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'$b_. ._d$' '$b. .d$' M A G A Z I N E $'$'$'._._._.'$'$'$ '-| | | | | | | |-' ------------------------- '-'-!_!_!_!-'-' ---------------------------- +---- --------------- ------------------ ------+ | | | PA1N Magazine Volume Number 6 | ! ! +-----------+---------------------+------------+ | | | | - --:- ---------+ PA1N Magazine Staff +--------- --:- - : : ' Editor In Chief - alienbinary ' : Co-Editor - Turnspike : Editor - angel ice . American Asshole - Rumbling Sky . . Editor - Nemisis . Loki Editor - Danger Girl Follow the... - White Rabbit Guest Writer - Mephyt - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - "anybody else want to negotiate?" -- Bruce Willis, 5th Element - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - +----------PA1N Magazine Volume Six-----------+ | | +SIX-----------+----------[ Table of discontent. ]-----------+---------XIS+ -- PA1Nv6x01 --- Letter from the Editor alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x02 --- Letter from the Co-Editor Turnspike --- -- PA1Nv6x03 --- Project Loki Archives Three alienbinary --- -- --------- --- Danger Girl --- -- PA1Nv6x04 --- Knives have feelings too alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x05 --- New Years: First Plight, Boston alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x06 --- Protect Hate the White Rabbit --- -- PA1Nv6x07 --- Stream of Consciousness Montage alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x08 --- Eulogy in Cyberia mephyt --- -- PA1Nv6x09 --- RantRadio IRC, December 2003 RantRadio IRC --- -- PA1Nv6x10 --- De-Obfuscating iPod's Filesystem alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x11 --- The Public Suicide of R. Budd Dwyer Turnspike --- -- PA1Nv6x12 --- NOD.2 Anatomy of an OSCAR network Nemisis --- -- PA1Nv6x13 --- What happened to Freedom of Speech? alienbinary --- -- PA1Nv6x0x --- Outro alienbinary --- +XIS-------------------------------------------------------------------SIX+ -----> Have PA1N of your own to share? By all means, contact us. <----- alienbinary Turnspike Editor In Chief Co-Editor pain@e-lite.org Turnspike@spfd2600.org - ----- ----> addicted to PA1N? Need a fix? <---- ----- - The PA1N Magazine Forums on SPFD2600.org ...and now, the sixth issue of a magazine that's almost as much fun as going to the dentist, your favorite subversive propaghanda, PA1N Magazine, Volume Six... -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x1 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 1 ] [ Letter from the editor ] [ alienbinary ] [ 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x1 NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - "Okay. Like a lot of you, I hate, a lot. But I hate with style and creativity." - Henry Rollins - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - [ About Issue Six ] There are a few articles to which I'd like to add personal addendums to, but I don't feel entirely right doing so to the actual articles themselves. Instead, I'll go over them here. "Protect Hate" struck a chord with me, personally, since I rememeber a particularly aggravating event that took place a little while ago. In this case, I was accused of hate speech because something I said contradicted the beleifs of other people. This, I was under the impression, was supposed to be okay. It wasn't. Last year, when I was in a real dingy dorm room on the basement floor of an altogether hellishly unkempt dormatory, I had a white board on my door for people to leave messages, or, as was more frequent, for me to leave messages and quotations for other people. The board was a mess, I'll admit, but it was one of the more decorative ones on the floor. On the board, my roommate had written " IS GOD.", one afternoon when he was feeling particularly enamoured with himself. So, as a reply and to add a sense of balance, I wrote " IS THE ANTI-CHRIST." He noticed it, laughed, and went to bed with his clothes on the night after I wrote the reply. As time wore on, I ran out of space on the seven or eight white boards in the room, and decided to make a mural. I had been doing an art history project on H.R. Geiger, one of the artists whose works I personally admire most. After several hours of working on a final paper on his underlying themes and symbolism, I started a mural with an alien on it. The alien's face, which was a distortion of the infamous "grey" alien, was crowned with horns, flowing down like something out of Revelations. I kept going at it, and I worked for about an hour on this budget mural, until it was a full fledged Baphomet with an inverted cross in the center of the alien face, made to look branded in. Everyone who saw it was wildly impressed, so they said, and I regret I don't have a picture. My roommate and I decided to keep it, and when we became tired of explaining that it really HAD NO SIGNIFICANCE, but was just a work of art (sort of), I proclaimed in red and black letters that the inmates of room 006 practiced 'alienolotry,' whatever the fuck that was. I decided that it would be kind of neat to attatch a deification to the whiteboard, adding to the hubbub in the halls about the growing mural. No one, however, seemed to have a problem with it, as well they shouldn't. There's nothing to be offended by. But someone didn't have the balls to tell me themselves that they were upset, and if they did, I actually probably would have taken it down, out of respect. I don't seek to trample on other people's beleif structures. But someone did say something. A lot of people did, I was told. Regardless, the Residence Director handed down a mandate that I remove the offensive words and sign or I would have to be brought up in front of a judiciary committee. This, I thought, is unfuckingbeleiveable. I asked the poor RA who's job it was to enforce this, why it offended someone, and he said that it was offending their Christian beleifs, that they claimed I was making fun of their faith. I invited him into the room and showed him my bookshelf in the dingy shithole of a room. On it was the Tao te Ching, the Communist manifesto, a book on Norse Paganism, several novels of various sorts, the Satanic Bible, the Satanic Rituals, both by LaVey, and to his surprise, several books on contemporary Christian Theology. I told him that it was rather absurd to think I was against free religious thought, and that it should be pretty damn clear that I meant no offense, as it was, I also pointed out that the whole damn point was to create a dichotomy. If my roommate was GOD, then it only seemed harmonious to have me be the DEVIL. Nevertheless, I was told to take it down immediately, out of respect. I did, but I demanded one thing: all references to God, Jesus, and that Hebrew name for God I can't spell be considered for the same reasons. I didn't actually beleive that it was wrong to express religious beleifs, nor did I have any problem with someone having pride in their faith. But, if I was to be denied any speech involving religious content, even in jest, then I decided the people who couldn't ask me in person should be denied the same right. Before the RA could agree, I had removed the bulk of the text and mural, and he admitted, after grudgingly going over what he knew of his Criminal Justice course on discrimination, that he would have to ask all people who did what I said to remove the content as well. I told him that it wasn't necessary, because I really hated to inhibit free speech, but that it was just something I hoped he would convey to his boss. True to his word, he did. I was personally thanked later for my cooperation, and even apologized to for failing to see the hypocrisy. "NOD.2" Is a continuation of a peice that Nemisis has been working on for a considerable amount of time. the Nemisis OSCAR Document is probably the most complete archive of information on the OSCAR Protocol to date, and it's purpose is to give the reader a better understanding of the network, and the software so that people can start to write their own clients. AIM is riddled with advertisements, spam, and just jackasses, and once people understand the technology used to create AIM clients, new ones can be created, much like gAIM and Trillian. With the amount of spyware crammed into each bit of AOL/Time Warner proprietary code, it may soon become necessary to run alternative clients; hence, I have compiled from NOD a second installment, this one focusing on the server side aspects. Admittedly, NOD is one of the more complex tech articles you'll find in PA1N, because of the nature of the peice. Nemisis has been dissecting IM clients since they became big, so much that his pseudonymn has appeared in newspapers, the w00w00 security coorporation's website (who stole a lot of NemisisAIM's Code... grr...,) and his exploits have even influenced some of the security patches in the newer versions of AOL Instant Messenger. For some of you, it may not be your cup of tea, or for others, it may be over your head, but my job is to get the information out there, and I've received several requests for more technology related peices, so I've delivered. I should take this time to make a note about "Deobfuscating iPod's Filesystem," something I wrote as a result of tireless tinkering with my old five gig iPod. In putting this issue out, I took into consideration the DMCA rulings about publishing code that could compromise copyright-protection schemes, and the how-to of the same concepts. I've intentionally left out peices about moving files to and from iPod's hidden directories so that there will be no cause for concern among the other writers. Although I beleive in free speech, and I personally don't much care for obeying rules I don't agree with, it's more important to keep the project alive, than it is to jeopardize it by publishing questionable content. If anyone reading this is a corporate exec in the recording industry, understand that you don't have a leg to stand on in this case, you're going to have to let it slide. I'm so tired of you (record industry) morons, that I don't have the energy to fight you. I simply have chosen to deny that you have any effect on my life whatsoever. It is possible to defeat an enemy that uses the law to it's own corporate advantage by simply following the rules. Although I would like to have included a source code to my iTopsy suite, I'm refraining from doing so in the public release of this volume (if there is a private release) just for peice of mind. - --> alienbinary <-- - - -- ----> <---- -- - - -- - --> PA1N Magazine <-- - -- - - -------> Editor In Cheif <------- - - --> pain@e-lite.org <-- - - -- ----> <---- -- - "We are tired of your abuse. try to stop us, but it's no use." - Black Flag, 'Rise Above' -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA PA1Nv6x2 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 2 ] [ Letter From the Co-Editor ] [ Turnspike ] [ 2 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x2 PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- Now that the winter tempratures have finaly come to my neck of the woods, I find myself more confined to my computer, and away from dumpster diving, wardriving, urban exploration, mountain biking, and all the other things I like to do in warmer weather. But this time also makes me reflect on my net life as well, and the thirst that keeps me logged on. I first connected to the internet in 1995 by an AOL dialup. I had to pay long-distance charges to call the nearest number, so as you might have guessed my phone bill for the next several month was huge. Since I was paying these charges anyway, I would also connect occasionaly to a distant BBS. I was a big Penn and Teller fan at the time, so I frequented their BBS, Mofo Ex Machina. My little burg finally got a decent local dialup about a year later, and thanks to some fiber optic lines close by, I was getting decent speeds with my 56k modem. Without the long-distance charges to slow me down, I was on the net for 5 to 6 hours a night, every night. With this freedom, I went to where I was most comfortable...underground. I wanted to find the hackers, the phreakers, the anarchists, the people in the know. I didn't know the labels for these people, or any of the lingo, but I wanted to find knowledge wherever it lurked. I was hungry in the worst way, and in fact I have been hungry every since, but back then the sound of my modem dialing would make my heart thump. I was an explorer in a new world, and I could only imagine that DeSoto, or Vespucci, or any of the other explorers of the New World would find