[Wired] Kaczynski's cell; D-10K woes; CIA Y2K woes; cable modems.

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Sun, 10 May 1998 03:17:32 -0700


A bunch of interesting little stories off the Wired news service.

KACZYNSKI'S HOME SWEET HELL, Reuters

> 3:33pm 5.May.98.PDT -- FLORENCE, Colorado -- Theodore Kaczynski began
> serving his life sentences today in a high-tech prison that was designed
> to be escape-proof and houses some of America's most notorious
> criminals.
>
> One day after he was officially sentenced for an 18-year bombing
> campaign that killed three people and injured more than two dozen
> others, Kaczynski was taken from his Sacramento, California, jail cell,
> flown to Pueblo, Colorado, and transferred 30 miles to the federal
> penitentiary in this sleepy town in the foothills of the Rockies. He was
> sentenced to four consecutive life terms, plus 30 years.
>
> At Florence he passed through steel doors and was officially entered as
> an inmate at America's new Alcatraz, the "Administrative Maximum
> Facility" nicknamed "the Big One."
>
> Kaczynski entered a grim world populated by the most violent and
> unrepentant criminals in the country.
>
> Among his fellow inmates are Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Mafia
> boss John Gotti, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, and Charles Harrelson,
> actor Woody Harrelson's father, who is serving a life term for murdering
> a judge.
>
> Opened in 1994, Florence has been hailed as being almost escape-proof, a
> high-tech stronghold that embodies the darkest nightmares of a
> technophobe like Kaczynski.
>
> While the nation has other "supermax" jails designed for dangerous
> inmates, Florence goes further.
>
> "It will take Einstein's genius and more than a little luck to get out
> of this baby," said architect John Quest.

I smell Hollywood action movie for the summer of 1999!

> Designed with the help of computers, which were fed various escape
> scenarios, the facility combines the tightest external security with
> strict prisoner management -- a combination that has led some civil
> rights groups to protest that it is inhumane.
>
> Situated on 37 acres, the jail is ringed by watchtowers and can hold 490
> inmates. Silent pressure pads, laser beams, and dogs that attack without
> barking are all located in the no-man's land between razor-wire fencing
> and the prison walls.
>
> Convicts spend 23 hours a day in lock-up, and are only allowed outside
> of cells with leg irons and handcuffs. Exercise time is extremely
> curtailed, and contacts with the outside world are kept to an absolute
> minimum.
>
> More than 10,000 computer-controlled electronic prison gates all close
> automatically if any escape attempt is detected. The cells are
> soundproofed to prevent prisoners from communicating with each other by
> Morse code, and prison librarians examine every page of every book
> touched by an inmate to make sure no messages are inserted.
>
> In their cells, prisoners face a bleak world. The cells have no movable
> furniture, nothing that could possibly be used to attack a guard. The
> windows are all angled so that there are no views of the world outside.

Sounds lovely. I wonder if THEY'LL have any Y2K problems.
Speaking of which...

D-10K: THE DOW'S DIRE DIGITS?, Reuters

> 3:33pm 5.May.98.PDT -- Chicken Little forecasters who say the world's
> buzzing digital information flow will grind to a halt at the stroke of
> midnight 2000 have something more immediate to worry about: "D-10K."
>
> The problem is nowhere near the size and scope of the Year 2000
> glitch, of course. But some analysts are worrying that if the Dow Jones
> industrial average topped the 10,000-point mark, it could trigger some
> wild computer-generated stock trading.
>
> With the Dow currently above 9100, only four digits are required to
> calculate the index. But if it moved above 10,000, a rise of just 10
> percent, it would need a five-digit field.
>
> "Trading organizations face potential massive exposure if the Dow
> passes 10,000 and systems interpret that as 1000 or zero," Andy Kyte, a
> research analyst at the Gartner Group, wrote in a recent report.
> "Computer-based trading could interpret this as a catastrophic crash."
>
> He said there is little evidence that firms are prepared to deal with
> the problem. Wall Street is one of the most computer-intensive business
> locales on the planet, and virtually everything from dividend payouts to
> stock market updates are delivered digitally.
>
> "They better crank those machines up -- this could happen before the
> end of June," said Ralph Acampora, self-proclaimed bull and Prudential's
> chief technical strategist.
>
> Still, some analysts say the fears may be overdone, pointing out that
> the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index easily rolled over the 1000
> mark on 2 February.
>
> The New York Stock Exchange has said all the technological systems it
> directly operates would be able to handle the change.
>
> The bug fear comes amid a barrage of technological challenges for the
> securities industry, which is also grappling with the European economic
> and monetary union, Automated Customer Account Transfer System
> enhancements, decimalization at US stock markets, changes in derivatives
> reporting, and other issues.

