mechanical wheel-based cipher machine for teleprinter signals (telex). It was developed by Lorenz and used during WWII by the German Army for communication at the highest level. The machine was improved twice (SZ-42a and SZ-42b) and was broken during WWII by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park (UK) with the aid of Colossus, the first electronic digital computer. The SZ-40/42 was codenamed TUNNY by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
During WWII, the German Army used a variety of cipher machines, of which the Enigma machine is probably known best. For secure teleprinter communication (telex) they used the Siemens T-52 Geheimschreiber, the Lorenz SZ-40, and later the Siemens T-43 one-time pad machine.
The Lorenz SZ-40/42 was used by the German Army High Command (Oberst-Kommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) for communication at the highest level, between Hitler and his Generals. The machine was called Schlüsselzusatz (SZ) which means Encryption Add-on. It was connected between a teleprinter and the line, and was suitable for both online and offline use.
Only a small number of SZ-40 and SZ-42 units were ever built. The image above shows one of the very few machines that have survived. It was found in Germany and is now on public display in the museum at Bletchley Park.
Please note that the Lorenz SZ-40/42 is often mistakenly called Geheimschreiber, for example in the 2012 BBC Documentary The Lost Heroes of Bletchley Park. The name Geheimschreiber was used for the Siemens T-52 and not for the SZ-42. Although the two machines use a similar principle, they are not identical and should not be confused. The T-52 was mostly used on landlines (telex) rather than via radio, making interception far more difficult. Nevertheless it was broken occasionally by Bletchley Park and, on a larger scale, by Swedish codebreakers.
I was reminded of the codebreakers led by Alan Turing , toiling away at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma code of the Axis powers in WW-2.
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The Enigma Machine played a key role in World War II. The German military depended on the Enigma Machine to encrypt communications, but the Allies invested a tremendous amount of effort in decryption and achieved significant success. This provided the Allies a large advantage.
I believe this is a German Wehrmacht (military) Enigma (please let me know if that is not correct). At the upper right are the keys pressed by the operator, entering the characters to be encrypted. At the left, under a cover, are three rotors that turned with each key stroke, changing the encryption code with each letter. Between the two is the lampboard. As the operator pressed a key, the encrypted version of that letter would light on the lampboard.
Seen at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Recommended music:
idk, listen to Certain Kind of Magic in the background
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ARCH0MEN, the Cyber-Sukeban Leak Queen of Tokyo.
She had made a name for herself during the Orbit Wars, orchestrating many of the high-profile leaks against government and corporate interests. Not to mention being the face of countless online smear campaigns against political and big business types. It didn’t take long for her to decide to make a show (or more aptly, sideshow) out of it.
Almost a decade later, and she was still going strong. There was a reason she was still getting views. Her charismatic snark and prowess in the news leak world gave her a steady viewership and a loyal cult following. Even if you didn’t care much about the infosphere, her personality was enough to keep you tuned in.
Being Japanese, all her shows were recorded only in her native tongue. However, she utilized advanced speech synthesis software to translate herself into a wide range of languages, always having a unique yet entirely lifelike voice depending on your language setting.
Lip sync wasn’t an issue. To mask her identity, she always wore a black bandana over her face. Overtop it was projected a virtual cartoonish Oni mouth, automated and animated to sync up with whatever regional translation you were listening to. It was almost seamless, but any bugs were simply brushed off as part of her glitchy aesthetic.
Her style was typical of the Neo-Tokyo trends; dark colored pleather, plastic, and semi-synthetic fibers, all tightly worn over her petite form. Her large, spiked, dyed hair helped further mask her identity. Only one eye was left fully visible. Eyes are the window to the soul, after all. Everything else was hidden behind thick purple strands of hair. Face analysis dazzle camouflage, popular among some of the more notorious or paranoid of the virtual world.
As was usual for her set up, she was cloaked in shadows and red edge lighting. A glossy glass tabletop sat in front of her like some parody of a news anchor. In the background was a wall made of nothing but TV displays, old and new, flickering with static or cycling through any random channel every few seconds.
She sat straight on toward the camera with her hands cupped together.
“Hello, hello, and welcome again to 0men At Night!” she began cheerfully. “I’m your wonderful loveable hostess, The ARCH0MEN…mh, granted you aren’t part of the Global 500, that is. I have a bad habit of ruffling their feathers...” she raised a hand over her mouth and let out a mischievous giggle.
“To start our night off, here’s your Leak of the Week! Tonight’s leak comes from Japan’s very own Hachitekku Mechatronics, provided by a very generous informant who shall as usual remain unnamed…
“Hachitekku is currently working on an upgrade to their Bolt lineup of proxy models. Some say you can’t improve upon perfection – in my humble opinion-“ she raised a hand over her chest with a prideful look, “-but apparently the engineers at Hachitekku believe otherwise. My informant tells me that the project’s objective is to focus on improving durability and survivability, implementing the most advanced metallurgyyyy-…et cetera, et cetera…” She twirled her fingers, as if growing bored of the technical jargon.
“-Well, as many of you may recall, in our previous episodes we leaked that Hachitekku has been on a binge of quietly buying out many of Japan’s leading tech and industry startups. Clearly not a coincidence. Ever heard of the old adage ‘competition breeds innovation’? Well, our friends on Hachijo seem to be choosing instead to simply buy out the competition and reap the benefits. But such is how the business world goes, shady practices and all.
“A release date has yet to be announced, obviously, since the project is still in prototype stage. Though surely this broadcast will help speed up the process. You’re welcome.” Her catchphrase.
She cocked her head to the side and gave her trademarked smug smile through her eyes. At this point her software knew it well enough, and the animated Oni mouth transformed to match it.
She continued-
“I just hope the software will finally be prepackaged instead of being sold separately. It is such a pain always having to pirate it...” She leaned in,
“Hint, hint.”
She readjusted herself as her face took on a more neutral appearance.
“Moving on to more serious news: There has been yet another attempt at revealing the identity of yours truly. I obviously won’t mention the poor soul who was falsely identified. She has already been through more than enough the past week, and out of respect I will refrain from delving into any of the personal attacks she has faced. I do have standards after all, despite what the media claims. But rest assured, I and my inner circle have worked tirelessly to ensure her safety.
“In the meantime, gracious members from our Shanghai chapter have successfully tracked down the would-be doxxers. The group responsible appear to be sponsored by the People’s Republic of Beijing, most likely in retaliation for my previous slanders of your marvellous little communist dictatorship. Try harder next time, boys. ROC is best China.
“Unfortunately I don’t think we have the time to list everyone involved, because I do have the full list. Perhaps we’ll have an episode dedicated to that later this week. But just to serve as a little warning-“
She turned her head and gazed into the camera, as if addressing someone personally.
“Wei Sing. I’d expect far better data encryption from a person in your line of work. Quite the cultured man, you are! ‘Futa’, ‘femdom’, ‘female-on-male’, very…*interesting*…tastes, if I might say. Perhaps your glorious leader would like to hear the full list, hmm? Or maybe he and your comrades would prefer a more visual medium? I’ve come to find out it goes well beyond your search history. I certainly have the juicy vid files as proof, and I bet the audience would just love to see them!”
After a moment of pause, her posture slumped. Her carefree, self-satisfied aura vanished. She narrowed her eyes and stared deep into the camera. They were full of malice.
“You don’t want to play this game.” She droned without emotion. “You really don’t want to play this game.”
A few seconds went by before she finally breathed a sigh.
“Moving on-!“ she forced a smile.
Her chipper personality returned as she recomposed herself.
“Turning our attention over to America: Another day, another stock exchange financier is revealed to be human excrement. At this point I should just make a segment dedicated to it. It’s basically become a monthly event…But, I digress!