their hearts thumping in the same way when they heard their sails fill with wind. I found my underground, and I found that one of the few free things on the internet was the information I wanted so badly, I just had to know where to find it. My experiences with chat evolved quickly from Yahoo and Ichat to IRC based chat. It was on IRC where I found my first true group of friends on the net. And from there I was fed links to other places, some were to other channels on the server, and some to websites. I found that if you really want to know something, just find a community familiar with the subject, whether it be an IRC channel, or a Forum, or a local group, then just be friendly and slip in a request for a little info during the course of your conversations. The important thing is not to jump into the middle of a community with a lot of questions without establishing some repore with the regulars that lurk there. Once I was given a tip about where to find my information, I just followed the trail. I followed the links I was given and found some of my info there, but better yet, I found keywords on the site on which I searched with to find other sites with even more info, and I looked for links on those pages to find primo info...and so on...and so on. Then I went back to the community I got the original links from and shared my info with others. What I thought was the underground didn't seem so underground anymore. It was suddenly accessable, and better yet this thirst of knowledge and became a virus that needed to be spread. So we come to the here and now: Spreading the virus. Spreading knowledge. Spreading truth. Why don't you write something, and submit it to us at PA1N? If you have an itch to do radio work, start a show for our friends at RantRadio ( http://www.rantradio.com/ ). If you don't have the means to voice your own thoughts, support those who do with monetary support or by word of mouth. Or just be availiable when the next newbie goes looking for knowledge in your dark corner of the net. Be the cool water that quenches their thirst. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x3 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 3 ] [ Project Loki Archives Part Three ] [ alienbinary and Danger Girl ] [ 3 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x3 1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NP -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - "I've always had a soft spot in my heart for creative crime" -- Jello Biafra - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - Loki Part 3: When Good ATMs Go Bad. Perhaps the greatest irony in the technically savvy world, is a predominate overall weariness in trusting entirely to technology. Some of the best hackers I know still refuse to turn over the spiral notebook for a PDA; one such person citing the fact that anyone wishing to view the contents of the notebook would have to negotiate with him, and his faithfull .44. A fourty-four is enough to make even the most determined snoop change their resolve real fast. I digress. So what of the majority who depend entirely on technology to run their lives? Well, of course this all depends on the import of the data or task at hand. As I've explained before, many cultures around the world have a 'Loki' myth, in which a god of mischief throws a proverbial wrench in the works just to keep people on their toes. If people get reminded frequently that they must maintain other skills as well, they stand a better chance of survival in the long run, should something go wrong, and beleive me, it will. As a matter of fact, I was in the mall near my school today, when I noticed a DOS prompt open on an ATM, with several extremely agitated would-be customers looking about nervously, all contending to the other "it wasn't me!" I think the most perplexing part of all for these poor bastards who relied entirely on these machines to regulate their digital wallets, was when I pulled out a palm pilot, and took several pictures of the ATM in various states of a kernel crash. Those pictures of course, are now online for your viewing pleasure. http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/kerncrash.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/static1.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/static2.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/atmbios.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/atmreloading.jpg And what about marquee signs? Frighteningly, this one was a crashed LED board sign in a train station. http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/atm/marquee.jpg Loki Part 3: The Writing on the wall. It seems that everyone has something to say. Seeing as our corporate controlled media, our own government, and especially our school systems don't encourage people to express themselves, graffiti is the most obvious answer. Like the first project loki archives, this one's full of bush bashing, political propaghanda and even some straight up artwork. One of my favorite peices that I found has no real political connotation that I can discern off the top of my head, but I find it to be intriguing nonetheless. I always think that the cityscape is greatly improved when we have some eye candy to feast on. It may happen to be vandalism, but it's definitely art to me. I don't think I'd go as far as to say I condone this, if I did, I'd paint my own signatures for people to see. But still, it's a sign of things to come when the writing on the walls is so carefully planned and so artistically rendered, it's impossible to discount as a simple juvenile action. I think instead, it's a sign that people want to be heard. To start off with, one of my favorite pictures is a sillhuoette of a man in a blue zoot suit. It's simple, yet beautiful. http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/bluesuit.jpg One of the things that I'm always fascinated with, is how people seem to immediately take up new and unusual ways to depict our leaders. Here's a fun one I found in an alley between newbury and boylston. http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/bush2.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/bush1.jpg This wouldn't be much of a rantradio zine without at least one peice of "become the media" propaghanda. I found this one near the campuses of Emerson College and Berkelee School of Music, and it was already dark. I think I had to use a zippo lighter to get the aperture to register, but it was a while ago, so I don't remember for sure. Anyway, here's a picture of a spook in a suit and a spiffy hat with "seize the airwaves" splashed across the picture. Have a looksie. http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/seize.jpg Cryptic messages are often the most disturbing, because of their perplexing nature. Sometimes I'll see things written on a wall, and I'll just puzzle over it for a little while. In this case, it was a blue marker slogan in script, on the drywall in South Station. The caption reads, "art is dead." The second picture is from the same location, but as Danger Girl pointed out, the order is wrong. Ready, Fire, Aim... http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/deepstuff.jpg http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/ready.jpg And last but not least, here we go to find a really funny placed picture. Not only was the message funny, but I found this one on the trash can of a starbucks bathroom in downtown Boston. There's nothing like fucking with latte sucking corporate execs when they're trying to take a load off. So, are you happy? http://thorn.e-lite.org/loki/wotw/smileasshole.jpg Until next time, watch your toes. Loki's on the prowl. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA PA1Nv6x4 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 4 ] [ Knives have feelings too. ] [ alienbinary ] [ 4 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x4 PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- When I worked serving coffee, at a large chain that won't be named, I once found myself in a precarious position because some people are a little too obtuse for their own good. You have to understand that I was working as a demi-supervisor, I wasn't in charge officially, but most of the tasks were left up to me, and they involved everything from putting away hundreds of pounds of coffee beans to handling the pastries and cakes. My job, basically, required all the help I could get. The thing about working in a large chain store, is that you can't rely on management one hundred percent to remember various key items. In this case, someone had forgotten to order those paper mats that are put down in the metal display trays, to be shown off in the pastry case. Those mats are required by law, not using them would be a breach of both company code and health code. As I was the one charged with the task, I was going to do it right. Seeing as I didn't think anyone was in the store, I reached under my apron, past the black shortsleeve naval BDU shirt I was wearing and unsheathed a rather simple neck knife. This knife was on a chain around my neck, out of sight of the customers, and not really doing anything at all that would cause alarm. After all, it's just a tool. The second I put the black blade to what little matting I had left to work with, the sounds of rending paper was enough to cause an elderly couple to look up and check out the source of the disturbance. I smiled politely, and went back to what I was doing, namely: my job. I cut careful sections out, measuring them against the trays, and got the job done fairly quickly. I was rather pleased with myself, so I looked up with a sort of complacent satisfaction, only to be greeted by looks of disgust mixed with fear. All of the sudden, I had transformed in these people's eyes from some college kid running a coffee shop, to a disturbed kid who carried weapons and probably did unspeakable things after hours. I thought this was really peculiar. Right next to me, when I had taken out the neck knife, was a two foot bread knife with serrations, oddly curved giving it an asian-style look and feel, even though the croissant crumbs should have given away what it was. The thing directly opposite the bread knife, on the other side of me, was a very unclean looking, rusty box cutter. The irony of this situation was really striking. If I had used the bread knife, I would have been fine in the eyes of the customers, but they wouldn't realize that the paper would get caught in the serration, meaning that the next person to order a bagel would have wax paper to digest as well; yet if I had used the boxcutter, rust and what looked an awful lot like the sort of stuff I can only call crap would have rubbed off onto the paper, leaving a trail of grime that would almost indefinitely get several people sick, and once again, violate the health code. Somehow, these people held a cultural stigma that suggested that a work knife, worn around the neck, used in a perfectly appropriate situation was a reason to be distraught. I imagined that they were afraid I was going to demand their wallets or something equally rediculous. I wanted to call out to them, and relay a couple of thoughts, namely, if I was the sort of person to hold up an elderly couple, I wouldn't be a java jockey by day. According to statistics I've read, armed robbery pays much better. But why, more importantly, did these people get all in a fuss over a work knife? Look at the name of the instrument WORK knife. The thing was meant to be used in positions like the one mentioned above. A neck knife is worn around the neck, at least outside of combat, because it's easily accessed for any potentional use that might require a blade. The gentleman in question, to further drive home the point, looked about seventy to ninety years old. (I'm sorry, after a certain age, I stop counting.) I'm sure it would be a safe bet that when he was my age, a million years ago, he probably carried some shitty buck knife in his pocket, just like every other kid. It's only in the last thirty years that everyone has become so chickenshit that anything that could be used to cause harm is immediately villified. [ tradition ] Last year for Christmas, a friend of mine had called a company in Nevada, which subcontracts to Kami Sherpas in the Himalayan mountains. For about a month, they worked on a Khukuri with a six inch blade and consecrated it for me, and me alone. That knife is one of the most sacred possessions I own, and by no means is it something I'd use as a weapon. It is, however, a traditional