Bleah. As if we didn't have enough Y2K scares as it is. The latest:

CIA SEES Y2K WOES, Reuters

> 6:02pm 5.May.98.PDT -- WASHINGTON -- Many countries appear to be
> ill-prepared for the disruption to basic services that the Year 2000
> computer glitch may cause, the Central Intelligence Agency said Tuesday.
>
> "We're concerned about the potential disruption of power grids,
> telecommunications, and banking services" among other possible fallout,
> especially in countries already torn by political tensions, said Sherry
> Burns, who is heading the agency's study of the problem.
>
> She said CIA systems engineers and intelligence analysts were focusing
> beyond the technical problem of reprogramming computers to recognize
> dates beyond 1 January 2000. Instead, the spy agency has begun
> collecting and analyzing information on preparations for the "social,
> political, and economic tumult" that could flow from interruptions of
> essential services in some fragile societies.
>
> According to the CIA assessment, the threat of turmoil is greatest
> among those unaware of the key role that bits and bytes play in
> providing essential services and bringing goods to markets, even in
> less-developed countries.
>
> "As you start getting out into the population, I think most people are
> again assuming that things are going to operate the way they always
> have," Burns said. "That is not going to be the case."
>
> Many governments are "unprepared for what could potentially be some
> fairly tough circumstances," she added.
>
> In an initial effort to gauge preparations, the CIA received a wide
> range of feedback during the past year, not all of it very encouraging,
> Burns said.
>
> One overseas contact said his country would be safe because it used a
> "different calendar." Others acknowledged the issue was not on their
> radar scope. Someone from a Middle Eastern country told the CIA not to
> worry about any bug.
>
> "When we see it, we'll spray for it," Burns quoted that source as
> saying.
>
> She said Canada, Britain, and Australia were about six months behind
> the United States in preparing their systems for the switch, and that
> this was the group in the best shape.
>
> The rest of Western Europe, led by the Scandinavians, came next, six
> to nine months behind the United States.
>
> Europe's job is compounded by the need to reprogram millions of
> computers for next January's introduction of the euro, the new unified
> currency already adopted by 11 nations.
>
> The CIA feels that Europe will probably be unable to complete both
> reprogramming jobs in an effective and timely manner, Burns said.
>
> Japan, China, Hong Kong, and most other Pacific Rim countries were
> "maybe nine months to a year behind in terms of where the work should
> be," Burns said. She put Russia in the same category. Latin America was
> "way behind the power curve."
>
> As part of the agency's increased interest in the Y2K program, some
> CIA employees have been briefed on preparing themselves individually for
> potential fallout.
>
> They were being advised to pay their bills early in December 1999 to
> avoid possible processing problems, keep cash on hand in case automatic
> teller machines failed, and lay in extra blankets in case of a blackout
> on a cold New Year's Eve.

The Europeans can't put off adopting the Euro for one more year?
Geez, the world is gonna be in so much trouble in 18 months...

I wonder what the rapture index currently says...

http://www.novia.net/~todd/

Oh geez, we're at 153. We're in the alert zone, people. Time to pack
the kids and move to the Arizona desert...

Well, after Thursday night, that is. Until then, I am staying put in
anticipation of Seinfeld's final episode on May 14. (Also on May 14:
Rohit goes to night court to argue a 95-in-a-65 speeding ticket, and the
Tim Allen vs. Jerry Seinfeld celebrity deathmatch on MTV).

When I move out to the desert maybe I'll buy a cable modem. They
already have 200,000 customers nationwide. I wonder how many of them
overlap with the 250,000 nationwide customers of WebTV.