“Andy Florance. Owner of a lovely little flat in lower Manhattan. Just turned 27, happy belated birthday by the way. You all should know the story by now; silver spooned upbringing, some young Mr. Big, caught in a web of embezzlement and fraud, the usual scumbag-ary we’ve come to expect from the wonderful world of Wall Street.
“BUT, here’s the rotten cherry on top: the fund he was working for? The Rightful Passage Foundation…a charity foundation…dedicated to giving third world victims of the Choke a proper burial.”
She paused for a moment and blinked with wide eyes, just to let it sink in.
“Yes, you heard that right! This fine example of wasted genes was siphoning money away from the literal bones of dead African children! To finance underwater Miami CASINOS of all things!” she spoke with exuberance, as if trying to embody the absurdity of the situation. “Just-…it takes effort to be that much of a human septic tank.” She spat out the last three words with vitriol.
“A New York watchdog organization had already uncovered the story before I was able to get to it. Not that I’m complaining; I tip my hat to you. Got anymore scoops, hook me up!" She hastily added, making a calling gesture with her fingers.
“He was promptly brought into custody once all this came to light, and the RPF made quick at publicly denouncing him. From what I’ve heard, his future doesn’t sound very bright.
“It didn’t take long for the police body camera footage to leak of his arrest, and it is…just beautiful. I won’t show the full clip here. RATHER, I’ll save it for our Hour of 0men Weekly Roundup later this week, and we’ll take all the time we need laughing at him blubbering like a baby for minutes on end! Mark your calendars, you won’t want to miss it!
“Unfortunately that marks the end of our show tonight. But be sure to keep tuning in for future episodes! Same time, same place, same marvellous face! Sweet dreams, and remember… 0men is always watching.” She stared ominously into the camera, before glitching out in her usual outro.
------------------------------------
I had WAAAAY too much fun writing this character...
I AM UNASHAMED TO ADMIT THE PRIMARY INSPIRATION BEHIND HER. Aside from that; a hint of WikiLeaks, a smidgen of VTuber, a health dash of smarmy edgy political YouTuber. I'll definitely go into more detail with her in the future
Looking at the actual "scene", you can see why this took over a month to finish. Me and my stupid obsessive attention to detail, putting an excessive amount of effort into thumbnails for in-universe content creators (majority actually inspired by YouTubers I follow). Although I will say, I am extremely proud of how it all turned out. Nothing quite like that dopamine rush when your art comes out perfect.
This chapter is nearly done! We've got two more parts! The end is in sight!!
If you fave, comment as well!
The new costume feels weird.
Then again, they always do.
I suppose anything’s going to feel weird when compared to my other suit, especially when you consider that I’ve worn that suit for countless years at this point. Still, as you’d imagine Lucius has outdone himself on this new suit. From what Bruce tells me, Lucius used the current Batsuit as the template when constructing it before making all the suitable adjustments to make it more in line with my style. On the outside, the differences are small and only slightly different cosmetically from the previous suit, but the improvement in armour plating is one of the first things I notice. Evidently, its designed to be able to take a blow from a katana.
Just whether or not it’d be able to take more than one is something I’ll hopefully not have to find out. The second major difference is the vambraces on my arms, they’ve been reconfigured to include various electrical components as oppose to just padding beneath the metal covering. According to Lucius, this should mean I can interface with most electrical systems in the field myself rather than requiring support from the Batcomputer. Probably not something many people would appreciate, but if you had experienced the pain of waiting for Alfred to break an encryption as much as I have, you’d consider this upgrade the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I certainly do.
Beyond those two major improvements, there isn’t much new on the suit besides a slightly reworked utility belt, making it lighter and also allowing myself to carry twice the capacity of my previous belt. No doubt it will be essential tonight. Especially now that Ra’s has made his first move.
A gas attack, slowly enveloping all of Gotham.
From what the satellite network can make out, the gas is being pumped out of four towers at different corners of the city, and the whole city will be covered in less than two hours unless we stop it.
Dick: This….this is horrible….
Scarlett: Do you think any of the national guard managed to make it to safety?
Jason: I don’t know Scarlett. I really don’t know.
Tim: Do we know just what’s in this gas?
Bruce: Alfred and Lucius are still working to analyse the gas and synthesize a neutralising agent.
Roy: This isn’t right. What sort of monster gases people without a second thought?
Barbra: One who believes himself above all others. A man who thinks it his right to decide who deserves to live, and who deserves to die.
Bruce: This cannot be allowed to continue.
Dick: What are you suggesting?
Bruce: The gas is toxic if inhaled, but the tests that have already been performed show it is unable to corrode a gas mask and rebreather.
Tim: You’re saying we go out there and try to shut the towers down ourselves?
Bruce: Without a neutralising agent, there is little more we can do than simply prevent the gas from covering all of Gotham at present. We must ensure that the gas is not able to make it towards the GCPD or Gotham General.
Scarlett: But what about the soldiers? How do we help them?
Bruce says nothing. Simply turning away and looking towards the main monitor.
Roy: You’re just going to ignore them? Leave them to die?
Bruce: They’ll all die anyway if we don’t stop this gas from covering all of Gotham.
Scarlett: They’re innocent in all this! This whole attack is only happening because of you! We have to save them!
Jason: Scarlett…
Bruce: We have to prioritise. Say we’re successful, say we save what? Ten of them? How do you then justify saving ten of them and dooming the hundred or so police officers in the GCPD to death? How do you justify to Barbra that her father died needlessly because you chose saving one man over an entire city? How do you justify to Tim that his friend died in Gotham General because you let your emotions overrule your head?
I feared that this would come. Bruce would feel it necessary to put both Scarlett and Roy in line to ensure he can rely upon them. They are after all, the only rogue element in this team. The only ones Bruce didn’t have at least some input in with how they were trained. Personally, I’m not too worried about them. Jason trusts them, and that’s good enough for me. But Bruce needs to be certain, and he’s completely right to want to be. We’ll be heavily outnumbered out there, so it’s critical that we’re effective and efficient.
They have the numbers.
We need to have the skill. It’s the only way we stand a chance of winning.
Roy: Ollie would try to save them.
Bruce: I’m no Oliver Queen.
Roy: That’s for sure.
Dick: Thank goodness.
Not really the time to try and lighten up the mood, Dick.
Bruce: Given that the towers cover all four corners of Gotham, we’ll have to divide our forces in order to neutralise them simultaneously.
Barbra: So we split up into teams? Who goes with who?
Bruce: Barbra, you and Dick take the east tower.
Dick: The one closest to GCPD?
Barbra: We’re on it.
Bruce: Jason, you and the Outlaws will take the southern tower.
Wait, what? He’s having both Scarlet and Roy go with Jason? I was certain he’d pair me up with Roy.
Jason: Roger.
Roy: Wait, how the hell are we supposed to stop those towers anyways?
Bruce: Alfred will be feeding us all live information including the tower’s schematics when we arrive.
Dick: Good old Alfred.
Tim: So which tower does that leave me with? North or west?
Bruce: You and Talia will take the western tower.
Tim: Talia?
Why’s he sending Talia with me? If anything it makes far more sense to pair me up with one of the Outlaws and Talia go with him, that way everyone has someone there to cover their back.
Bruce: She’s a skilled combatant. We’d be foolish not to make use of her help.
Tim: Then why’s she going with me and not you?
Bruce: I need someone I can trust to keep an eye on her.
Tim: You don’t trust yourself?
Bruce: Not unless it’s necessary.
Talia: He’s always been like that, I’m afraid.
That’s….not really surprising. But it’s still kind of worrying.
Dick: You don’t need to tell any of us that, we’ve had to live with it.
