Codebreaking Colossus returns to Bletchley Park

Because it employed parallel processing to attack its problem, the Colossus machine was enormously powerful. Even today, a desktop PC would take a similar amount of time to crack a Lorenz key... It was the first ever programmable electronic computer, predating the American Eniac (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) by two years.

A forgotten piece of history, brought back to memory by the sale of an original Enigma on eBay today. Bidding is still open, but it's up to $48,700 now with over four hours left.

Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat

“For the past decade the risk and imminence of the use of biological agents by nonstate actors/terrorist organizations -- 'bioterrorism' -- has been systematically and deliberately exaggerated.” He immediately adds this practice “accelerated” after 9/11 and the mailings of powdered anthrax.

Because of the public and governmental perception that mitigation of allegedly catastrophic bioterrorism is of paramount importance , “the US biodefense research program appears to be drifting into violation” of the Biological Weapons Convention, an international arms control treaty which this country had an important role in building. It is a menacing development and has happened through a slippery evaluation process which justifies research into biological weapons threat capabilities and scenarios by repackaging what appears to be work with potential offensive application as defensive in nature.

BushCo. has been lying to us deliberately about the threat of "bioterrorism". This book, written by Milton Leitenberg for the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, accurately describes the lies and concocted movie plot threats. It would appear the motivation is simple: this country wants to develop CBW agents, but we signed a treaty saying we would not -- a treaty that we developed and pushed. By claiming instead to be working on cures and vaccines we can actually work to develop the very agents themselves. The difference between offensive and defensive development is only semantic.

The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the "war on terror" is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this "war" can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

Why Data Mining Won't Stop Terror

Finding terrorism plots is not a problem that lends itself to data mining. It's a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and throwing more hay on the pile doesn't make that problem any easier. We'd be far better off putting people in charge of investigating potential plots and letting them direct the computers, instead of putting the computers in charge and letting them decide who should be investigated.

But that's just not the way people work. People give up when the answers aren't obvious. It's been that way forever. Remember "Lost in Space"? Remember the robot? Every time the Robinsons got in trouble the robot was the go-to guy ("Robot, robot, by the wall -- say something stupid and save us all.").

People expect technology to give them answers when they haven't got a clue. Those who actually work with and understand technology know better.

The Terrorist Threat of Paying Your Credit Card Balance

Remember, all the time spent chasing down silly false alarms is time wasted. Finding terrorist plots is a signal-to-noise problem, and stuff like this substantially decreases that ratio: it adds a lot of noise without adding enough signal. It makes us less safe, because it makes terrorist plots harder to find.

This story smells a bit fishy. Either it's a hoax or the bank was just trying to cover for their own mistake.

Bush declares war on freedom of the press

"The significance of this cannot be overstated," says prominent New York litigator Glenn Greenwald. "In essence, while the President sits in the White House undisturbed after proudly announcing that he has been breaking the law and will continue to do so, his slavish political appointees at the Justice Department are using the mammoth law enforcement powers of the federal government to find and criminally prosecute those who brought this illegal conduct to light."

"This flamboyant use of the forces of criminal prosecution to threaten whistle-blowers and intimidate journalists are nothing more than the naked tactics of street thugs and authoritarian juntas."

BOING BOING'S GUIDE TO DEFEATING CENSORWARE

The fact is, there's no effective way to censor the Internet in broad strokes. Only dumb CIOs and totalitarian governments like the UAE believe that adding censorware to your network will prevent the naughty stuff from slopping in.

Agreed. Likewise, the lame excuse that it's "for the children" just doesn't wash. Use one of the many proxys described in the Boing Boing Guide.