knife from a region of the world where some of my favorite philosophy comes from, and I do wear it around my waist when I meditate. For the rest of the time, I have to leave it on display. The nepalese name for this particular size is "Kagus Katne," translated, "Paper Cutter." That's how small it is. Yet, since it's fashioned after a battle weapon, I can't bring it anywhere, and it gets very little use. If people understood the tradition behind knife-making and swordsmithing, perhaps they would see the art that exists, and the amazing cultural treasure trove that exists in every well made peice. A samurai sword is made in different sections, the blade takes several months to forge, as it's tempered from layer after layer of bent over steel. The blade is made virtually indestructable because each time a new layer is folded into the blade, the ability to take a heavy impact is heightened. If a swordsmith making one of these blades should make a mistake, he or she must start fresh, unlike the katanas you can buy off the racks of army surplus stores for about fifty bucks. A machine made blade is so weak in comparison, that a swordfight using a real samurai sword and a machinemade knockoff is all but impossible, because with the first parry, the katana is likely to be cut in half. A legitimate samurai sword is strong enough to cut through steel, and not show any wear for it, either. In the Himalayas, a sword known as a Tarwar has been made for hundreds of years, possibly and probably thousands. The Kami Sherpa once again, makes this sword by hand, fashioning it in the tradition passed down to him generation after generation. These weapons are the choice primary battle weapons of the Ghurkas, next to the Khukuri. They are not to be scoffed at, ever. Upon completion of the Tarwar, the sherpa monks consecrate the sword as belonging exclusively to the person it's made for, and in some cases a blood rite is performed, a very old tradition predating most european traditions entirely. The Tarwar is always made unique, no scabbard is interchangeable. For every scabbard, there is only one sword to match it, and that's the sword it was made for. With so much history entrenched in the making of knives and swords, and such a long rich tradition, I have a serious problem with people who cannot recognize these peices as art. In Japan, a sword is passed on from family to family, if you're lucky enough to have a family sword. It's the most precious heirloom, and it connects each member of the household to the generations before them. [ just a tool ] I have yet to see a person hassled by law enforcement agents for brandishing a ballpoint pen, or even a hammer for that matter, unless these are used innappropriately. It would take a real twisted individual to do so, I should add. So why is it, that carrying a knife is considered outlandish and discouraged? A knife is a tool, like a screwdriver or a pair of scissors. Some of the most amazing misconceptions about "weapons" revolve around knives. For one, the machete was invented to clear the brush and hack vines, allowing people traversing the jungles to get from one place to another. Contrary to popular beleif, it wasn't invented to dice up unsuspecting people the way they might be used in a movie. And how do you suppose fishers, living off what they catch, are supposed to seperate the gills from the meat, if they can't have a fillet knife? Next time you see a short handle with a long blade slightly recessed, that's thinner than the hilt, realize that it's probably not a weapon you're looking at, it's a fucking fillet knife. Unless you're a fish, I wouldn't occupy yourself with worrying about it. Yes, they can do damage, but then again, so can cinder blocks; and very few people I know are afraid of their own houses, let alone get harrassed for possession of such a large quantity of these dangerous concrete blocks. To do so would be fucking rediculous. So why, exactly, can't I open a pocket knife to trim my bootlaces without some person moving to the other side of the room, or jumping slightly. Why is the click of a lockblade so scary to the average person, that it makes more sense to carry an xacto knife than a pocket knife, regardless of the fact that xacto knives have extroardinarily limited uses. What I'm trying to say is very simple. Ever since early man banged a rock against something, or chipped flint to make a spear, people have carried knives. Blades are useful for survival, they have the exact opposite purpose that most people imagine. So after reading all this, I hope that you won't get all hot and bothered the next time you see someone going about their business, who happens to have a knife on their belt. If you do however get all worked up, remember that you've just read thousands of years of history on blades, and anyone who calls you on your reaction is justified in pointing it out as sheer idiocy. ????---?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????-------- A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N PA1Nv6x5 -------------------------------------------------------------[ fiv.e ] [ New Years: First Plight, Boston ] [ alienbinary ] [ 5 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x5 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????-??? 2003 Today, the day I write this is New Year's Eve. I'm writing this on the MBTA subway system, trying but failing to clear my head of what I can see and hear around me. Tonight, people of every demographic will drink under the auspices of recounting all that's happened in the year 2003, they will intoxicate themselves beyond repair, hoping against hope that they can wash away the sins and tragedies of the passing year. Tonight, more than usual will be ignored by the corporate media. In the early morning, editors will try to rouse themselves from bed, and put together a montage of clippings from the previous night's celebrations, coupled with stock footage and photography of indeterminate year; vainly trying to cover up the effects of the world wide party. Not a single one of them will have the integrity to publish the real forecast for the New Year, which should read Forecast for the New Year: "bleached and burned skies, a touch of fallout and more carcinogen baths in the stratasphere." They should print an honest horoscope, too: Universal Horoscope for all Star Signs: "Your star signs are all pointing to nothing good. Don't expect too much from the New Year," ...oh and... "you don't have lucky numbers you sheep. if you did, thousand upon thousands of people would be winning something every day." The obituaries won't cover all the vagrants who will have died tonight, because they don't have enough ink. They might have enough paper if everybody starts writing on the backs of singles, though. Tonight, vendors will swarm in from Rhode Island and New Hampshire with cars and aerostars brimming with petty contraband. Almost Everything is illegal in Mass. Fireworks, firecrackers, wrist rockets and low grade knives aren't the only products to feel the rub, either. Here in Boston, I have to show a govenment issue picture ID to purchase spraypaint, large permanent markers and even high pressure CO2 cannisters. That has done nothing, however to keep such items off the streets. I feel confident in saying that Boston is only second to New York in it's fence dealings and black markets on the North East Coast. This of course, reaches endemic proportions when you have a holiday whose purpose is to have a bigger party than anyone else you know. I don't judge these dealers of corny contraband, though. I must admit it saves me the cost of import to aquire certain essentials. Tonight, however, these laws will reveal their origins as children die from high-powered pellet gun wounds or drunk driving. All it takes to spot a street vendor who will buy you booze is a quick check to see if they sell ampules of ammonium sulfide, otherwise known as glass stink bombs. The smell released from the oxygenation of one of those bastards is enough to cause respiritory arrest in sensitive lungs. That being said, anyone selling that garbage tonight probably doesnt have scruples with providing alcohol to minors. 2004 It's a little later now, and it's the year 2004. Nothing's changed really, except the date. Regardless, by now, many of those kids I wrote about getting alcohol illicitly are probably at the hospital, because they took the car out for a spin. In the time since the ball dropped, hundreds of people have probably hung themselves, too afraid to face another year on this hellish rock. And I, I'm still here. Just another stupid New Year, during which we'll face tragedy and terror, and maybe, just maybe, a little tiny peice of respite. You never know, though. This year could be unlike all it's predecessors, and be a good one. I wouldn't, and don't plan to, hold my breath though. Later in 2004, Day of Issue 6 Release It's a few days after the New Year. I have a few interesting peices of aftermath to share with everbody regarding the celebration on New Years Eve and First Night, (a Boston celebration with lots of fanfare and innebriation.) First of all, it seems that a team of master Japanese ice sculptors were preparing a castle, carving away at solid blocks of ice with chainsaws a full day ahead of schedule. Unfortunately for them, they managed to only recreate Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." It was a really warm day, comparatively, and nature isn't an art critic. We all know that Farenheight 32 degrees is when ice begins to freeze. I beleive nature had it around 40 degrees that night, and celebrants were just able to see the collapse of what was supposed to be one of the most daring and complex structures yet for the "First Night" Celebration. I can't say I think this is great, but it's kind of funny. It strikes me as odd that no one thought to introduce a coolant like liquid nitrogen or oxygen onto the sculpture. Both oxygen and nitrogen are naturally occurring, and after the celebration was over, they would evaporate and go into the atmosphere without incident. In fact, anyone with 100 bucks could have gone down to the fire station located approximately three miles from the site, and purchased a sizeable fire extinguisher with a CO2 charge. Those suckers will freeze the shit out of anything. Regardless, they didn't and Poe got to laugh in his grave again. Poor Usher. On a far less lighthearted note, it took only two or three days for the first violent murder, homicide one, I think, to happen in the town of Worcester (I'm not sure of the town, I'm ambiguous on the details), but there was an actual drive-by shooting the first of January, aimed at no conceivable target, but a bullet did strike an infant. This was in Dorchester, Massachussetts. I saw this headline while riding the commuter rail, emblazoned on the front page of the Metro. My stomach fell when I read that. What sick fuck opens fire at an infant? If they catch the assailant, and I fear they won't, I hope the bastard gets "reeducated in the dangers of playing with firearms." In the words of the immortal Rollins Band: "I'd like to Know how you'd live your life without hiding behind a gun-- because I know how I have to live mine, because you have one." -- Rollins Band, "Civilized" That sort of sums it up for the New Year. I think we can expect to have our streets remain unsafe until people start taking care of their own backyards. I think we can expect poverty and social stratification to reach epidemic proportions until we raise minimum wage and stop forcing people into slums. I expect to see more war and more devastation, and I don't anticipate being able to stop it. Happy New Year. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x6 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 6 ] [ Protect Hate ] [ the White Rabbit ] [ 6 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x6 1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NP -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- Recently, I saw something on a message board that I frequent that disgusted me even more than the usual flaming and snarkiness. A while back, a user, who we'll call Chris, was discovered to be into white supremacy. Chris never mentioned it on the board, linked to it, or even showed it in any way, but he had a few websites with decidedly racist content. Chris was summarily banned from the board, without so much as a word. At this point, there was nothing wrong with any of this. It was the owners' board, and they had the right to disallow anyone they saw unfit. But, of course, it didn't end there. Immediately, people started digging up information on Chris. They started several threads dedicated to him, about finding out his personal details, pictures of him, even posting his home address. Several people even stated openly, although I'm sure they were exaggerating, that they would do us all a favor and kill Chris if they had the chance. They claimed that we don't need hate-filled people like him in this world. Surprisingly, no one objected to any of this, and no one seemed to see the glaring hypocrisy. So, let's see if we can summarize their position: "Hate is wrong! It's evil to hate other people because of their skin color, culture, sexual orientation, or beliefs! You should love other people and shouldn't hate anyone! People who hate other people are the scum of society! We HATE those guys!" Does that make any goddamn sense to anyone else? Now, let's be clear. I'm no racist. I think everyone has the potential to be a decent person no matter what their skin color. I also happen to think racists are wrong in their beliefs. But you know what? I don't want really want my non-racist opinions forced on anyone else, even a racist. There's a movement in our society, one that I believe will one day succeed, to ban so-called hate speech. Hate speech, loosely defined, means anything that advocates, promotes, or incites hatred or discrimination. Everyone already knows about hate crimes as well. If it can be proved that you committed a crime because of hate, you can get a more severe punishment under hate crime laws. What the fuck is going on here? The same people that claim to want to be free to live their lives the way they want are the same ones who believe people shouldn't be allowed to hate. They claim to love and support diversity, but they don't want diversity of thought. In other words, you can believe whatever you want to believe--unless they think it's wrong. Isn't this the same thing the religious right has been getting their brains beat out about for years now? How often do you hear about "evil" religious leaders trying to criminalize things that they deem immoral? All the fucking time, and it's obviously wrong, but this issue is a two-way street. If it's not okay for that side of the spectrum to do it, then it's not okay for the other side to do it either. No matter what you might think of racists or homophobes or religious zealots, ask yourself this: Is it really right for us to punish these people because we think their beliefs are wrong? Would you want to be thrown in jail because you wrote something the government said was immoral? Shouldn't everyone, as long as they're not physically hurting anyone, be free to think and believe as they see fit? Shouldn't everyone be free to express their thoughts and opinions without fear of physical harm or government reprisal? Let's be realistic. If it becomes a crime to express hate, should we really believe that it will end there for all time? What if it leads to banning "anti-American" speech? Or books and movies that have violence in them? Or simply discussing illegal drugs? What if you couldn't even legally write a fantasy in your own diary? Well, wake up, folks. If you're a high school student, you can now be prosecuted for writing the words "I will blow up the school." It doesn't matter if you write them in a fictional essay or not. You can go to jail for merely writing the fucking words! Hang on for a moment while I knock on the coffin of George Orwell, author of 1984. Knock, knock, George, you're a fucking prophet. There's one more thing I'd like to say about hate. One of the biggest things you'll hear preached today is that hate isn't something we're born with, that it's learned. They claim that it's something, that if you shield your precious babies from, they'll never pick up. Well, I'm calling bull-fucking-shit on that one. Hate is just like any other negative emotion human beings carry. Most men would like to fuck a beautiful woman they see walking down the street. But would those same men rape that woman just because they feel that urge? Hell no. Because of a little thing we have called brains, we have the capacity for abstract thought and the ability to choose not to do evil, even if a part of us wants to. We all feel hate at some point in our lives, whether it be rational or irrational. Just like other negative emotions, it's one that we can choose to succumb to or one that we can choose to overcome. But to deny that you feel it or to claim that people can rid themselves of it entirely only makes you something else--naive. Hate, like every other emotion, both good and bad, is part of what makes us human. We're born with it. It's part of our fucking evolution, people. Our ancestors had to learn the hard way that the strange-looking critter they'd never seen before just might bite their faces off if they fucked with it. Some part of that is still with us today. You can't have free speech halfway. The first amendment wasn't written to protect popular speech. If you can be prosecuted for thinking one thing, it won't be long before you can be prosecuted for another. As insane as it might sound, if we want to protect our right to think and express whatever opinions we hold for generations to come, one of the first things we must do is this: Protect hate. ????---?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????-------- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x7 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 7 ] [ Stream of Consciousness Montage ] [ alienbinary ] [ se7en ]--------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x7 NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????-??? A stream of consciousness is the record of a thought process. In literature, these often take the form of prose. Many streams of consciousness turn into poetry later on, serving as thumbnail sketches for the poet. For me, they're just entries in a diary, things I look down and notice I've written where I should have been taking notes. The following is a compilation of several stream of consciousness writings. If at any point you find yourself lost or confused, then you probably have the right mood. The majority of these, if not all of them, were written during various states of depression. My fingers are stained from nicotine. The room is filled with empty soda cans and bottles of water. On my writing desk I have more electrical equipment than some people have teeth. Interspersed with these various devices are countless bottles of various household chemicals I seem to use on a daily basis. Peroxide, Isopropynol, Petroleum Distillate... the list is really long. And it's probably of no interest. There's ink and tape, empty packs of clove cigarettes; I have no idea how much junk has accumulated on my desk. I think back to how it got this way, and the only word I can settle on is "vice." A vice is the sort of thing we all avoid when everyone else is looking, but we flock to when no one seems to care. Society only frowns on the drug addict who uses in public, and no one cares if you smoke in the comfort of your own house. That's what it boils down to then, loneliness. I sit in front of the screen, my iBook elevated on a podium, and I write everything that crosses my mind. I don't know why I do it, either, I think it's just another addiction. Ironically, six inches away from the frame of my laptop screen hangs a sticker I stuck to the wall, with a classic rabbit ear TV set in the circle with a slash symbol indicating "no," with a caption reading "Fight TV addiction." Ten inches or so away from that sticker, and only a few away from the monitor I write this on, is a DVD drive with a DVD-ROM loaded; another vice I seem to have picked up in the last few weeks. Some people say, if you do anything at all, you should do it fanatically. Never do anything half-assed or part way. I think I may have taken that sort of advisory too seriously. I find myself drawn here, to my own personal temple, every night. I type away on the keys and try and form sentences that match the way I feel, hoping to finally produce a peice of writing that I can show to someone, and have them understand who I am... Odd, that last sentence sounds like such a teenage angst statement, I'm almost ashamed enough to get rid of it. Shame, now that's a bad habit everyone can relate to. There are so many taboos, most of which I seem disinclined to pay attention to anymore, that it's hard not to feel a little bit ashamed of at least one thing you do a day. In a society that's so blame-happy and eager to flip the switch, we all still beat ourselves up in the process. time passes... Hissing in the back of my mind. The back burners of amino acids protest their dissent. Scream, just scream. There's no one here to hear you, this is not a forum. This colluseum has been condemned and so have I. The dead man has no voice. Rigor mortis is a bastard function of an otherwise inert body. These post-mortem transcriptions are faulty, they suggest that there is life in this corpse. Underneath my ribcage, the glistening and exposed jungle gym of wet stonework exposes no heart. There's a ticket stub. "Return this ticket," followed by the numbers 9874329123. There's no inscription on the tab to shed light on what was pawned. Hazard if I must, I'd suggest a portion of my spine, for this autonomous part of my once befleshed torso can't but remain untainted. My heart, as I'm told was once there, is blackened and oxygen-starved. A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, but the air could no longer hold up the facade I myself had waived. It was and remains -- as the weather has found out -- that the ability to stay pure is impossible, because purity must be present prior to the tarnishing. time passes... The exam begins in 30 minutes. I sit and wonder why I'm here, alone, in an empty classroom. I've spent so much of my time here, learning about the great American dead poets; their work and the lives they lead while they were still breathing. If my life is to mean a microcosm of that which Ralph Waldo Emerson lived, shouldn't I, too, reject this predigested material? I feel like I should be pulling a Jesus, and turning over tables, calling out heresy. These people, they speak in my tongue, but not in my language. Who do they see when they look at me? A punk? A wasted life? Or do they see another person, treading water, trying to survive? I don't think they see at all. It reminds me of the shirt Danger Girl gave to me for Christmas this year. It's woodland camo, and says "Ha! Now you can't see me." Sometimes, sarcasm's the only way to survive. time passes... It's cold in here and my stomach hurts. I haven't been eating right lately. I went down to the health clinic to inquire about a flu shot. The influenza vaccine is becoming the new tickle-me-elmo or the razor scooter of the holiday season. I didn't know that I even qualified for the procedure until this morning. It's a moot point though, it really is. After all, they only ordered 30 innoculations for the entire campus. Sometimes I think that God has an odd sense of humor about medicine, one that he adopts in order to survive the scientific revolution that everyone thinks we're undergoing. This is no revolution though. This is a slaughter. I'm complaining about food, yet I could probably find something to eat in the drawers of this writing desk, while at the same time, some kid in former Albania is most likely dying of thirst or starvation at this very minute. I try to feel for the kid, like you're supposed to when they show them on television to get you to adopt a foreign child; you know, the "pennies a day program." Those piss me off more than anything. It makes me hate the person holding up the child. Some of those peices shit call themselves humanitarians, volunteering to save others, blah blah... yet they can still afford an Armani scarf. Fuck you, Sally Struthers. Fuck all of you celebrities who donate money because you pretend to give a shit. I hate the calvinists, but I might side with Johnathon Edwards on this issue: it's better to stay at home and not go to church, and be honest about it, than it ever is to go to church woefull of another lost sunday, praying without your heart. When I see these bloodless, uncaring bastards on the television, or in newspapers, I want to burn the media the image came through on. I'm sick of being talked down to by a fucking machine. time passes... Cold is an adjective for which there can be no precise description, every synonym seems to fall short of the proper feeling. Although I write this at a train station, tapping away on my palm, I'm not describing myself, nor myself in relation to my immediate surroundings. Instead, I think of my friends on the streets right now. You see, I do volunteer work with the homeless of Boston. I suppose that's a slight misstatement; I simply spend time with MA's disenfranchised, disabled and downtrodden; in order that they might escape destruction- emotionally at least. I walk the streets and I scout out the homeless who aren't too hardened and fortified against society to desire company- and that's what I give them. In addition to food and whatever money I can spare without inadvertently finding myself homeless, too, I give them my time. And right now, although none such person is in my immediate proximity, I can't not wonder at how my friends are doing. Mother always says don't talk to strangers, just as the media tells you to ignore independent sources; yet I have learned more from homeless people, veterans and as mentioned, independent media than the straight world has ever taught me. In fact, the only reason I can stand the cold right now is because of tips garnered from my nomadic friends. time passed. PA1N e-zine Issue #6 Continued. ????