pre Misc. Issue: Conscience of a Hacker RISC "Reduced Instruction Set Computer" processor defined. Stencilling graphics tip Northern Lights links Puzzling Puzzle

		quote ' You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination or soothsaying. You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads, nor harm the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.    - LEV 19:26-28

		esoteric ==Phrack Inc.== Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The following was written shortly after my arrest... \/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/ by +++The Mentor+++ Written on January 8, 1986 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"... Damn kids. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world... Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn underachiever. They're all alike. I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me... Or thinks I'm a smart ass... Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will- ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike. +++The Mentor+++ _______________________________________________________________________________

		computer RISC Pronounced risk, acronym for reduced instruction set computer, a type of microprocessor that recognizes a relatively limited number of instructions. Until the mid-1980s, the tendency among computer manufacturers was to build increasingly complex CPUs that had ever-larger sets of instructions. At that time, however, a number of computer manufacturers decided to reverse this trend by building CPUs capable of executing only a very limited set of instructions. One advantage of reduced instruction set computers is that they can execute their instructions very fast because the instructions are so simple. Another, perhaps more important advantage, is that RISC chips require fewer transistors, which makes them cheaper to design and produce. Since the emergence of RISC computers, conventional computers have been referred to as CISCs (complex instruction set computers). There is still considerable controversy among experts about the ultimate value of RISC architectures. Its proponents argue that RISC machines are both cheaper and faster, and are therefore the machines of the future. Skeptics note that by making the hardware simpler, RISC architectures put a greater burden on the software. They argue that this is not worth the trouble because conventional microprocessors are becoming increasingly fast and cheap anyway. To some extent, the argument is becoming moot because CISC and RISC implementations are becoming more and more alike. Many of today's RISC chips support as many instructions as yesterday's CISC chips. And today's CISC chips use many techniques formerly associated with RISC chips. ref: Webopedia

		centrefold from Annalise

		tips Stencilling There is an almost-hidden trick in programs such as Paint Shop Pro that allows you create letters as if they were cut out of another image (also know as stencilling). In Paint Shop Pro, click on the small 'A' icon from the Tool Palette on the left. This activates the text tool. Using the cross-hair cursor, click where you want the text appear (the text should appear to the top right of the cross-hair, but check the paragraph alignment as this may cause the text to appear centred over the cursor or to the left). Pick a large, fat font and consider changing its style to bold. At the bottom of the window click the small button next to 'Selection'. Type in your words to stencil and click OK. Instead of text, you now have a selection in the shape of the letters. To create the stencilled letters, go to Selections-Invert. Everything but your letters will now be highlighted. Go to the colour picker on the top right and select a background colour such as black or white. Tap the Delete key and only the letters will remain. Ctrl-D will remove the selection marguee. A quick crop and your text is complete. As an alternative, you can also copy the text selection into another image by clicking Edit-Copy, then open your new image and choose Edit-Paste-As new selection. Advanced users may want to experiment with layers for more detailed effects.   from Australian PC World, August 2002.

		links Northern Lights University of York sign up to receive email alerts to your computer or cellphone. University of Alasia Geophysical Institute produces a daily forecast of aurora borealis activity. Jan Curtis northern and southern lights photos. how to take pictures of these lightshows Tromso University, Norway Quicktime clip. University of Calgary MPEGs of the aurora borealis. Michigan Technological Univerity great photos of the aurora. NASA's poker flat Read tales of the deadly portents they herald at folklore.

		post Present somewhere in this slight confusion, Uniquely oblique in its direction, Zealously look and find the connection, Zigzagging unto the ultimate line, Lingering but briefly on its design. Inquisitive minds the truth soon complete. Nonchalantly you, too, can make ends meet, Glimpse opportunely and see the solution. Explain. Can you find the solution? (see below for answer) Solution The initial letters of the eight lines spell out PUZZLING. Additionally, and somewhat harder to spot, is that the 8th letter in the first line, the 9th letter in the second line, the 10th letter in the third line, and so on, spell out SOLUTION. The question did ask if you could find the solution...

"something worth reading" 19 August 2002 #9