From May 2003:

] Court documents from the ongoing Milan trial, cited by
] the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, say that police
] discovered images of the World Trade Center along with
] numerous files that contained images downloaded from the
] Internet of political leaders such as President Bush,
] Secretary of State Colin Powell and Palestinian leader
] Yasser Arafat, as well as large quantities of
] pornographic material, also taken from the Internet.
]
] The images, investigators said, had been manipulated
] -- their colors modified -- before being sent
] back onto the Web.

This is a story I'm still following. There are plenty of articles out there that trumpet "Al Qaeda Using Steganography to Encode Messages in Porn", but no proof. Everything I've found about this Milan trial tends to lead back to a single article in the "Corriere della Sera" newspaper, an Italian daily.

My own gut feeling is still, "Sometimes porn is just porn", but I'd still be interested in seeing trial transcripts if I could just figure out how to get my hands on them...

More Steganography / Al Qaeda Rumors

] Thursday : Lingering showers throughout the day. Chance
] of rain 800 percent.
]
] Friday : Moist. Damp. Sodden.
]
] Saturday : Rainish. Showery. Precipitacious.
]
] Sunday : Light rain followed by heavy rain followed by
] pouring.

Okay, why is this in the cryptography topic? It's because I think I have a good lead on solving the Kryptos sculpture at CIA HQ, but I'm being prevented from following it because of bad weather on the East coast.

For a quick summary: most of the encrypted text on the CIA's Kryptos sculpture has been solved, except for 97 or 98 characters down at the bottom, which have withstood extensive cryptanalysis for over 10 years.

The tack that I've been taking on cracking it, is to research the heck out of the sculptor, Jim Sanborn. I've learned that he's got some other sculptures out there that also have codes on them, such as the Cyrillic Projector at the University of North Carolina (which has also withstood cracking for many years).

More recently, I've discovered that Sanborn has another crypto-sculpture called "Antipodes", which is at the Hirshhorn Museum in DC. From the few pictures I've seen of it, it seems to have every single character that's on the Cyrillic Projector, *and* every character that's on the CIA's Kryptos sculpture, *and* an additional 20% of encrypted text down at the bottom which is on none of Sanborn's other sculptures (that I know of).

So my current theory, is that perhaps the reason that the bottom of Kryptos hasn't been cracked, is because it's an incomplete fragment -- only the top part of a larger code, and that the intent was that some footwork and intelligence-gathering was required to obtain the full text. This would also tie in to the "whirlpool" fountain at the base of Kryptos, which may have "sucked away" the rest of the code.

I've spent the last month trying to work with museum curators, Sanborn's agent and primary galleries, and others, trying to get pictures or a transcript of Antipodes. They have all refused though, citing either lack of time, or concerns about intellectual property issues. About a week ago, I found someone in the DC area who *is* willing to go take pictures of the thing, but every single day they've attempted to visit the sculpture since then, it's been RAINING, and since the sculpture is in a semi-outdoor area, this prevented the picture-taking.

So, as soon as the weather actually clears, the pictures will (hopefully) be taken, I'll make a transcript, and we may get this thing cracked. But so far, the weather reports don't look good. Gah, the suspense is killing me . . .

More information on the above:
Kryptos: http://www.elonka.com/kryptos
Sanborn: http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/sanborn.html
Cyrillic Projector: http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/cyrillic.html
(tiny) pic of Antipodes: http://hirshhorn.si.edu/images/collection/img_low/98.22.jpg

Rain Rain Go Away!

] Suspicious husbands and wives who once might have hired a
] private eye to find out if their spouses were cheating
] are now using do-it-yourself technology to check on an
] increasingly popular hideaway for trysts -- the
] Internet.

I actually know people who have done this -- Used their tech skills and knowledge to spy on their spouse's chatroom habits because they feared infidelity. Though in my opinion, when communication has broken down that far in a relationship, it's probably doomed anyway. The couple needs to turn off the spy-gear, and get themselves to counseling, ASAP!

Online Surveillance Among Spouses Grows

] jim nieken^H^H^H^H^H^Htantalo, our fearless leader, doesn't
] want to put forth the effort to throw the [Rubi]con anymore.
 
] however, he also apparently considers the con his fanatical pet
] project, and won't pass off leadership to any other competent
] interested parties. funny, being that rubicon is the only con
] in the last few years whose figurehead has absolutely _no_
] tenure or acumen with the tech-security/underground community.
 
] jim's facetious little fairytale about the imaginary litigious
] feud between vegas/seattle and detroit is completely unwarranted,
] not to mention somewhat immature. there would have been numerous
] better ways to handle this.

Okay, I got sucked into the Bambi hoax. But this one I called accurately, the instant I saw it.

Rubi-Con Hoax

] Items in this Dictionary have been researched by
] anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, linguists,
] psychiatrists, psychologists, semioticians, and others who have
] studied human communication from a scientific point of view.

Very cool.

The NONVERBAL DICTIONARY

] Welcome to Grand Illusions, the site for the enquiring
] mind.
]
] With optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects,
] and even a little magic.

Fun. :)

Grand illusions

] Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it, this is the largest
] resource of foreign languages swear words and phrases and their
] English translations ever compiled. Here, you will learn how to
] insult, swear, cuss and curse in 108 languages.

Heh. It's always been one of my goals to be able to swear for 5-minutes straight, and never repeat myself once. This site looks like a great resource to help achieve that goal!

SWEARSAURUS ::: How to swear in 108 languages!

An oldie but a goodie: ASCII pr0n

(not safe for work!) l33t p0rn

] TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. -- Four high school students and
] their parents are being sued for $225,000, for allegedly
] mocking another child who did a video project depicting
] himself acting like a Star Wars character.

Revenge of the Jedi?

] The game was up on 25 July, as the Las Vegas
] Review-Journal finally reported what we'd been telling
] readers all along:
]
] The Hunting for Bambi video that has been sweeping the
] media in the past week or so is a hoax, city of Las Vegas
] officials said Thursday.

I have to admit, I changed my mind about things when I saw the www.huntingforbambi.com site. Though the original idea of "nude paintball" sounded intriguing, that site is coming from a very different mindset. Frankly, it's appalling.

Snopes: 'Hunting for Bambi' confirmed as hoax