---?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????-------- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x8 -----------------------------------------------------------------[ 8 ] [ Eulogies in Cyberia ] [ Mephyt ] [ h.eight ]------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x8 NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????-??? Doing the usual thing, day to day, week to week, month to month. This is the same Death that we all seem toæsettle into eventually. I have recently began to think about my own mortality, my own life, and death. I realize that they are about as intertwined as anything could possibly be, but at the same stretch they are worlds apart. I don't believe in anything that could be an afterlife, so my actions now will be my eternal reflection. The way that i will be remembered, or forgotten after I have died. The way that people see things now, or later. I try to live my life the best I possibly can. I don't show undue hatred for anyone, nor do I give half an effort when I say I will do something. I try to always help a friend in need out, whenever I can, even if it happens to be detrimental to myself. I try to give as much as I can to those that I care about, and I put myself on the line for them too. But, I often wonder whether doing this, will make any difference at all in life. Will the amount that I have screwed up make up for this in any respect? Will it all eventually balance out and just drop off the record books? I look at how everything has progressed in my life, and how I have to try so hard to remember certain people. They were people whom I had known for a day, a week, or years. Now I have to try to place that name with a face. I have to wonder where I met them, or if I'll see them again. Does it even matter? The reason this all began was becauseæof a website that I'd seen mentioned in an IRC channel http://www.livejournal.com/community/ljers4eternity/ I began reading the site, glossing over some of the less interesting entries, finding the one on the page that appeared to be the most humorous. Then, I started to read the page. It was simply a guestbook for the dead. A way to express the thoughts you have, and remember the people who have died. These are people whom most only knew through the net. That were known for only a small portion of who they were in real life. Some of them have a name, some only have a handle. But, they have all been remembered for one thing or another. It showed that someone cared about them. Many of them committed suicide. Actually, quite a number of them did. The most depressing thought is that they were around my own age. So many young people, never having the chance to reach maturity, never having the ability to truly love and lose. They were people that I may have seen on my way to work, or at the grocery store. These are people that I might have become good friends with. Maybe even fallen in Love with. These may be the people who I consider my friends now. I look at my own life in restrospect and I can only ask myself, 'Am I worthy of remembrance?'. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x9 ---------------------------------------------------------------[ N1N ] [ Rantradio IRC, December 2003 ] [ RantRadio IRC ] [ 9 ]------------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x9 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- For those of you wondering why it is that I continue to make archives of the bizarre, twisted, and often nonsensical ramblings of the #rantradio channel, I'll explain a little. First of all, I find some of the most fascinating peices of NOTE FROM information in the channel, probably because it's as if OUR ALL- everyone in the channel seems to think no one's looking. Of KNOWING course we all know that people make logs and transcripts, LEADER, assholes like myself crop portions of conversations and put ALIENBINARY. them in zines, etc., but really, most of the time no one is looking. With that in mind, it's not hard to see why people just say whatever they're thinking in the chat. I know a lot of the things I transcribe, however, are inane. That's because I think it's funny, and this is my magazine, so I'll do whatever the fuck I damn well please-- and it pleases me to extract some of the more peculiar conversations in the channel and place them in this annual segment of PA1N. ------------------------------------------------------------[ hello... kitty? ] - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - [ed. note: beleive it or not, this is not the first time I've heard a detailed discussion involving a hello kitty vibrator. I knew a girl once whose partner wanted one for christmas. - alienb ] - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - ÇzandadÈ i was sitting there comtemplating a new vibe *mephyt/#rantradio waves around his Dildo Of Op'liness ÇzandadÈ one with lil bumps and shite ÇMissConductÈ lol ÇzandadÈ this cute one i saw in the store ÇmephytÈ lol ÇapanthropyÈ fucking vibrators. ÇmephytÈ HAHA ÇmephytÈ i KNEW IT ÇmephytÈ you be an addict now chicka *Violent_Solution/#rantradio carries a baseball bat over his shoulder and sings she broke my heart... so i broke her jaw *zandad/#rantradio giggles ÇmephytÈ lol ÇSoulphonateÈ I can give you the address to get a hello kitty vibrator for thirty bucks ÇzandadÈ bleh ÇzandadÈ hello kitty my ass ÇzandadÈ i would feel so wrong using that ÇSoulphonateÈ its goddamn cute ÇmephytÈ lol -----------------------------------------------------------------[ one liners ] ÇhohohokittenÈ haha i'm a ho three times over. ÇAsktionÈ womens underwera only rules if youshave your balls. ÇapanthropyÈ my main question is, which came first? Mothers' brand cookies, or Grandma's brand cookies? ---------------------------------------------------------[ season's greetings ] ÇMaryRebelledVirginÈ i wanna play santa and mrs. clause w/ you ÇViolent_SolutionÈ lol Ç[-Soultrance-]È w00t Ç[-Soultrance-]È eat my milk and cookies -------------------------------------------[ The Turnspike Webcam Merit Badge ] ÇalienbinaryÈ anyone seen turnspike around? ÇNiacinÈ I think he's on the phone with somebody. ÇalienbinaryÈ lol, now that's precision. Thanks niacin ÇNiacinÈ I'm kidding, I really have no idea. ÇalienbinaryÈ fuck. I wasn't unprepared to beleive you hacked his webcam ÇapanthropyÈ hehe ÇNiacinÈ I'm not that 31337. ÇapanthropyÈ niacin = madd hax0r ÇalienbinaryÈ he has a few of em ÇMissConductÈ lol ÇapanthropyÈ er, i mean, madd haxx0r ÇapanthropyÈ two x's ÇNiacinÈ I'm only 3133. They haven't given me my 'gibson 0wnership' merit badge yet. ÇapanthropyÈ niacin --> mad l337 rare-ass trooperRS .. fix this fucker up andyou've got something :) http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=412691&page=0&view= collapsed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1 ÇalienbinaryÈ send me an article (shameless plug plug plug) and I'll send you one hell of a merit badge ÇalienbinaryÈ tanned from the hide of a scientologist minister ÇalienbinaryÈ skinned with a prison shank toothbrush ÇNiacinÈ For which zine? ÇalienbinaryÈ PA1N ---------------------------------------------------------[ I smell a scandal! ] *BusyMissy is now known as MissConduct *Alpha736|Shower is now known as Alpha736 ÇapanthropyÈ hmm... alpha was in the shower, missy was busy... both stopped at the same time ÇapanthropyÈ doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening there ????---?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????-------- A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N PA1Nv6x10 ------------------------------------------------------------[ t_E_N ] [ De-obfuscating iPod's Filesystem ] [ alienbinary ] [ 10 ]----------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x10 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????-??? - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - Disclaimer: This article is written entirely for the purpose of entertaining and stimulating the minds of hardware enthusiasts like myself. There is nothing in this peice that promotes the piracy of copyrighted material, or the circumvention of copy-protection. The purpose of this article is to solve a riddle that's baffled many iPod users, namely, "where the hell are the files?" - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - I got my first iPod the Christmas it came out. I don't know how the person who bought it for me pulled it off, but they did. At the time, everyone was clawing at eachother to get one before the shelves emptied. It was Apple Computer's greatest holiday season up to that time. I found my first dissapointment, though, when I realized there were restrictions on the device. This device, the product of a company founded by phone phreaks, was locked up, inaccessable to the average person. What perplexed me was how when I double clicked on the iPod icon on the desktop, I never saw the music on the device. There were two ways to store music on the iPod, but only one of them allowed for free file transfer, but only the other allowed you to access the music from the iPod's firmware. You couldn't have both ways. That was until Podmaster was released by someone whose name I can't remember, and don't feel like looking up. On the screen, the application would create a menu that would show an iPod-like interface, but would allow you to transfer files to and from the iPod. Clearly, no one was too interested in stopping this, because the program is still downloadable from any site offering iPod utilities. It wasn't long, however, before the RIAA began it's campaign of terror, I mean litigation, that culminated in hundreds of lawsuits against people that hadn't done anything so atrocious as to warrant the arrest or prosecution of federal courts. After all, it's the time of file-sharing. Music by independent musicians who wanted to just be heard embraced this technology, but the big corporations feared it. Unfortunately, the result of this sort of blanket litigation is that no one can use the iPod to it's fullest capacity. There are remarkeably few utilities out there to help manage the files in the iPod's system, and no one gets a chance to use the device the way they want, even for the $300 to $600 USD they spent on the thing. Regardless, since then, there have been lots of articles detailing what the iPod is, articles about it's relationship to the iProducts that apple keeps churning out, including the newest, the iSight, but very few of them explain how the stupid thing works. I'm not going to bother with the newest models for this article, because I don't have a new model, and from what I've seen, they don't much vary in filestructure. So here's the gist of it. the iPod is an external harddrive with a BIOS and a rudimentary interface. Files are exchanged for playback using the iTunes suite, or MusicMatch Jukebox by drag and dropping them into the icon displayed in the application window. Files uploaded directly to the iPod will be available upon docking, but they won't be playable during normal iPod function. Here's why: The iPod has a two-fold filesystem for all intents and purposes. One is partitioned as a removable media device, a portable harddrive that can transfer files from computer to computer. But the other system is given over to superuser priveledges. Without viewing invisible files, there's no way to find the actual