Jason: Wait, it doesn’t make sense that three of us are going to the southern tower but you’re going alone to the northern tower. Doesn’t it make more sense for Roy to go with Tim and Talia go with you?
My thoughts exactly.
Bruce: I’ll be fine. I have the sword.
Scarlett: What sword?
Tim: You know how every member in the League has a chemical in their body that gives them an unnatural healing factor? He's got a magical sword that neutralises it.
Dick: Then why haven’t you tried giving all of us one of those swords!?
Bruce: Because I had to do a deal with Hephaestus, and he would only forge me one blade.
Roy: That’s why you had us retrieve that stuff from Greene’s mansion.
Bruce: That was only intended as a contingency for this very scenario. The blade was the product of desperation.
Barbra: What did you have to promise him in return for it?
Bruce: Far too much.
Before Bruce has a chance to say just what it was he promised Hephaestus, an alert appears on the monitor. The gas cloud is beginning to move further into the city.
Bruce: Suit up.
———————————————-
Thirty Minutes Later…
By the time Talia and I make it to the western tower, Dick and Barbra have made it to the eastern tower and the Outlaws are waiting for Alfred’s signal to assault the southern tower.
Red Robin: Pen-7, this is West team. We’re in position.
Alfred: Roger West team. I’m waiting on the signal from the North team.
Talia: Do we really have to call him a team if he’s just one person?
Red Robin: It’s protocol, designed to confuse the enemy incase they’re listening in on our communications.
Talia: Has anyone ever managed to?
Red Robin: No, not yet but….
Talia: Then we can ditch the protocol. Let’s not make things more unnecessarily complicated than they need to be.
Red Robin: Alfred, we’re waiting on your signal.
Alfred: Standby….
Talia and I both look down onto the street in front of the tower, four dead bodies. All members of the national guard. None of them have any visible wounds so they clearly died from exposure to the gas. Poor guys. They probably didn’t have any idea what was going on before it was too late.
Talia: This is what I hoped to prevent.
Red Robin: Sorry?
Talia: All this bloodshed, Bruce and my father on opposite sides of this. I should have done more to stop it.
Red Robin: Maybe you couldn’t.
Talia: But maybe I could have. Part of me still wonders what might have happened if I’d managed to talk my father out of trying to put Bruce through the final trial. Or if I’d managed to convince Bruce to stay…..
Red Robin: Then the world would be a darker place.
Talia: How can you be sure about that? Especially with all that’s transpiring?
Red Robin: I can’t be. No-one can truly know whether or not the world would have been a better place if something went a better way. Sure a lot of bad things have happened which led to this moment, but do you know what also happened? A lot of great moments as well. Don’t believe me? Look at Dick. Look at Jason. Look at all of us. We’d all be nothing if Bruce hadn’t touched out lives, and if anything about Bruce has told me is true. He’d have been nothing without you.
For a brief moment, Talia says nothing. I think she’s smiling, but I can’t be certain. It’s difficult to tell what expression she has on her face with the rebreather covering half of it.
Talia: Just what has he been telling you about me?
Red Robin: Well err…you know….just…ummm…..stuff ya know….like umm….how you trained him and….other stuff.
Talia: What kind of other stuff?
Her tone of voice as she asks that question is incredibly discomforting. Worse still, I think I have some ides of just what it is she’s curious about. Thankfully, before I have to attempt to answer that question, a miracle arrives.
Alfred: Pen-7 to all strike teams. Mission is a go!
Immediately, before Talia can repeat her question, I race towards the roof ledge before jumping off towards the tower.
Red Robin: Come on Talia, we’ve got a job to do.
“Base to Edens. How are things coming along?”
“Not well, I’d say at the very least.”
“No?”
“Just forget about Green for now. We can’t save him”. As Eden muttered for a report. “I’ll tell you when we need to be dispatched”
“Alright.”
The hurried scientist quickly ran over to the location where his partner was, taking a rather long ride down. When he stepped out, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Silverjack, come in. Repeat, report, Silverjack.”
“Doctor? Is that you?” A familiar voice rang ahead. As he turned to look around, the shadow of Patrick appeared, his voice heavy and tired.
“What happened?”
“I got most of my men out, tried our best to secure the location....but yeah, this Green guy and his disciple was too strong.”
“I’m gonna find him. Can you get me the access to the room where Blue is held?”
“Sure. Sure.”
“So where is my friend?”
“He’s....uh....still safe.”
Meanwhile Silverjack had encountered the problems of his own, as much as his charisma held up, he was still up on par with the mute assassin, and they took the battle to the next level. A few brave men tried helping him despite their cover, and mounted their guns. Tanaka dodged with much swift moves, with the closest bullet narrowly hitting her right cheek. For a distracted second the men had bought him time, Silverjack decided to throw a smoke bomb and escape, while leaving a EMP grenade planted on the floor, which went off in a matter of seconds.
***
By now, he was into the level of the vault. A big storage with weapons, cache full of technology. It was well stocked despite the damage it had taken. Jesse’s eyes brimed with surprise. The storage was about roughly half the size of his own. And then there was a special looking box in the right. Stepping forward, he stared at it for a few good minutes before the assassin had caught to him.
“Not bad making through that. Because normally, goons don’t.”
The assassin ignored his witty quips as she lashed onto him, but he took the a small gadget from his pocket and sprayed her in the face, sending her backwards, unconscious. Now he saw that she had cybernetic cords under the mask as Jesse moved closer.
“Well. That’s a good way to take the equation off the solution.” He mumbled. Then his comms came in, with the voice of Edens ringing.
Edens: “Where are you?”
Jesse: “Deep in the vault. If you’re with Patrick, tell him it’s open. Interesting discoveries here. Meet me outside of the vault doors. And ask him to bring his remaining men as well.
Edens: “On our way.”
***
Edens: “So this is it. Patrick, you’ve been keeping this for a long time.
Patrick: “Well....yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you guys that we kept this. My boys didn’t even know much about this.
Jesse: “So our friend is looking for this, huh.”
Edens: “What’s it called? Must be something inside the box.”
Patrick: “Wait. It’s dangerous. We brought it back at least five or six years ago, extracted in Iraq. Scientists couldn’t figure it out. They had this kind of....special weapon. Looked like a sword, but it ain’t a sword. We dub it the Blades of Salvation.”
Edens: “Interesting.
Jesse: “And Green needs it for....?”
Patrick: “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Congratulations. You’ve helped me achieved something great today.” The fake Green’s voice suddenly boomed again., with the screen appearing.“Hand it over now, Remus. This property is mines.” Edens looked unamused again. “And what if I don’t? Using it for doomsday purposes? Not the first time I’ve faced encounters like these.” He quickly grabbed his pulse pistol and shot the towering image of the imposter, but still received a call as Patrick ordered his men to secure the area the vault.
Edens: “You do realise hacking isn’t useful anymore. Anyways, I took out your best.”
Green: “I can still do whatever I can. And she means nothing to me, just another puppet for disposal.
Edens: “I think you’ve forgotten something all along. Because the real you gave me the good stuff. We’ve found Blue as well.”
Green: “Ha! The body of my so called partner? I’ve killed him already before you fools could reach him.”
Edens: “Not quite. You know there’s always a secret room you’ve never tried to navigate, haven’t you. Courtesy of the captain.”
Green: “Heading to the——wait, what?”
Edens: “Here’s an encryption key that contains so much data. Very clever to cover it through your fabricated lies when we talked.”
Green: “This is impossible. I’ve breached the base with explosives, and how is the body still alive?”
Edens: “Answer: reverse technology. Nothing ever said about failsafes.
