@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org
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SteveBellovin

@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org

I'm a computer science professor and affiliate law prof at Columbia University. Author of "Thinking Security". Dinosaur photographer. Not ashamed to say that I’m still masking, because long Covid terrifies me.
https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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SteveBellovin, to random
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I also found some ancient Usenet maps.

A map from April 15, 1981, showing noticeable growth, though in the same areas.
A June 1 map, with even more slow growth. It’s mostly the same areas, but more sites in each. Quite notable: a link over the ARPANET.

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@nowster Pathalias was intended to make that easier. It was originally written by me, completely rewritten by @peterhoneyman, and was my first published paper, with Peter as (rightfully) the first author.

SteveBellovin,
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@peterhoneyman @nowster All-Internet email is much easier…

SteveBellovin, to random
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Cleaning out my office, I found my old Unix licenses.

SteveBellovin,
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@blainsmith Fake license plates, as swag and/or marketing.

SteveBellovin,
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@blainsmith It was also a reference to the unhappiness when Unix went from being almost free for educational sites to something that actually cost real money.

SteveBellovin,
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@lauren I traded email with Armando as recently as April 10…

SteveBellovin,
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@aiuto That one I don’t have!

SteveBellovin,
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@arcana Wasn't my doing!

SteveBellovin, to random
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From a science fiction book written in 2014…
https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/112298676107501073

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@tknarr It was never exactly clear to me if the Berserkers were out-of-control AIs or were engineered to be evil. I always thought the latter.

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@tknarr Like I said, it was never clear to me. But it's quite a while since I've read any of the Berserker stories; I may have forgotten.

SteveBellovin, to random
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As many recent news articles have noted, Columbia was a hotbed of student unrest during the Vietnam War era. When I moved into the dorms and unpacked, I found that my parents had put this cartoon into a suitcase…

SteveBellovin, to random
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There's a preprint (https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/555), not yet peer-reviewed, for what claims to be a polynomial time algorithm for breaking lattice-based encryption algorithms. I'm by no means qualified to even understand it, but it's very important for post-quantum algorithms if it holds up.

SteveBellovin,
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@hanspeter @lauren Yes, I posted that last night.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

THE STUPIDITY, IT BURNS

https://secondnexus.com/mtg-space-laser-israel-aid

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@cstross Remember that tfg wanted an alligator-filled moat at the border and to shoot people who tried to climb it (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/trump-border-wars.html) and a spike-topped, black-painted (to heat up more) fence at the border (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-wants-his-border-barrier-to-be-painted-black-with-spikes-he-has-other-ideas-too/2019/05/16/b088c07e-7676-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html). This is more of the same. Yes, MTG is stupid, but she's just following her Führer. Sorry, I mean Fearless Leader.

SteveBellovin, to random
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An email from the president of Columbia says that she asked the NYPD to clear the demonstrators. This will not end well, regardless of where you stand on the issues. I suspect that the probability of disruptions to graduation ceremonies is approaching 1. I'm not even convinced that there will be in-person class for the rest of the semester—I've been through this before…

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@mattblaze The two plainclothes officers in the last photo of https://mastodon.lawprofs.org/@SteveBellovin/112293361355888232 were identified to me—I don't know if correctly!—as from the NYPD Red Squad. The Red Squad is now known as the Special Intelligence Services (and seems to spy on Muslims instead of “Communists”), which is also completely different.

SteveBellovin, to random
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So Columbia is apparently calling the police onto campus for the first time in >50 years. Bollinger, the immediate past president, said six years ago “the administration’s decision to call in the police in 1968 was “a serious breach of the ethos of the university” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/arts/columbia-university-1968-protest.html). I wasn't there in 1968, but I was an undergrad in 1972, with my camera. Some scanned images… (Read the alt descriptions for detailed descriptions of the settings on campus.)
https://press.coop/@nytimes/112293077116786977

A line of helmeted police on W 118th St. outside the plywood-covered doors and windows to the International Affairs Building. There are many students facing them.
Helmeted police with nightsticks ready, and many students, on South Field. Two dorms are in the background.
The police charged into the crowd. (I apparently stopped running long enough to take this picture.) One student is on the ground, with a cop leaning over him; two plainclothes officers are watching. On the right of the image, a helmeted officer is swinging a nightstick at a woman.

mattblaze, to random
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

I normally am a huge fan of jury duty, both as a community service and interesting experience. But MAN am I ever glad I'm not in the Manhattan jury pool this week.

SteveBellovin,
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

@mattblaze I've thought about how I'd answer some of the questions. My job? It pretty much identifies me; there aren't many men in Manhattan who are computer science professors and affiliate law profs at universities in the city. (Aside: during a (minor SDNY civil) case voir dire a year or two ago, that answer really perplexed the judge, though not as much as the woman who answered that she was clerking for an SDNY judge in White Plains. Neither of us made it onto the jury…)

SteveBellovin, (edited ) to random
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Neat, and not a conspiracy theory: the solar eclipse caused a Doppler shift in the received frequencies for WWV (the US time standard radio)
Edited to add the link: https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=17&month=04&year=2024

mattblaze, to photography
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

Las Vegas Strip, Paradise, NV, 2023.

All-you-can-eat* pixel buffet at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53029077258

  • Some restrictions apply.

SteveBellovin,
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@mattblaze Yeah, this picture should have been at night and in color—and with the saturation turned down in post…

SteveBellovin, (edited ) to random
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A great article, and a worthy successor to Neal Stephenson's classic Wired article "Mother Earth, Mother Board".
https://infosec.exchange/@davep/112283134364856686

cstross, (edited ) to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

If the British government recovered fragments of the sword Excalibur and decided to have it re-forged for nation-building reasons, how would they go about it?

SteveBellovin,
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@dave @wordshaper @TonyJWells @cstross Maybe—Cortana is a sword, too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtana)

SteveBellovin, to random
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

Tolkien said it well:

“Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
https://press.coop/@nytimes/112277459113448804

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