storage center for playback-ready music. Unless you were, to say, open up terminal and change directory to /volumes/iPod/, substituting iPod for the name of the device. From there, you can navigate the device like you would any other harddrive, like this: [localhost:docs/source/old projects] alienb% cd /volumes/halo/ [localhost:/volumes/halo] alienb% ls Calendars Desktop DF TheVolumeSettingsFolder Contacts Desktop Folder Trash Desktop DB Icon? iPod_Control [localhost:/volumes/halo] alienb% cd iPod_control [localhost:/volumes/halo/iPod_control] alienb% ls Device Music iPodPrefs iTunes [localhost:/volumes/halo/iPod_control] alienb% cd Music Now this is where it gets peculiar. When you do a simple "list" function ('ls',) you get a series of annoyingly obscure folders. The directories all start with the letter "F", followed by a number designated by it's position on the harddrive. [localhost:halo/iPod_control/music] alienb% ls F00 F01 F02 F03 F04 F05 F06 F07 F08 F09 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F16 F17 F18 F19 [localhost:halo/iPod_control/music] alienb% cd F00 If you tell the terminal to list all the files, you'll get a listing of the audio by filehandle, not ID3 tag. That's important, because this means that only legitimately purchased songs can be identified without difficulty. This is also a rather good thing for someone exploring the system, because it keeps you in the same type of filestructure as linux, macosx, freebsd, xdarwin, etc. Now remember, this is just like any unix system. You have access priveledges and you can move files. Unless you feel comfortable with the command line, I wouldn't suggest manually moving files from here. Regardless, that's not the purpose of this article, I'm simply stating how it works. Because of the afforementioned antipiracy laws, I can't, without worrying about the run-amock RIAA, explain how to retrieve files from your iPod, even if your system breaks down and you legitimately own the files. If that's your intention, you can search for a FAQ on how to do that on google, and find plenty of hits to satisfy your needs, as much as I don't like the idea, I have to respect the law prohibiting the dissemination of information on how to circumvent copy-protection. The only reason I would publish that info anyway, if such a law weren't in effect, is for the purpose of showing a "neat trick." Problem is, no one has a sense of humor anymore. Profit has driven all the fun out of the industry, and even now, as people are afraid for their livelihoods that the RIAA will come crashing through their door, the companies they represent suffer as a result due to an ensuing hatred of the industry caused by arrogant lawsuits. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x11 -----------------------------------------------------------[ ELeVEN ] [ The Public Suicide of R. Budd Dwyer ] [ Turnspike ] [ 11 ]----------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x11 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- -------------------------- Preface by alienbinary. A lot of consideration went into whether the clip to this event would be linked to in the issue. Neither Turnspike, nor myself, wanted to glamorize the suicide of a man who was already bathed in shame, head to toe. There is a link at the conclusion of this article, and I urge you to consider not following it if you have a weak stomach. It's grotesque, it's gory, and worst of all, it's real. This isn't a re-enactment, it's the actual footage of his death. We chose to link to it because there's historical value. I've seen suicide's aftermath, I've seen it's evolution. I know what it looks like, and before TS enlightened me as to who this man was, I even saw this clip when I was about 14, on a Hotline Server. However, this is a forum for reality and for busting through the bullshit the media puts out. They can't cover up what they did, how they glamorized his suicide, and I hope the so-called journalists were put out to dry for it. No one should see this without a warning. -------------------------- The events that took place in the Pennsylvania statehouse on January 22, 1987 would be very familiar to the news junkie of the 21st century; a state official caught in a bribery scandal, a court proceeding, and a big news conference. But before the day was over the network cameras would broadcast the most brutal video ever to be seen live by a television audience, whether they were ready for it or not. R. Budd Dwyer was convicted on December 18, 1986 with accepting bribes from a company who was in return given a contract to calculate tax refunds for the state. Dwyer was only one of many people involved with this scandal, but all but Dwyer and GOP chairman Robert B. Asher were offered plea bargains. During the trial, Dwyer's lawyer had virtually no defense, afraid that calling any witness would just do more harm to Dwyer's case. He was said to be in a deep state of depression following the conviction and he asserted that he was framed, and didn't get a fair trial. The Sentancing phase would begin on January 23, and he faced up to 55 years in prison and a fine of more than $300,000 (which was the amount of the bribe he was accused of taking). In addition to this, he would be removed from office and stripped off all his benefits and pensions. Dwyer arranged to have a press conference on the eve before his sentancing, and he was expected to resign from his office. He entered the news conference with an arm full of envelopes and started a long, stale, rambling speech, loaded with details. After several minutes of this, some of the cameramen began packing their equipment away, which prompted him to say "Those of you who are putting your cameras away might want to stay because we're not finished yet". Sensing that he couldn't hold his audience much longer, Dwyer skipped along in his speech and began handing out some of the envelopes to the acting state treasurer and his two aides and told them that they were instructions to be read later. He passed one last envelope to an aide in which he said was to be given to his own wife, Joanne. With this R. Budd Dwyer, Treasurer of the state of Pennsylvania, took a large manilla envelope at the podium, and pulled a .357 Magnum revolver from inside. He tried to continue his speech at that point, but was quickly drowned out by shouts, screams, and pleas to put the gun down. The chaos caused Dwyer to wave his gun at the crowd and exclaim, "Don't! This will hurt someone." After one last moment where I could only imagine that Budd decided that he wasn't going to be able to finish his speech in the way he prepared, he stuck the barrel of the Magnum in his mouth while looking for a network camera, and when he found one to his right, he looked directly into the lens and fired. After his body dropped and lay slumped against the wall, gushing blood, the media kept rolling video and taking snapshots. As the media continued to take advantage of the carnage, an aide stepped in front of Dwyer's body and pleaded with them to finish their footage and leave.The video feeds were sent to a half dozen television stations, and stations such as WPXI in Pittsburgh and WPVI-TV in Philadelphia aired the entire suicide to the shock of their audience, whereas other media outlets showed only the video up to the point where Dwyer fired, or at still photos. Later, the envelopes were opened and inside were Dwyer's organ donor card, funeral plans, and a letter to the Governor which stated, "By the time you receive this letter, the office of State Treasurer of Pennsylvania will be vacant. I stress to you that I did not resign but was State Treasurer of Pennsylvania to the end." In the media frenzy that is today's news, what is to keep this from happening again? How many times have we turned on the TV to see an Enron executive, or a Worldcom president, or even a politician linked to a scandal like Robert Torricelli stepping up to a podium to announce their resignation? It seems to happen on a weekly basis, and the media circle like sharks. When the next body hits the floor in front of the cameras, how many millions of viewers will be watching, expecting drama, but getting horror? Nobody could have expected Dwyer to do what he did, but everyone expected the news media to be responsible enough not to show a gory suicide on daytime TV. Another reason not to trust the media. Be your own damn filter. Warning. The following link is to a clip of the actual video of the scene depicted above. Unlike millions of viewers who had no warning as this played out on live television, if you get easily upset by gore and violence, do not click this link (6.5 MB): http://www.spfd2600.org/turnspike/budd.mpeg -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x12 -----------------------------------------------------------[ tw3lve ] [ Anatomy of an OSCAR network ] [ Nemisis ] [ 12_ ]---------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x12 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- [ editor's note: see the Letter from the Editor on NOD.2 "Anatomy of an OSCAR Network" before reading this - alienb ] The Servers Oscar has a single login aproach to things. Since there are multiple services that AIM has to offer, they needed a way to have the user login only once. The Authorization Server Everything starts with the Auth server. When you want to connect to AIM, your first connection is sent to the Auth server. When you connect AIM sends a challange string, that you have to encode, along with the password, and ********** in MD5 encrpytion and send to the server. It does the same ting, and compares the string. After you connect and go through the Authorization proccess it gives you a cookie (Not food). This cookie is used as your password to get into any of the other AIM servers that you may want to use. The BOS Server BOS stands for Basic OSCAR Services. This is the server that IMs and buddylist info are sent on. Almost all oscar features can be accessed from this server. After were done with the Auth server, we connect to the BOS server and send our cookie. Then we finish the login sequence, by requesting our rights, our buddylist, our rate limit, warning level, etc. And also by setting our info, and privacy features. Server Redirections Server redirections are a standard OSCAR happening. You don't so much leave one server for another, as you set up another connection. If you want to do something aside from send IMs and use your buddylist normaly, chances are you need to start a connection to another server. This is all part of the single login technique used with OSCAR. We request whatever server we want to start a connection too, and it sends us the servers IP. We connect to it and send our cookie. The proccess for connecting to a new server, is almost exactly the same as connecting to the BOS server. The diffrent servers are as follows. The Chat Rights Server To gain access to the chat server, we send a packet to the BOS server that requests a chat server. The BOS server responds with a Chat Server, and we connect to it, and send our cookie. Then we go through the proccess of setting up our rate limit etc with that. After all that is done, we send the request to create a chatroom, if the request is accepted, then we are allowed to create the chatroom. This request should be sent to the BOS server, and not the Chat Server. We will then recive yet another Chat Server from the BOS, and we will connect to that as well. The Chatroom Server This server, after receiving it from the BOS server goes through the same login proccess as the previous chat server. This is the server that sends us messages from the room, and allows us to send messages to the room. (If we disconnect from this server we will be shown to leave the room. If we set up the chatroom, and send the join command, and dont connect to the chatroom server we are still shown to join the room, and then leave it a few seconds or minutes later, this is known as Ghost Leave) The E-Mail Server This server is used to update the email address. E-mail updating works like this... You send the update email packet, and AIM sends a notification to your current email address making sure it was you that sent the update email request. If you respond to the email the request is cancled, if you don't, after 72 hours it goes through and the email is updated. The Password Server The password server is still used to update or change your password, even though the newer AIMs now use a web based password change form. You send your current password, and then what you want your password