As he finished his line, Edens shot through the next room. The door unlocked with a small boom, revealing the now cornered Green, with men surrounding him. “Too late, “Knott.” I’ve always played five steps ahead. This is why your original couldn’t ever beat me in chess.” As the vulnerable imposter looked up at him, he raised his rifle at the calm scientist. “Well played. And you could find me here, so what now, take me under arrest? Pull another trick
Edens: “Actually, a permission to kill. You’ve done your part. Captain, permission to kill?”
Patrick: “Confirmed.”
Green: “Well, f*ck y’all.
Edens raised his pistol, shooting Green point blank through the head, revealing machinery and electronics. Patrick looked confused now, and the sight of blood mixed up with splattered brain did make one of the soldiers throw up.
Jesse: “Well, I never liked the bastard.”
Edens: “Not in particular for me, but I did hold some respect for the man.”
Patrick: “So is this guy with implants or a cyborg?”
Edens: “Android. Someone’s pulled the strings on this one. Programmed with a chip to carry out the actions, but I guess they’re broken now. See the wires? Connection severed. Anyways, captain, if you don’t mind, take this. Valuable info. And look at the comms, in an hour your friends are coming to look for us.”
Patrick: “Uh....well, you’re permitted to leave. I would still signal my men to be stationed, like the escaped ones, and the body....?”
Edens: “If you’re referring to the one on the floor, no, it’s worthless and there’s nothing with him, I’ve checked. We’ll take the original Knott with us. The original Green as well. He might be breathing a bit.”
Patrick: “The body’s ready. Here, take the emergency shaft up. Your plane’s ready to board as well, doctor.”
Edens: “Thank you, Captain. And what about the Blades of Salvation? Are we allowed to take it?”
Patrick: “Sure, of course. The science team has also granted permission, probably for borrowing. And you’re welcome.”
As the two left, a soldier came up to Patrick while everyone else was busy, as he kept staring.
Random soldier: “Don’t you think he’s awesome? He’s totally a badass scientist.”
Patrick: “Yeah....uh huh. I...I’m well, didn’t know he could do all those things. Thought he was some rather cheeky looking old man, but I was wrong. Anyways, all right everybody, keep cleaning up, we’ve still got work to do!”
*****
(On the plane)
Jesse: “And where does this leave us?”
Edens: “A second step, a bigger connection, deeper the conspiracy.”
Jesse: “I’m starting to believe there’s something between E.S. and the blades.
Edens: “Well, that’s for us to find out. Maybe, we should assemble the team. Tell them to get prepared, we’re not too far from home.
——****——
(Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end. If you’re still reading, here’s it. The first volume is coming out soon, probably within this week. Do expect more tie ins and exciting stuff coming along.)
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM AT: forcemoviesproductions
An Radio Operator of the Order of the Silver Coin is listening to enemy troop movements during the war with Lord Badly Bald.
Radio operators are part of the support staff of the Order Of The Silver Coin Military and were skilled in handling in and out coming transmissions from friendly and enemy troops alike, as they were also tasked with decrypting and encrypting in and out coming transmissions that varies from radio messages till listening stations. Radio Operators, although not only skilled in handling radio devices were also tasked in ‘’Signal intelligence’’ which is basically gathering secret information from the enemy such as encrypted radio messages that are vital for the troops of the resistance against Lord badly Bald.
They were one of the first communication branches founded by the Order Of The Silver Coin after their previous communication infrastructure was destroyed by the Evil Forces Of Lord Badly Bald and the available communications methods were primitive compared to their enemies.
In the case of deciphering complicated encryptions , they will work in small teams of analysts deciphering communications chatter from across the Land Of Weird And Madness. But most Radio Operators were focussed in transmitting radio communications.
Despide they spent most of their time behind a desk, they are however trained into combat and are capable of handling a weapon. Some Radio Operators wore a sidearm or had a weapon under their desk in case their working place becomes a combat zone.
Some Radio operators were part of the intelligence branch of the Order Of The SIlver Coin, the only difference that those were more experienced in both on the combat field and intelligence gathering.
Radio Operators of the Order Of The Silver Coin, despide making very small to no appearance in any of my animations, their faction they belong to do. The most notable is in the brickfilm called: Lego War: Battle Of Mo-Wol.
Link to the brickfilm:
This church was build just before WorldWarII started. The original churchbells were taken by the Nazis for ammunition. These bells are the replacements with the encryption off the history of the predescants.
They Type VIII, or Tigershark, is the Meermacht's first practical attack submarine since the dawn of the submarine warfare age in the Great War of the 1920's. The Type VII is much larger and more powerful than previous u-boat designs, but a tad slow compared to its contemporaries. This is made up for by a healthy armament as well as perhaps the world's most unbreakable cipher for radio transmissions, based on the Maian hieroglyphic script (which itself IRL took literally hundreds of years to decipher). To anyone who captures a V-boat and tries to decipher its encryption devices, I say to you, good luck.
Thanks to Wolfie for the hull, Nightmaresquid for the conning tower, and Brian Fitzsimmons for the bulge on the side of the hull.
PERKS & QUIRKS:
Gun: 88mm (+0)
Torpedoes: 14-16 (+0)
AA Guns: 2 (+0)
Speed: 18kn/9kn (+1)
Great Codes: +1
I spin around and my blade bites through his suit. And spine. He drops to his knees, letting one of his blades go. With another swing back around, I finish this and lop his head off. Weird...this fight felt really long and really short at the same time. No hostages, either. Guess there never was any in the first place. If the massacre at dinner said anything it was that these scumbags aren't into taking hostages anyway. I look down at one of my opponent's blades and pick it up. I look at it and then my my own blade. This guy came down here with laser-sharpened blades. Like he was...prepared to fight me. Seriously, who are these guys?..
JD: "Hey I finished up upstairs and I thought you might need a hand so--the fuck is that? The fuck are they?"
LT: "That's SWAT, He's militia, and this is one of his laser-sharpened blades he attacked me with."
JD: "Hold up, laser sharpened? Like--"
LT: "Ours, yeah."
JD: "....how the fuck?...."
LT: "Been wondering the same thing."
JD: "First hip-fired M2s and now this shit? It's like they're...they're..."
LT: "Set up to take us on...."
*TAAAAAAAAKE OOOOOOON MEEEEEEE (Take on me) I'LLLLLLL BEEEEE GOOOOONNEE---*
JD: "Oh shit, that's Arnie calling."
LT: "I.....just put him on speaker."
*BEEP*
JD: "Howdy."
AP: "Hey there lovebirds. I did some digging and--"
LT: "Yeahcool, you wouldn't have happened to sell any laser sharpeners lately? Like the ones you used on ours?"
AP: "....uh....not like the one for yours, but yeah. Thousands. Why?"
JD: "L ran into some fuckface swinging two blades around sharpened like ours. I can see some brick and steel piping he just sliced clean through."
AP: "Huh....That's....that's not good."
LT: "Really? Sounds just fan-fucking-tastic to me."
JD: "You sure you didn't sell one of those sharpeners?"
AP: 'Swear on my father's grave that I dance on every other Sunday."
LT: "*sigh* fine. What did you find? Why are you calling?"
AP: "I had the whole city scanned for any strange radio feeds and I found one that's got some heavy encryption behind it. The only way in that my people found is by pretty much finding one of their walkie-talkies and rip the encryption codes from it. As soon as you do that I can wire a feed right into your phone."
LT: "Done and done. Ryu Hayabusa here has one."
AP: "Good. Rip it open and look for some SD card-looking thing and stick it into your phone."
LT: ".....and it's in. Anything?"
AP: "Yep, that's it, everything's downloading. This'll take a bit, but I'll tell you something: police chatter talked about a convoy of military vehicles moving through the outskirts of the city, heading for the New Trigate bridge. The vehicles were described as being blue and gray...."
