From: scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Some facts about the NSA, whee.
Date: 13 Aug 92 16:35:42 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <fortony.713556788@murphy> fortony@sonne.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles) writes:
>>In <fortony.713332772@murphy> fortony@sonne.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>>scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles) writes:

>>>> [... deleted ...]
>>>Please.  Consider things logically before posting them to the net.

>>>worldwideterrorist@spies.com, say, writes "howtokillgeorgebush.tex".  He
>>>pipes it through tex, creating a dvi file.  He pipes that through dvi2ps,
>>>creating postscript.  To save time, he compresses it.  saddam@iraq.mil
>>>ftps to spies.com and grabs killbush.ps.Z.

>>So who said _anything_ about binary files?  Most of the traffic is text. 

>*all* of the traffic is binary.  Every last bit.

>>Besides, I also said _nothing_ about what they wanted the stuff for. 
>>Agencies don't want this information for reasons -- they want it because
>>it's a nutrient for them, it's what they live on.  I _did_ consider things
>>logically.  What I did _not_ do was consider the probability that some ....
>>somebody with little imagination would ASSUME that I must be an idiot.  The
>>sutpidest thing in what I said was that I didn't say "only text files".

>You're just trying to cover up for your complete lack of a clue.  You also
>said that they intercept domestic voice traffic and scan it with very
>practical algorithms.  I would like to point out at this time that you don't
>have a chance in hell to be right on this score, as voice recognition is
>not even close to being ready to recognize 20,000 different words spoken by
>completely random people speaking to humans.

You're not thinking.  I never said there was understanding or even complete
comprehension.  I never made any speculation about the hit rate.

>Worse yet, you don't seem to have any understanding about how the net works.
>There is nothing to tell the NSA that such-and-such a stream of bits is
>text or not text.  It could be raw ascii, it could be a jpeg compressed
>24 bit picture of your sister.  There exist no algorithms to correctly
>determine if a bit pattern is a language when considered as ASCII or not.

Whether the bit pattern is "a language" is irrelevant to the argument. 
Remember, I'm not arguing about comprehension.  It is possible to screen
samples of data for proximate occurrances of given strings.  A lot of people
with a [modern] personal computer owns software to do that. 

>I'm not *assuming* that you're an idiot.  I've got a very persuasive 
>argument backed up by simple, incontrovertible facts.  If you would
>like to attempt to disprove me by citing any example of a voice recognition
>system which can listen to slurred American in real time and parse it,
>then *by* *all* *means*. 

What do you mean by "parse"?  See above -- the only "parsing" necessary is a
guess at the word spoken and a count since the last flagged word.

>Or, you could provide me with a program written in the language of your
>choice which can tell a random bitstream .... 

If you mean to say that net-traffic is a random bitstream, then you are
contending that this communication is not occurring on the net.  That the
net is merely an experiment in network transmission, and that the 'meaning'
I perceive in it is at most mere epiphenomenon of the system, and possibly
merely a ghost arising from my (or your) fevered brain. 

Look, coach, you've already decided I'm just covering my ass, so I don't
really know why I'm bothering to reply to this stuff.  Suffice it to say
that I just don't think you have considered a few things.  Net traffic is
not random bitstreams -- it couldn't be a net if it were.  It follows rules
a lot more standardized than those that govern person to person
communications.  Your point about "all" net communication being binary was
trivial at the level of the discussion -- that is, it should have been
assumed by all parties discussing that all transmission over data links is
digital in that sense.  If you have a standard link, voila!  No more random
bitstreams, at the net level.  Yes, I am familiar with the fact that if you
search through, say, uuendcoded files for occurrances of "kill" or "bush",
you'll probably get a few, and they may even be in proximity.  I was not
talking about "meaning" in the sense you seem to be talking about it,
either.  

In fact, I tend to agree that the NSA _per se_ is not worth worrying about,
but only because I don't think they really care if someone wants to kill the
president, as long as it doesn't jeopardize their funding. 

>-- 
>a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
>Felix Sebastian Ortony	fortony@murphy.gis.uiuc.edu
-- 
Eric Scoles			: <<insert witty, pithy comment 
scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu  :    here >>
University of Rochester --------:
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,alt.politics.bush