This list is always good for a few gems.

These are the ideas that, for better and worse, helped make 2005 what it was. You'll find entries that address momentous developments in Iraq ("The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution") as well as less conspicuous, more ghoulish occurrences in Pittsburgh ("Zombie Dogs"). There are ideas that may inspire ("The Laptop That Will Save the World"), that may turn your stomach ("In Vitro Meat"), that may arouse partisan passions ("Republican Elitism") and that may solve age-old mysteries ("Why Popcorn Doesn't Pop"). Some mysteries, of course, still remain. For instance, we do not yet have an entirely satisfying explanation for how Mark Cuban, the outspoken Internet mogul and NBA owner, came to be connected with three of the year's most notable ideas ("Collapsing the Distribution Window," "Scientific Free-Throw Distraction" and "Splogs"). That was just one surprising discovery we made in the course of assembling the issue. In the pages that follow, we're sure you'll make your own

The Year In Ideas 2005

In a research paper appearing in the November/December 2005 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy, we analyzed publicly available information and materials to evaluate the reliability of the telephone wiretapping technologies used by US law enforcement agencies. The analysis found vulnerabilities in widely fielded interception technologies that are used for both "pen register" and "full audio" (Title III / FISA) taps. The vulnerabilities allow a party to a wiretapped call to disable content recording and call monitoring and to manipulate the logs of dialed digits and call activity.

In the most serious countermeasures we discovered, a wiretap subject superimposes a continuous low-amplitude "C-tone" audio signal over normal call audio on the monitored line. The tone is misinterpreted by the wiretap system as an "on-hook" signal, which mutes monitored call audio and suspends audio recording. Most loop extender systems, as well as at least some CALEA systems, appear to be vulnerable to this countermeasure.

John Markoff has a story on this today.

Ha... They were using old school dtmf techniques to detect call status! Thats a bizarre approach. You'd think they'd have some device that spoke SS7 and the network would simply send the digital call traffic to them. U: I just read the paper. Apparently there IS no good reason they are using inband signals. Its a good paper. Read it.

Of course, this kind of vulnerability isn't what I'm really interested in with respect to CALEA equipment. The big question is how does Law Enforcement get access to the CALEA system and is the security/authentication of that access method sufficient to prevent other parties from using the system. I've heard unsubstantiated whisperings that it isn't... U: The paper seems to allude to this suspicion as well...

Blue Boxing Wiretapping Systems

Over dinner a few weeks ago, the novelist Lawrence Naumoff told a troubling story. He asked students in his introduction to creative writing course at UNC-Chapel Hill if they had read Jack Kerouac. Nobody raised a hand. Then he asked if anyone had ever heard of Jack Kerouac. More blank expressions.

"I guess I've always known that many students are just taking my course to get a requirement out of the way," Naumoff said.

In our increasingly complex world, the amount of information required to master any particular discipline -- e.g. computers, life insurance, medicine -- has expanded geometrically. We are forced to become specialists, people who know more and more about less and less.

In this frightening new world, students do not turn to universities for mind expansion but vocational training.

When was the last time you met anyone who was ashamed because they didn't know something?

Lack of curiosity is curious

The Wall Street Journal Online is free this week.

Free This Week Only: WSJ.com

As Mr. Whedon knows, the fastest way to a geek's heart is a story about other geeks, albeit ones with good hair and hot bodies.

Serenity

"Without a change on the level of ideas, any reconciliation of Islam and democracy is not going to come about.

Unless you fight out that battle on the plain of ideas and say it is perfectly legitimate to have a more liberal version of religion, then I think ultimately you will have long-term problems having genuine democracy in a Muslim country.

We should not minimise the fact that there is a conflict of ideas at the present, not with Islam as a religion but with particular interpretations of Islam."

There are some interesting quotes from Fukuyama in here, unfortunately spun together by a reporter who is trying to push him into a partisan pigeonhole. I don't think Fukuyama is a neoconservative any more then I think he is a democrat. His thinking is driven by observations and not ideaologies.

On a somewhat unrelated tangent, it strikes me that the fundamental problem with ideaologies is that people have a tendancy to prefer ideas that are philisophically pure to ideas that that actually work well for people in practice. This is because philiophical purity is easier to accept then messy reality with its endless caveats. Once you've got an ideaology you can reach a conclusion on any issue based on how that ideaology informs you to think about the matter rather then based on the actual realities of the matter itself. This fallacy seems the core problem at all ends of the spectrum. It infects communists, fundamentalists, and libertarians alike. Most idealogical (and partisan) commentators frame their points of view as "the other guy's ideology doesn't work in practice, so we should prefer the most pure form of my ideaology." In order to move past this we must get people to observe that ideaologies don't work. In order to do that, there must be a word for the ideaological fallacy. What is that word? Does anyone here know?

Francis Fukuyama: The acceptable face of the neo-cons? | Al-Ahram Weekly | Profile

Found via Cafe LA; album review by Rhapsody:

This extensive collection of songs featuring the pioneering female guitarist and blues singer is highlighted by Memphis Minnie's distinctive guitar style and contralto vocals. Minnie sings about committing murder with enough conviction to make you wonder if she wasn't the biggest, baddest bad ass in Chicago in the 1940s.

This is amazing stuff. Check out "When The Levee Breaks" (iTMS URL, RealAudio clip).

I've been wondering when this song was going to pop up in the discouse. Of course, this was famously covered by Led Zeppelin as the last song on their IVth album. It was also on A Perfect Circle's recent compilation of anti-war covers, but I prefer the earlier two renditions personally.

Memphis Minnie: Queen of the Blues

What's a music-download fan to do -- actually pay for music?

If it comes to that, they'll find that a lot has changed in the online music business.

These rental-music outfits are highly conducive to exploring and discovering new music. They're ideal if your taste leans toward what one Internet wag calls Disposable Contemporary.

Britney to Rent, Lease or Buy

Aug. 16 - Last year a Chinese mathematician, Xiaoyun Wang, shook up the insular world of code breakers by exposing a new vulnerability in a crucial American standard for data encryption. On Monday, she was scheduled to explain her discovery in a keynote address to an international group of researchers meeting in California.

But a stand-in had to take her place, because she was not able to enter the country. Indeed, only one of nine Chinese researchers who sought to enter the country for the conference received a visa in time to attend.

"It's not a question of them stealing our jobs," said Stuart Haber, a Hewlett-Packard computer security expert who is program chairman for the meeting, Crypto 2005, being held this week in Santa Barbara. "We need to learn from them, but we are shooting ourselves in the foot."

A policy designed to protect national security by preventing tecchnology transfer from the US to China has actually hurt national security by preventing technology transfer from China to the US. If you know someone at State tell them to read this article. This matter is very serious and they should have made an exception in this case and gotten the visas in time.

Chinese Cryptologists Get Invitations to a US Conference, but No Visas

Gnod is my experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. It's a self-adapting system, living on this server and 'talking' to everyone who comes along. Gnod's intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn 'understanding' its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don't know about.

Gnod Music: Discover new bands and artists. Let gnod find out what music you like and what you don't like.

Gnod Books: Get to know new authors and find out what other people like you like to read.

Gnod Movies: Discover new movies, travel the world of film and discuss it all in the forums.

The music map is cool, but it works best in Internet Explorer.

Gnod - The global network of dreams