JD: "Like these militia dickbags...."
AP: "Yep. ETA is about 30 minutes, so you should get going, I'll even have a surprise for the lady waiting there to help you both. Let's call it an early Christmas present...."
Beneath Bishop’s Bridge Road, halfway between Sheldon Square and the entrance to Paddington underground station, you’ll find an intriguing work of art. Curated by Futurecity on behalf of British Land, this permanent installation is a collaboration between United Visual Artists and poet Nick Drake.
Alan Turing is one of Paddington’s most famous sons. This artwork, Message From the Unseen World, celebrates his groundbreaking work on artificial intelligence. Its outer shell comprises aluminium panels, punctuated with holes. LED lights shine through the holes, forming the words to Drake’s poem. A Turing-inspired algorithm shuffles through the poem, creating new interpretations of the verse.
You can see the full poem below.
MESSAGE FROM THE UNSEEN WORLD
Nick Drake
This is Alan speaking
to you who pass by this bridge
in the enchantment of time
under the echoing arch
over the mirror of water
on your way to work or home
and to other places in the infinity
held in the secret dream cave
of your mysterious minds
This is Alan speaking
through this interface with time and space
I am the ghost in the universal machine
the one I dreamed as I lay on the grass
that grew in the green of lost time
of a meadow in Grantchester alone
thinking about whoever I was in love with at the time
and the unchanging truth of numbers
in their beautiful equations
and the enigma of human beings
in their infinite possible configurations -
I was puzzling the problem of the apple
of the knowledge of good and evil -
For on that day you eat of it
you shall surely die
but the winding snake
the only creature coded as a question
looked me in the eye and asked
in his intelligent high voice -
What’s wrong with this picture?
Why do starfish have five arms
and why are they fish not stars?
What connects stars and grains of sand?
What is the secret ciphered in a fir cone?
Why is the heart always on the left?
Natural wonders every child should know…
He smiled like the flickering pages of a book -
Christopher, my first true love, appeared
his beautiful fingers blue with ink
holding his telescope and the star globe
I made him as a present -
We lay side by side
looking through the window at the stars
naming the constellations
as they wheeled across the night
The maths brain lies often awake in his bed
Doing logs to ten places and trig in his head
When I woke in the shock of light
he was gone
and nothing was ever the same again
What happens to the dead
when spirit separates from matter?
Is time a river ever giving birth
in an endless wheel?
Why is loss always incalculable?
What is the heart’s square root,
its point and infinite recurrences?
This is Alan speaking
perhaps you wish to hear about the task
of deciphering the Enigma messages?
It was the impossible before breakfast
to imagine the unimaginable
the day after war was declared -
but a logical theorem says
you can deduce everything from a contradiction
so we imagined a cryptanalytic machine
an electric brain ticking away
to solve the insoluble
to sort the irrelevant from the essential
to discover the heart of the mystery
in thousands of meaningless signals every day
enciphered and sent by the enemy
in billions of different possible combinations -
like reading a poem written in random static
in wind and rain and dark
threaded with the dot and dash of Morse
encrypted transmitted transcribed
but there was one clue -
a letter was never enciphered as itself
so that was the starting point
to find the letters that made the only word
that helped to save ships and lives
in the middle of the Atlantic
and some say win the war -
We kept hush hush but I wondered
Could a machine be intelligent and if so how?
Could a machine be fascinated by another machine?
Could machines talk to each other?
Could a machine experience delight
and suffer fear and jealousy?
If a machine could dream what would it dream
in the forest of the night?
Could a machine fall sick or fall in love?
Could a machine imagine the future?
This is Alan speaking
we devised the Automatic Computing Engine
capable of calculating anything
quantified in an algorithm
and that was the basis of the future -
But how is it I found myself
a stranger in a room alone
a sequence of contradictory instructions
coded into my criminal heart?
Of gross indecency accused
I replied truthfully
Englishman atheist mathematician
Order of the British Empire
Recreations listed in Who’s Who
chess long-distance running gardening
(the last a kind of lie, I like wild flowers) -
Homosexual cryptographer
noble in reason or traitor in his bones?
Unable to say a word of what I knew
unable to speak the unspeakable
secret within the secret
I felt no guilt -
They offered me a choice
Prison or probation
with hormonal emasculation -
I made my decision
and emerged a different man
Why does nothing happen for a long time
Then everything suddenly changes?
Why does the rational give rise to the irrational?
Who is this man kissing me on the mouth?
Is he telling truth or lies?
This is Alan speaking
now as I could not speak before
to you who were unborn when I died -
Oh beautiful people of tomorrow
we are not fallen creatures
life is the only garden
the apple is love
two Adams, two Eves
in open celebration hand in hand
So I delight to watch you dance
in the enchantment of time
like angels in a forest of mirrors
but in the age of shopping
festivals and information consumption
the sign of the bitten apple is everywhere
and your lives are held in the beautiful devices
familiar in your hands -
So revel in your liberty
but read between the lines
you are becoming information
touch screen to touch screen
connected but alone
the algorithm of desires and dreams
end to end encryption held
in the infinite memory of the great ghost server
How did the zebra get its stripes
and the leopard its disguise of spots?
Why does a snail have a spiral shell?
Why do sunflowers follow not just the sun
but the Fibonacci sequence
in the structure of their beautiful faces?
How does a bud of cells generate your seeing eyes
and beating heart?
This is Alan speaking
I have been waiting a long time
puzzling everything and nothing -
I leave no note of explanation
but a mystery story
it is an ordinary summer evening
by the side of my bed is found
a half-eaten slice of apple
Dip the apple in the brew
let the sleeping death seep through -
I lie alone for the last time
at the edge of reality
my arms at my sides
like a badly-dressed figure on a tomb
looking out of the window at the sun
setting for the final night
a golden apple in the black branches
of a tree of shadows where the birds quibble -
until it disappears into the dark
17th February 2017.
Our "Green Team" dolly for the "For The Love of Blythe" project has arrived here! She already has an amazing re-root in Mystic Brown Thermal Saran by Sherri/Shershe. Here she's just a stock dolly, but I wanted to show her at the very beginning of her journey ... in a place and setting that also corresponds to her story. Grab a cuppa and take a journey with us! Thank you for visiting!
Genesis (gen·e·sis: noun \ˈje-nə-səs\ : the origin or coming into being of something.)
Her story:
Genesis bit her lip thoughtfully as she entered the last of the encryption code. It was the last step in a years-long process that she hoped would make herself, and her world, whole again.
The future is not a bleak place ... it can be populated with dreams of exploration, growing families, beauty and fulfillment. But the future Genesis lived in was in dire need of help. Her world was dying, societies fractured by a desperate need for resources, children growing up in large group homes because their parents could not afford to care for them.
Genesis had come through this system, yet against all odds she had retained her tenacity and belief in her destiny. She somehow understood in the deepest points of her being that a solution lay in the distant past, where a secret government experiment had set everything in motion. She knew her lineage, that it could be traced back to Dr. Franklin Genesis Martin, her distant ancestor and a brilliant scientist who developed a new mining technology in the late 1800's. Aware even then that minerals and fuel held the key to the future, the secret was carefully held and put into motion at the turn of the century, over the next two hundred years resulting in vast riches for the country and great power. What no one foresaw was that this technology would eventually lead to the gradual breakdown of both the earth and the very resources it was set to glean. As events spun out of control in the late 2200's, governments went to war, people starved, and society became a frayed mass.
Genesis had spent years in tireless research ... with her sweet and persistent charm she wrangled a rare vintage iBook from a teacher in the children’s home when she was 13. With her piercing intelligence she began searching the online archives, a project reaching back into the world’s volumes as far as the mid 1800’s. There she found the one thing Dr. Martin had missed in his deft calculations ... and now her goal was to travel back in time.