INDUSTRY: YOU'LL LOVE CABLE MODEMS, Wired News Report

> 4:00am 4.May.98.PDT -- The US cable television industry announced at an
> industry conference today a new partnership with the nation's technology
> powerhouses to accelerate the drive to deliver Internet access.
>
> The initiative announced at the National Cable Television Association
> meeting in Atlanta, the latest in a series of moves that have seen the
> tech, TV, and telecom industries get together to promise consumers that
> faster Net access and data delivery is -- really -- just over the
> horizon, will involve technology heavies such as Microsoft, Intel,
> Lucent Technologies, and Scientific Atlanta as well as cable concerns
> like Tele-Communications Inc., Cox Communications, Time-Warner, and
> MediaOne. The initiative will be incorporated as a nonprofit group
> called the Cable Broadband Forum.
>
> "With more pictures, video stream and audio stream being offered,
> there's a need for a high-speed access," Tom Cullen, vice president of
> Internet Services for MediaOne and chairman of the board of the new
> group, said Sunday.
>
> Some 200,000 customers nationwide have signed up for high-speed cable
> and about 1,000 join each day. That's the bright part of the picture.
> The less lustrous part: The most ambitious cable-modem projects -- TCI's
> venture with @Home, Time-Warner's RoadRunner effort, and MediaOne --
> have been very slow to reach home users and have consistently run far
> behind projections.
>
> In 1996, @Home was predicting it would have 1 million subscribers by
> 1997. And almost precisely a year ago, with @Home lagging, TCI issued a
> new bunch of projections. Among them, a vow to have most or all of its
> projected 23 million subscriber homes on cable modems in 2000.
>
> With the cable industry struggling to keep up with its own promises,
> phone companies Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, SBC Communications, Sprint and
> others announced in January a push to make asynchronous digital
> subscriber lines (ADSL) widely available by the end of this year. The
> campaign, which includes usual suspects Microsoft and Intel as well as
> Compaq, has the same goal as the new cable-modem initiative: to win
> consumer hearts and minds with promises of easy access to high-speed Net
> connections.
>
> The ADSL effort clearly spurred the cable industry's announcement today.
>
> "It's a battle for mindshare," said Robert Davenport, senior vice
> president and chief operating officer of Tele-Communications' TCI.NET.
>
> "The focus is to raise the level of awareness," Davenport said of the
> new organization, whose diverse membership includes cable operators TCI,
> MediaOne, Cox and Time Warner Cable.
>
> Business customers are also a target, and the group wants to persuade
> businesses that cable is the superior delivery for enterprise-wide
> business applications such as telecommuting and electronic commerce.

And a bonus for those of you who read this far: more in the
Microsoft-warns-everyone-to-back-off-or-risk-the-avalanche-of-recession:

MICROSOFT WARNS WALL STREET, Wired News Report

> 7:45am 4.May.98.PDT -- Microsoft continued its propaganda offensive
> against government regulators, warning Wall Street that any action by
> the Justice Department to delay the arrival of its Windows 98 operating
> system could have "broad, negative consequences" for the entire personal
> computer industry.
>
> The company's chief financial officer, Greg Maffei, made the
> prediction in a letter mailed over the weekend to Wall Street analysts,
> software companies, and other business partners, The Wall Street Journal
> reported today. Microsoft expects to ship Windows 98 to PC makers this
> month and to retailers in June.
>
> Government action to delay the system's delivery would not only hurt
> Microsoft, Maffei wrote, but would also damage companies that "have
> already geared up major Windows 98-based marketing and advertising
> campaigns.... These expenditures will be lost if Windows 98 is delayed
> or blocked, and they will also be wasted if the Justice Department
> attempts to remove Internet features from the operating system."
>
> This missive comes on the heels of a letter from 26 high-tech
> executives to the government which Microsoft released last week. That
> one, too, warned of economic calamity if Windows 98 were to be delayed
> -- but it also brought Microsoft some negative PR when it was reported
> that some executives felt strong-armed into signing on.

Personally, I can't wait for the Win98 UI change where the double click
becomes the single click and the single click becomes no click. Woo hoo!

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

How did she find the time to misunderstand our work so thoroughly?
-- Rohit Khare