to be, and it changes it for you. The Format Server This server allows you to format your name with spaces etc. You send what you want your name to look like, and it either goes through, and you get an Update Buddy packet showing your new name, or it doesn't work and you get an error back. The AD server This server is what sends the advertisement addresses for the images that appear in your AIM. I have not really explored this server much because I don't like ads. Server Stored Information (SSI) For along time now, since around Windows AIM 2.5 the users buddylist has been stored on the AIM server. As it has evolved, more and more information has been stored on the AIM server. All of the info that is stored remotly, and can be accessed by the client is SSI. Buddylists The buddylist is one of the most complex parts of OSCAR. If your just starting out, I don't recommend trying to tackle the buddylist until you are very farmiliar with OSCAR, and decoding packets. Although I will try to explain it fully here another good refrence for the Buddylist is kingant.net. The buddy list belongs to family 13, this is the SSI family. Almost data that is stored remotly about the client, takes place in family 13. The problem with the buddylist, is that if it is big, (consisting of many screenames and or groups) it is sent in more then more packet. The maximum size of a packet has a length of 1414. So if the buddylist is larger then that, it overflows to the next packet, and you have to put it back together yourself. This shouldnt be too hard, because once you receive the first packet, you should know that the rest are probably comming. They will not have FLAP or SNAC headers, it will just continue from where it left off (at the same point as you would normaly see a character 42 (asterix)) Once you have the fully compiled buddylist, you need to parse it. This is probably the hardest thing you can do. If your making your own client, parsing the buddylist is not only the hardest thing you will have to do (aside from file transfer and possibly direct connect) but its the most important. When you parse the buddylist, you get more then just the groups and screennames. You get the Group ID, Buddy ID, and Buddy Comments. [ Glossary ] Group ID - In order to know where to put the screennames you parse, you have to look at the group id. Every group on your buddylist has an ID. When you parse the buddylist for a screenname, you get the group ID, and you can put the buddy in the group with that ID. If its a group that your parsing the group ID will be that of the group. The buddy id for a group id 0 0 in decimal and 00 00 in hex. As you may have figured out the Group ID is a two byte string. Buddy ID - The buddy ID is also very important. Every screenname has a unique buddy id. If a screenname apears on your buddylist twice, for each time it apears it will have a unique buddy id. This is crucial because if you want to remove a Buddy from your buddy list, not only to you have to send the name of the buddy, but also the unique buddy id. (Because names can apear on your list more then once in diffrent groups) Many Buddylist features require you to send the Buddy ID and group ID as well. As you may have figured out, the Buddy ID, like the group ID is a two byte string Comments - After you get the Screenname, Group ID, Buddy ID, etc. You have some additional information left over. This info can either be 0 0 in decimal/00 00 in hex, or it can contain some additional information such as the Comments you have saved for this buddy. Adding a group to the buddylist - If you want to save a new group to the buddylist, you send the server the add group packet, and the name of the group, and a unique group id. Removing a group from the buddylist - If you want to remove a group (and all of its contents) from the buddylist you send the remove group packet, the name of the group, and then the group id. Renaming a group on the buddylist - To rename a group on the buddylist you simply send the name of the group, the name you wish you change it too, and then the group id. The group ID does NOT change, although the name of the group does. Renaming a buddy - Renaming a buddy can be done using the same Family and Sub type as renaming a group, and it follows the same protocol, name of the buddy, name to change it too, and the buddy id. Again the buddyid does not change. Although this method works, Windows AIM does not so much rename a buddy, as delete it, and then add the new name. It is more efficent to rename it though. Adding a Buddy to the buddylist - You send the add buddy packet, which includes the name of the buddy, the group id, and then a unique buddy id. This can be made up, as long as its not the same as any other buddyid or group id. Removing a buddy from the Buddylist - If you want to remove a buddy from the buddylist, you send the remove buddy packet, and include the name of the buddy, its group id, and its unique buddy id. Member Info - Member info is availible in two forms. The first being the profile the user sends when they sign on. The second being the Directory into that they set either the first time they sign on, or when they update there profile. Both are easy to parse. Getting the Profile - The profile can yeild some good info about the user. When you request someones profile, you not only recive the profile, but how long they have been online, there warning level, if there away, and how long they have been away/idle. Getting the Directory Info - The directory info is setup when the user signs on for the very first time, and can be updated along with the profile. It can give you things like the users first, and last name, address, zipcode, and nick name. It is only availble if the user sets it up. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x13 ---------------------------------------------------------[ lucky 13 ] [ Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? ] [ alienbinary ] [ onethree ]----------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x13 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- Freedom of Speech was once in the Constitution. I promise, it was once agreed that as the very first ammendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, protection of freedom of speech, religion and the press was guaranteed. We've come a long way since then, unfortunately in the wrong direction. When I was younger, a little wannabe hax0r kiddie skating around the internet, there were huge monolithic archives of information just waiting to be accessed. None of these sites had passwords even, in the beginning, I mean. For the most part, you could just log into these archives say hello to some buddies, and set your download queue to transfer hundreds of pages of information, free, no copy-right, just public domain stuff. Good stuff, too. The Cult of the Dead Cow Communications, for example. Some of the most haunting stories I've ever read are short-horror from cDc Comm. There were ezines for every platform, every interest, and most of all, there was a sense of community. At the time, I don't know how many of us knew we would later be villified as purveyors of knowledge, painting such an activity as a bad thing. I read about a kid who received several years in jail, however, because he had in his vast library of anarchist-cookbook like texts, amidst real information, instructions on assembling pipe-bombs. You can have an opinion on whether that's a good thing to make available to the public or a bad thing, but the truth is, personal responsibility would suggest that anyone twisted enough to build a pipe-bomb probably didn't need the instructions nor was it particularly relevant at all-- they were going to do something to someone, somewhere. If you leave instructions on how to control your breathing when firing a rifle, are you disseminating information on terroristic activities, even when millions of Americans shoot for sport? I myself, used to be a crack shot with a .22 caliber and a .37. For those wondering, no, I never hunted, I shot targets. Regardless, wouldn't the same logic apply? After all, I saw a program for the palm pilot the other day that helps someone knock an arrow for either a longbow, or a crossbow. It would even help you with accuracy and maintenence of the weapon. Did the crossbow not dominate medeival France, giving way only to the gun? I think it did. So was this freely downloadable PalmOS reference guide a peice of illicit software? It's hard to even grasp such a concept for those of us who had once been scenesters in the information exchange crowd. What most people don't know about the net, is that ever since the advent of the Usenet or the WELL network, people have distributed information on everything you can possibly imagine. But it wasn't until, what, ten years ago that suddenly just being a well-read individual made you a dangerous person. Although we could call Operation Sundevil the most vivid of crackdowns on free speech on the internet, I think that the first 'honeypot' is a lot closer to the source. In this case, someone bought Anarchistcookbook.com which, and this is kind of an urban legend, so I apologize if it's not 100 percent accurate, but everyone who visited the site got blacklisted by the FBI. Next the DEA started planting anti-drug sites in place of informative sites about marijuana. Finally, on hotline, there was a server known as Room 222. 222 was traced by a couple of us on IllegalX, an old hack/phreak HLC server. We traced it to two sources. The Software Protection Agency and Hotline Communications Limited. It turns out that Hotline had received so much pressure, they were forced to host a server on their own bandwidth which would allow people to upload reports on piracy, hacking activing, and "subversive activity." If I remember correctly, the same IP address was found on a subnet that was traced to a machine running the infamous SADwyw Spider Bot, which catologued all hotline servers, unless a certain set of words, a very specific phrase was written into the "Server Agreement." It doesn't take a genius to draw the conclusion that Hotline Communications was taking more than just a passive approach to limit the content on the protocol. It was also this time that the famous DeCSS case broke out. CSS encryption is, or was, an incredibly weak encryption scheme that obfuscated the contents of a DVD, making it something other than a simple MPEG, dissallowing certain activities. Jon Johansan of Norway was convicted of reverse engineering, which none of us knew was a crime back then, and the MoRE, or Masters of Reverse Engineering probably would all still be eating bread and water at some shitty icelandic prison if the Electronic Frontier Foundation hadn't stepped in to put a stop to the blatant abuse of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, signed into law by Former President Bill Clinton. DeCSS, simply put, decrypted the contents of a DVD, making such things as playing a DVD purchased in France that had a regional lock on it possible to play in Norway. In fact, that's exactly what it was written for, if my memory serves correctly. Johansen, a Norwegian native, had been on vacation with his family in France, where he purchased several DVDs, which mentioned nothing of a regional encoding that would prevent him from viewing the movies when he returned to his native country. Further preventing Johansen from viewing the movies was the fact that he only ran a Linux Distribution on his computer, and the Motion Picture Association of America's power was so widespread, it had successfully squashed all attempts hitherto to create a Linux native DVD player. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against both the EFF and against the First Ammendment itself, setting up one of the largest domino effects in litigation history. The official ruling, which was brought to the High Court by 2600 Magazine's Emmanuel Goldstein and his Lawyers at the EFF, was that source code was not a protected form of freedom of speech. So, the count right now is up to the following: all information on pyrotechnics was banned. All information on the circumention of an obnoxious encryption scheme that served no purpose for the consumer was banned, dissemination of the DeCSS source code and white papers surrounding the concept were banned, and it became very clear, very fast, that the internet was being closed in on. The saddest part of this chronology is the fact that no senate hearing ever bothered to go into detail about the really cool and educational things that were distributed even more frequently than any material that might make censors uncomfortable. In my own life, it was the TI-8x, or the graphing calculator programmer community that impacted me greatly. See, when this was going on in the world, and in our country, I was also struggling with an issue regarding numbers that I couldn't explain. It turned out to be a rare disorder called Discalculia, a bastard-cousin of Dyslexia that would have prevented me from taking any mathematics courses at all, if it weren't for the programming skills I learned. In discalculia, the brain often loses track of numbers, switches them around, it just can't focus. People, like myself, who have it, can do the math, but when we plug in the numbers to the equation by hand, it all comes out wrong. This is because of the disorder. If you don't beleive me, ask yourself why there is a certain criteria to bring different high-end models of Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators to the SATs. It was found that with a little help from a calculator that would lay out the steps, or provide the coding environment to create framework for following these steps, a person like myself could navigate pythagorean math, geometric problems and find things like the hypotenuse or the sine and cosine of a number, the way someone without the disability could. I could have let the system just swallow me up and spit me out, leaving me without the credits in math necessary to graduate to college. Instead, I became an avid computer programmer, and a top-level student. It was this free knowledge that helped me do something as important as even getting my High School Diploma or getting into college. There were other amazing things you could find online. Shakespeare is public domain, so is much of Dante, Milton and Poe. Kids of all demographics only needed an internet connection, a search engine and enough room on their hard drives to download and then read the classics. It's because of this distribution of literature that I can recite "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, almost perfectly. It's because of magazines like 2600 and the HOPE 2K conference where Jello Biafra spoke that I gained a social conscience and began working in my community to help people, whether it be volunteering at a soup kitchen or speaking out against police brutality. Unfortunately, this amazing array of knowledge and ideas and even community is always just behind the gates, barely holding off of a surging crowd of litigators, law enforcement officers, the MPAA and RIAA agents, senators and concerned parents who have never actually LOOKED at the BEAUTY of what's been created. They will keep hacking away at our personal freedoms to even think what we want to think and beleive what we wish. There's a problem though, not one that we face as the cyberculture, the hackers, the deckers, the phreaks and the freaks, but that the corporate controlled media and police agencies face. We're not going to let big money shred the First Ammendment of the United States. And even if it's torn to tatters, the information that Jefferson and Franklin once guaranteed the protection of will continue to be distributed, pamphleted out in digital packets, analagous to the way the so-called founding fathers distributed the Declaration of Independence and how Thomas Paine did "the Rights of Man," the original document declaring that all men have inalienable human rights. -?------------?-----??----------??????????????????????-------------------?????- PA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1 PA1Nv6x14 ---------------------------------------------------------------[ 14 ] [ Outro ] [ alienbinary ] [ 4teen ]-------------------------------------------------------------PA1Nv6x14 A1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1NPA1N -?------------?---????????????-----------????????--------??????????????????---- It's the start of a New Year. I suppose the majority of you out there will be reading this after you have hugged the toilet bowl for several hours, in requiem for a nights binge. New Year's Eve is a stupid holiday, like Valentines day. People, ordinary people, sit at home, in their apartments on January 1st. They watch a stupid ball drop a few feet on an even more stupid-looking pole. Around the world there are celebrations as if the changing of a digit in the date function really makes a difference. For that time, they will dance and pretend that all is right with the world, ignoring world hunger and world warfare. Everyone will get drunk and wake up the next morning with a stupid resolution that they have no intention of carrying through with. A lot of these resolutions will have to do with wieght. "To lose five hundred pounds so I can fit in a bathing suit (that's really only large enough to shelter a fraction of a child, not a full adult body.)" And these pledgers will go with strengthened resolve up until they get to the office and remember all the vile shit they had during the holiday season. At that point, they'll give up and move on to something more practical. In the meantime, another month has passed, really. From the beginning of december to the second week of january, everyone is in their own world. White middle-class Americans will give up on watching the news reports, in favor of "Miracle on 34th Street," a rediculous flick in which the moral is to beleive in something that was created by the media and the greeting card industry to make money. While these people watch their stupid movies, their rights get corroded away; dissolved just like the roads they drive on because the transportation authority has to be stingy and use cheap salts, because everone has become greedy. Countless numbers of people will die of exposure, and even more will become disillusioned and feel alone. Is this the peace on earth and goodwill toward man crap that I was told to look forward to? Is this the way peace on earth looks? It looks like shit. This whole world is so afraid to open their eyes and see for themselves the madness that they live in. People trudge through seas of eachother, the masses. They live in squallor and die when their worth has been used up. But not for a whole lot longer. I, for one, am tired of being told to wait my turn, to shut my mouth or to do anything other than that which I know that I want in my heart to do. I have very few suggestions for other people on how to conduct their own lives, that's not my job. It's my job to try and awaken the masses. Those of you paying attention out there have probably noticed that this is the fastest an issue of PA1N has ever been compiled. As the hits in the forum began to accumulate after the release of PA1N Volume 5, Turnspike asked me if I wanted to get another issue out before New Year's. I have to admit, I was taken aback, after all there has been a noticeable lack of content from some of the editors. The reason for this shouldn't be too hard to guess. It's the holiday rush and many of us had finals at school. Now that we have a slight respite, it was angel ice who first promised material, even seemed enthusiastic about the new deadline. This marks her, especially for me, long awaited return to the annals of our dear PA1N Magazine. [ editor's note in editor's note: Angel Ice is currently AWOL, although alienbinary remains in contact with her. Issue Seven, which is already in the works, will contain probably more than one of her peices. An unfortunate mailserver error before an even less fortunate decision to go AWOL without the laptop has held her article hostage. I promise, you're going to be blown off your feet. I've been given the go to put out this issue without her article, in order to meet the deadline. Sorry for the confusion, but it gives you something to drool over for PA1N Magazine, Volume 7. -- alienbinary ] White Rabbit has come through as usual, and the Loki archives were long overdue for a new installment. I don't know how annual PA1N will be. If anything, I hope no one will try and devise a timetable that determines when I'll release the next issue. The truth is, I really don't know until it's time to upload the final product. On another note, I've had plenty of inquiries into what to write. There's a FAQ in the spfd2600.org PA1N forum that should answer these questions. So what does that mean? It means that this is not a closed forum. White Rabbit and I were talking on AIM, and he asked me what my political views were. I told him, honestly, that I was up in the air. After all, I'm one of those people who recognizes that society never completely works. Democracy has proven as plausible and realistic as replacing the clothes dryer with the microwave. The reason for the inquiry, I discovered, was an unsureness about whether certain viewpoints were contradictory to the zine. I told him, as I will relay now, that all viewpoints are valid. There is only one political affiliation that I won't bother with, and that's fascism. You couldn't torture me enough to get me to publish a pro-fascist peice. That being said, however, what I meant stands true for everyone. If you send in a peice that's well thought out, fuck it, I'll put it in an issue. Not every article that appears in PA1N is a reflection of how I view the world, nor is it necessarily a reflection on how any of the editors feel. The views belong solely to the authors, and that's the way it should be. I'm sick and tired of a lot of things, but what I'm most irritated with lately, is the disgusting-- no, the absolutely repugnant-- American tendency to pawn off every responsibility to someone else. Case in point, Rush Limbaugh says something that wasn't a bright thing to say, he gets canned. Do I think he should have been canned? Who cares. The thing is, rather than address the actual issue he was referring to, the corporate media decided to bail ship and dump the heat. Now, I never thought I would defend someone as, in my opinion, vile as Limbaugh; actually to be honest, I'm not. But there's a trend there. If, for example, I decided that something was too controversial for PA1N, just because I wanted to avoid controversy, I would be cheating you, the reader, out of potentially good material. I think my criteria for peices are universal, and I'm pretty damn certain that they're fair. The criteria are like this: if you have something to say, fucking say it; however, you must back up what you have to say. The worst thing in the world is to read some grumpy assclown's column in the New York Times complaining about this or that aspect of government behavior when it's clear the person has no understanding of the inner workings of a complex society whatsoever. Myself, I feel confident in what I write, because I've done my research. How do you do your research? Read everything you can get your hands on. There's an infectious misconception among people these days, as I suspect there always has been, that there are only a few things worth learning. If you go by that philosophy, you're probably a boring person. Learn everything you can, and in this case, since government impacts all of our lives, read anything you can get your hands on. Perhaps I should give some suggestions before I move on, for those of you with mixed political affiliations, or confused beleifs, or just anyone looking for something to expand their mind with, I suggest the following books as primers: "the Prince" by Machiavelli, "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu, "On the duty of Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau, and keep going. The more you read, the more you learn, and the more valid it is what you have to say. So send anything, I'll read it, and unless it's actually terrible, you'll definitely receive feedback, and probably publication. It should be noted, Turnspike and myself are pretty Libertarian, but that hasn't stopped us from putting out right and left wing articles by various authors. Unlike the corporate media, we don't beleive that there is only one point of view. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this issue of PA1N Magazine, and by the time you're reading this, I've probably already begun the seventh. Until then, remember that just because they tell you to be quiet, doesn't mean that it's for your own good. Sometimes the best time to speak is when it's most uncomfortable. - alienbinary PA1N Magazine Editor in Chief pain@e-lite.org - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- - "we don't want our chains made more bearable, we want our chains removed." - Bishop Desmond Tutu - ---- --- --------------------------------- --- ---- -