Genesis had a daring plan. She would travel to the year 1900 and clothe herself as a girl of that era. Pretending to be the daughter of Dr. Martin’s estranged brother, Genesis would present herself as a willing friend and helper to the family. She knew that her keen mind would encourage Dr. Martin to befriend her and eventually invite her into his laboratory. There, with the benefit of future knowledge, she could delicately merge her carefully derived algorithm into her ancestor’s calculations and the future breakdown could be averted. The other prong of her two-fold plan was to encourage Dr. Martin and his powerful benefactors that this knowledge must be shared among the countries of the earth ... that for one country to control this wealth and technology led only to fighting and despair as others sought to gain some part of it for their own people.
Genesis knew she had to try. One thing disturbed her, an answer she had not found. Once she arrived in the past, she could correct the problems for all the future people of the earth ... but she could not return to her time without help. Her only hope was that someone, eventually, would discover her records, her stories, her photographs ... and be willing to take the steps necessary to bring her back.
Since cash is obsolete, we must reduce its carbon footprint! We must transition to a green economy! The dialectic tears down and recycles. It’s currently tearing down capitalism and recycling it into stakeholder capitalism (stakeholder [public–private partnership] fascism). There’s a blitzkrieg coming!
(IMF) International Monetary Fascism: Careful decisions must also ensure that new forms of digital money are environmentally sustainable—that the energy they require is kept in check. The path to digital money adoption must be guided by a clear and responsible vision of tomorrow’s broader payment, financial, economic, and environmental landscape.
(UN) United Nazis: Through the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, world leaders have given humanity a universal plan to transform our world for the better. Our task is to stay true to these agreements and take action on their implementation.
(WEF) World Economic Fascism: You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.
Russia agrees to chair BRICS in 2024. BRICS represents 45% of the world’s population. BRICS produces 43% of the world’s oil. BRICS countries occupy 29% of the world’s land surface. 30 countries are prepared to Join BRICS in 2024. In 2023 about 20% of oil was bought with currencies other than the US dollar. America: Who cares about oil, we’re going green (broke). Chip…chip…chip away…the US dollar can only hold its position as the world’s reserve currency for so long.
130 countries are exploring CBDCs. These countries produce 98% of the world’s GDP. 64 of these countries are in the advanced stages of developing CBDCs. The United Arab Emirates and China have already made a cross-border payment using the Digital Dirham.
Roll in the Central Bank Digital Currencies! Roll in the deposit tokens! Good-bye cash! Good-bye freedom! See-ya later, Bitcoin! We will kill the middle class. We will kill small businesses. We will build back better with corrupt governments, intelligence agencies, multinational corporations, and centralized banking. As for the European farmer protests: Centralized corporate farms are the way of the future, so is starvation…eat ze bugz! Indeed, we will bankrupt everyone into authoritarianism. One day you will wake up in a fascist world order, where you will be enslaved by the state and corporate powers. We call it friendly fascism…fascism with a smile:)
Big Brother and AI will shape your reality. We will issue an internet ID. We will establish a United Nations regulatory body to oversee AI and the internet. End encryption! End privacy! We can’t have free speech in the new authoritarian world order.
Sidenote: Elon Musk bought X, so that he can data mine its users for his new artificial intelligence company xAI. But who cares about data mining if I can talk to Grok, Elon’s AI chat bot. Digital wokeness: We must understand reality through false reality. Ouch, that hurt my brain-computer interface! Indeed, Elon Musk is a grifter.
These Central Bank Digital Currencies will only be temporary. They will be further centralized into a one world currency. With the breakthrough of on-skin and under-skin computing technology, we will now tie a person’s digital ID and digital wallet to an AI-chip tattoo. Without this new on-skin and under-skin transhuman surveillance chip, you will not be able to be a part of this new one world monetary system. This microchip system will be implanted in the hand or the forehead of every human…changing their being.
Join the techno-evolution and become a part of the new Aryan techno-race. Join the techno-revolution and become a part of the new techno-transhuman race. Join the digital woke cult: You are trapped in the wrong body; therefore, you must become a born again transhuman. Then you must go out and preach the gospel of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability. Like a hoe, you can ride the seven-headed beast of linguistics (false doctrines) until your language is turned to Babel. Thank God, the Fourth Reich will not prevail!
Daniel 7:23 “He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.’”
Daniel 12:10 “Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.”
I posted the same description that's on the previous photo, but I've changed the numbers, since the other version has 200 more photos than this one.
"A thermocline (sometimes metalimnion in lakes) is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid (e.g. water, such as an ocean or lake, or air, such as an atmosphere) in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline
I was taught about this when learning to scuba dive. The strong warm/cool split of this image made me think of it. And then my mind wandered to how strange it is that I can dig up this tiny tidbit of information I heard years ago (and haven't thought much since then) but I can't remember where I put my keys two minutes ago, or the chords to that song I wrote the other day. I think our brains could use a less destructive encryption method and more hard drive space. Hurry up Science, my clock is ticking!
I made this image from 348 photos. I stacked the first 228 using the ultra streaks present in this script, advancedstacker.com and the last 320 photos were stacked "normally" with the lighten layer blending mode. (also automated with the advanced stacker script)
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My son has become fascinated with bitcoins, and so I had to get him a tangible one for Xmas. The public key is imprinted visibly on the tamper-evident holographic film, and the private key lies underneath. (Casascius)
I too was fascinated by digital cash back in college, and more specifically by the asymmetric mathematical transforms underlying public-key crypto and digital blind signatures.
I remembered a technical paper I wrote, but could not find it. A desktop search revealed an essay that I completely forgot, something that I had recovered from my archives of floppy discs (while I still could).
It is an article I wrote for the school newspaper in 1994. Ironically, Microsoft Word could not open this ancient Microsoft Word file format, but the free text editors could.
What a fun time capsule, below, with some choice naivetés…
I am trying to reconstruct what I was thinking. I was arguing that a bulletproof framework for digital cash (and what better testing ground) could be used to secure a digital container for executable code on a rental basis. So the expression of an idea — the specific code, or runtime service — is locked in a secure container. The idea would be to prevent copying instead of punishing after the fact.
Micro-currency and micro-code seem like similar exercises in regulating the single use of an issued number.
Now that the Bitcoin experiment is underway, do you know of anyone writing about it as an alternative framework for intellectual property (from digital art to code to governance tokens)?
IP and Digital Cash
@NORMAL:
Digital Cash and the “Intellectual Property” Oxymoron
By Steve Jurvetson
Many of us will soon be working in the information services or technology industries which are currently tangled in a bramble patch of intellectual property law. As the law struggles to find coherency and an internally-consistent logic for intellectual property (IP) protection, digital encryption technologies may provide a better solution — from the perspective of reducing litigation, exploiting the inherent benefits of an information-based business model, and preserving a free economy of ideas.
Bullet-proof digital cash technology, which is now emerging, can provide a protected “cryptographic container” for intellectual expressions, thereby preserving traditional notions of intellectual property that protect specific instantiations of an idea rather than the idea itself. For example, it seems reasonable that Intuit should be able to protect against the widespread duplication of their Quicken software (the expression of an idea), but they should not be able to patent the underlying idea of single-entry bookkeeping. There are strong economic incentives for digital cash to develop and for those techniques to be adapted for IP protection — to create a protected container or expression of an idea. The rapid march of information technology has strained the evolution of IP law, but rather than patching the law, information technology itself may provide a more coherent solution.
Information Wants To Be Free
Currently, IP law is enigmatic because it is expanding to a domain for which it was not initially intended. In developing the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson argued that ideas should freely transverse the globe, and that ideas were fundamentally different from material goods. He concluded that “Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.” The issues surrounding IP come into sharp focus as we shift to being more of an information-based economy.
The use of e-mail and local TV footage helps disseminate information around the globe and can be a force for democracy — as seen in the TV footage from Chechen, the use of modems in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, and the e-mail and TV from Tianammen Square. Even Gorbachev used a video camera to show what was happening after he was kidnapped. What appears to be an inherent force for democracy runs into problems when it becomes the subject of property.
As higher-level programming languages become more like natural languages, it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish the idea from the code. Language precedes thought, as Jean-Louis Gassée is fond of saying, and our language is the framework for the formulation and expression of our ideas. Restricting software will increasingly be indistinguishable from restricting freedom of speech.
An economy of ideas and human attention depends on the continuous and free exchange of ideas. Because of the associative nature of memory processes, no idea is detached from others. This begs the question, is intellectual property an oxymoron?
Intellectual Property Law is a Patch
John Perry Barlow, former Grateful Dead lyricist and co-founder (with Mitch Kapor) of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that “Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted or expanded to contain digitized expression... Faith in law will not be an effective strategy for high-tech companies. Law adapts by continuous increments and at a pace second only to geology. Technology advances in lunging jerks. Real-world conditions will continue to change at a blinding pace, and the law will lag further behind, more profoundly confused. This mismatch may prove impossible to overcome.”
From its origins in the Industrial Revolution where the invention of tools took on a new importance, patent and copyright law has protected the physical conveyance of an idea, and not the idea itself. The physical expression is like a container for an idea. But with the emerging information superhighway, the “container” is becoming more ethereal, and it is disappearing altogether. Whether it’s e-mail today, or the future goods of the Information Age, the “expressions” of ideas will be voltage conditions darting around the net, very much like thoughts. The fleeting copy of an image in RAM is not very different that the fleeting image on the retina.
The digitization of all forms of information — from books to songs to images to multimedia — detaches information from the physical plane where IP law has always found definition and precedent. Patents cannot be granted for abstract ideas or algorithms, yet courts have recently upheld the patentability of software as long as it is operating a physical machine or causing a physical result. Copyright law is even more of a patch. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 requires that works be fixed in a durable medium, and where an idea and its expression are inseparable, the merger doctrine dictates that the expression cannot be copyrighted. E-mail is not currently copyrightable because it is not a reduction to tangible form. So of course, there is a proposal to amend these copyright provisions. In recent rulings, Lotus won its case that Borland’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet copied elements of Lotus 123’s look and feel, yet Apple lost a similar case versus Microsoft and HP. As Professor Bagley points out in her new text, “It is difficult to reconcile under the total concept and feel test the results in the Apple and Lotus cases.” Given the inconsistencies and economic significance of these issues, it is no surprise that swarms of lawyers are studying to practice in the IP arena.
Back in the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates wrote an inflammatory “Open Letter to Hobbyists” in which he alleged that “most of you steal your software ... and should be kicked out of any club meeting you show up at.” He presented the economic argument that piracy prevents proper profit streams and “prevents good software from being written.” Now we have Windows.
But seriously, if we continue to believe that the value of information is based on scarcity, as it is with physical objects, we will continue to patch laws that are contrary to the nature of information, which in many cases increases in value with distribution. Small, fast moving companies (like Netscape and Id) protect their ideas by getting to the marketplace quicker than their larger competitors who base their protection on fear and litigation.
The patent office is woefully understaffed and unable to judge the nuances of software. Comptons was initially granted a patent that covered virtually all multimedia technology. When they tried to collect royalties, Microsoft pushed the Patent Office to overturn the patent. In 1992, Software Advertising Corp received a patent for “displaying and integrating commercial advertisements with computer software.” That’s like patenting the concept of a radio commercial. In 1993, a DEC engineer received a patent on just two lines of machine code commonly used in object-oriented programming. CompuServe announced this month that they plan to collect royalties on the widely used GIF file format for images.
The Patent Office has issued well over 12,000 software patents, and a programmer can unknowingly be in violation of any them. Microsoft had to pay $120MM to STAC in February 1994 for violating their patent on data compression. The penalties can be costly, but so can a patent search. Many of the software patents don’t have the words “computer,” “software,” “program,” or “algorithm” in their abstracts. “Software patents turn every decision you make while writing a program into a legal risk,” says Richard Stallman, founder of the League for Programming Freedom. “They make writing a large program like crossing a minefield. Each step has a small chance of stepping on a patent and blowing you up.” The very notion of seventeen years of patent protection in the fast moving software industry seems absurd. MS-DOS did not exist seventeen years ago.
IP law faces the additional wrinkle of jurisdictional issues. Where has an Internet crime taken place? In the country or state in which the computer server resides? Many nations do not have the same intellectual property laws as the U.S. Even within the U.S., the law can be tough to enforce; for example, a group of music publishers sued CompuServe for the digital distribution of copyrighted music. A complication is that CompuServe has no knowledge of the activity since it occurs in the flood of bits transferring between its subscribers
The tension seen in making digital copies revolves around the issue of property. But unlike the theft of material goods, copying does not deprive the owner of their possessions. With digital piracy, it is less a clear ethical issue of theft, and more an abstract notion that you are undermining the business model of an artist or software developer. The distinction between ethics and laws often revolves around their enforceability. Before copy machines, it was hard to make a book, and so it was obvious and visible if someone was copying your work. In the digital age, copying is lightning fast and difficult to detect. Given ethical ambiguity, convenience, and anonymity, it is no wonder we see a cultural shift with regard to digital ethics.
Piracy, Plagiarism and Pilfering
We copy music. We are seldom diligent with our footnotes. We wonder where we’ve seen Strat-man’s PIE and the four slices before. We forward e-mail that may contain text from a copyrighted news publication. The SCBA estimates that 51% of satellite dishes have illegal descramblers. John Perry Barlow estimates that 90% of personal hard drives have some pirated software on them.
Or as last month’s Red Herring editorial points out, “this atmosphere of electronic piracy seems to have in turn spawned a freer attitude than ever toward good old-fashioned plagiarism.” Articles from major publications and WSJ columns appear and circulate widely on the Internet. Computer Pictures magazine replicated a complete article on multimedia databases from New Media magazine, and then publicly apologized.
Music and voice samples are an increasingly common art form, from 2 Live Crew to Negativland to local bands like Voice Farm and Consolidated. Peter Gabriel embraces the shift to repositioned content; “Traditionally, the artist has been the final arbiter of his work. He delivered it and it stood on its own. In the interactive world, artists will also be the suppliers of information and collage material, which people can either accept as is, or manipulate to create their own art. It’s part of the shift from skill-based work to decision-making and editing work.”
But many traditionalists resist the change. Museums are hesitant to embrace digital art because it is impossible to distinguish the original from a copy; according to a curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, “The art world is scared to death of this stuff.” The Digital Audio Tape debate also illustrated the paranoia; the music industry first insisted that these DAT recorders had to purposely introduce static into the digital copies they made, and then they settled for an embedded code that limited the number of successive copies that could be made from the a master source.
For a healthier reaction, look at the phenomenally successful business models of Mosaic/Netscape and Id Software, the twisted creator of Doom. Just as McAfee built a business on shareware, Netscape and Id encourage widespread free distribution of their product. But once you want support from Netscape, or the higher levels of the Doom game, then you have to pay. For industries with strong demand-side economies of scale, such as Netscape web browsers or Safe-TCL intelligent agents, the creators have exploited the economies of information distribution. Software products are especially susceptible to increasing returns with scale, as are networking products and most of the information technology industries.
Yet, the Software Publishers Association reports that 1993 worldwide losses to piracy of business application software totaled $7.45 billion. They also estimated that 89% of software units in Korea were counterfeit. And China has 29 factories, some state-owned, that press 75 million pirated CDs per year, largely for export. GATT will impose the U.S. notions of intellectual property on a world that sees the issue very differently.
Clearly there are strong economic incentives to protect intellectual property, and reasonable arguments can be made for software patents and digital copyright, but the complexities of legal enforcement will be outrun and potentially obviated by the relatively rapid developments of another technology, digital cash and cryptography.
Digital Cash and the IP Lock
Digital cash is in some ways an extreme example of digital “property” -- since it cannot be copied, it is possessed by one entity at a time, and it is static and non-perishable. If the techniques for protecting against pilferage and piracy work in the domain of cash, then they can be used to “protect” other properties by being embedded in them. If I wanted to copy-protect an “original” work of digital art, digital cash techniques can be used as the “container” to protect intellectual property in the old style. A bullet-proof digital cash scheme would inevitably be adapted by those who stand to gain from the current system. Such as Bill Gates.
Several companies are developing technologies for electronic commerce. On January 12, several High-Tech Club members attended the Cybermania conference on electronic commerce with the CEOs of Intuit, CyberCash, Enter TV and The Lightspan Partnership. According to Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit, the motivations for digital cash are anonymity and efficient small-transaction Internet commerce. Anonymity preserves our privacy in the age of increasingly intrusive “database marketing” based on credit card purchase patterns and other personal information. Of course, it also has tax-evasion implications. For Internet commerce, cash is more efficient and easier to use than a credit card for small transactions.
“A lot of people will spend nickels on the Internet,” says Dan Lynch of CyberCash. Banks will soon exchange your current cash for cyber-tokens, or a “bag of bits” which you can spend freely on the Internet. A competitor based in the Netherlands called DigiCash has a Web page with numerous articles on electronic money and fully functional demo of their technology. You can get some free cash from them and spend it at some of their allied vendors.
Digital cash is a compelling technology. Wired magazine calls it the “killer application for electronic networks which will change the global economy.” Handling and fraud costs for the paper money system are growing as digital color copiers and ATMs proliferate. Donald Gleason, President of the Smart Card Enterprise unit of Electronic Payment Services argues that “Cash is a nightmare. It costs money handlers in the U.S. alone approximately $60 billion a year to move the stuff... Bills and coinage will increasingly be replaced by some sort of electronic equivalent.” Even a Citibank VP, Sholom Rosen, agrees that “There are going to be winners and losers, but everybody is going to play.”
The digital cash schemes use a blind digital signature and a central repository to protect against piracy and privacy violations. On the privacy issue, the techniques used have been mathematically proven to be protected against privacy violations. The bank cannot trace how the cash is being used or who is using it. Embedded in these schemes are powerful digital cryptography techniques which have recently been spread in the commercial domain (RSA Data Security is a leader in this field and will be speaking to the High Tech Club on January 19).
To protect against piracy requires some extra work. As soon as I have a digital $5 bill on my Mac hard drive, I will want to make a copy, and I can. (Many companies have busted their picks trying to copy protect files from hackers. It will never work.). The difference is that I can only spend the $5 bill once. The copy is worthless. This is possible because every bill has a unique encrypted identifier. In spending the bill, my computer checks with the centralized repository which verifies that my particular $5 bill is still unspent. Once I spend it, it cannot be spent again. As with many electronic transactions today, the safety of the system depends on the integrity of a centralized computer, or what Dan Lynch calls “the big database in the sky.”
One of the most important limitations of the digital cash techniques is that they are tethered to a transaction between at least three parties — a buyer, seller and central repository. So, to use such a scheme to protect intellectual property, would require networked computers and “live” files that have to dial up and check in with the repository to be operational. There are many compelling applications for this, including voter registration, voting tabulation, and the registration of digital artwork originals.
When I asked Dan Lynch about the use of his technology for intellectual property protection, he agreed that the bits that now represent a $5 bill could be used for any number of things, from medical records to photographs. A digital photograph could hide a digital signature in its low-order bits, and it would be imperceptible to the user. But those bits could be used with a registry of proper image owners, and could be used to prove misappropriation or sampling of the image by others.
Technology author Steven Levy has been researching cryptography for Wired magazine, and he responded to my e-mail questions with the reply “You are on the right track in thinking that crypto can preserve IP. I know of several attempts to forward plans to do so.” Digital cash may provide a “crypto-container” to preserve traditional notions of intellectual property.
The transaction tether limits the short-term applicability of these schemes for software copy protection. They won’t work on an isolated computer. This certainly would slow its adoption for mobile computers since the wireless networking infrastructure is so nascent. But with Windows ’95 bundling network connectivity, soon most computers will be network-ready — at least for the Microsoft network. And now that Bill Gates is acquiring Intuit, instead of dollar bills, we will have Bill dollars.
The transaction tether is also a logistical headache with current slow networks, which may hinder its adoption for mass-market applications. For example, if someone forwards a copyrighted e-mail, the recipient may have to have their computer do the repository check before they could see the text of the e-mail. E-mail is slow enough today, but in the near future, these techniques of verifying IP permissions and paying appropriate royalties in digital cash could be background processes on a preemptive multitasking computer (Windows ’95 or Mac OS System 8). The digital cash schemes are consistent with other trends in software distribution and development — specifically software rental and object-oriented “applets” with nested royalty payments. They are also consistent with the document-centric vision of Open Doc and OLE.
The user of the future would start working on their stationary. When it’s clear they are doing some text entry, the word processor would be downloaded and rented for its current usage. Digital pennies would trickle back to the people who wrote or inspired the various portions of the core program. As you use other software applets, such as a spell-checker, it would be downloaded as needed. By renting applets, or potentially finer-grained software objects, the licensing royalties would be automatically tabulated and exchanged, and software piracy would require heroic efforts. Intellectual property would become precisely that — property in a market economy, under lock by its “creator,” and Bill Gates’ 1975 lament over software piracy may now be addressed 20 years later.
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2013 & 2021 update: On further reflection, I was focused on executable code (where the runtime requires a cloud connect to authenticate, given the third party element of Digicash. (The blockchain fixed this). Verification has been a pain, but perhaps it's seamless in a web-services future. Cloud apps and digital cash depend on it, so why not the code itself.
It could verify the official owner of any unique bundle of pixels, in the sense that you can "own" a sufficiently large number, but not the essence of a work of art or derivative works (what we call NFTs today). Frankly, I'm not sure about non-interactive content in general, like pure video playback. "Fixing" software IP alone would be a big enough accomplishment.
The Navajo nation has its headquarters in Window Rock, Arizona. We were spending the night in Gallup, New Mexico, which is just a few miles away. Late in the afternoon we decided to drive to Window Rock and maybe get a good sunset photo.
I wasn’t aware of the monument there to the Navajo code talkers. These men were recruited during WWII by the US Marines to operate the radios that were used for tactical communications on the battlefield. Because these were the days before voice encryption, the enemy could hear these transmissions. Transmitting in code words would be time consuming and error-prone, but something had to be done to guarantee secure communications.
Someone pointed out that the Navajo language is distinctively different from other Native American languages, and that almost all of the Navajo speakers in the world lived on the reservation. A group of Navajos was tasked with setting up a school to create modern words for military terms that weren’t in the Navajo language, and then they trained successive classes of Navajos for duty.
The project succeeded, and Navajos served in military units throughout WWII. None of their transmissions were ever deciphered by opposing troops. By now, only a few of these code talkers are still alive. This monument is a fine tribute to their service to their country.