] Every year since that initial meeting, Defcon has grown.
] From a few hundred people in 1993, it has expanded by the
] thousands, reaching a record of around 6,000 people this
] year. But Defcon's growth isn't limited to the
] sheer volume of people in attendance; it also includes
] the mushrooming list of topics discussed by the panels.
] Some of the subjects this year included: a session on
] quantum hacking, a presentation about cracking the
] CIA's Kryptos Sculpture (an artwork containing
] encoded messages that resides in a courtyard at CIA
] Headquarters), and another on homebrew mind machines.
] Even electronic voting vulnerabilities were a key topic
] at the conference this year.

I noticed in my weblogs that I got a recent spike (about +25%) of visitors to my Kryptos site. They didn't seem to be *from* anywhere in particular -- just an increase in the number of people searching on the word "Kryptos". My guess is that it's from here: A mention of Kryptos on TechTV/ScreenSavers. :)

G4techTV - The Defcon Briefing

] But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of
] The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized
] not what the candidates said but their "body language." After
] the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's
] sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the
] fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as
] Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to
] balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's
] lies - "against the other's minor errors."

Personally, I've been getting disgusted lately with the lies coming from the Kerry campaign, though of course those too can be looked at as "word-twisting" or "a matter of perspective."

For example, in Kerry's speeches, and this editorial, they're saying things like, "Bush let Osama get away. Bush ignored North Korea. Bush turned Iraq into a haven for terrorists, when it wasn't before." Or when Kerry speaks in absolutes like when he said that *every* decision that Bush has made has been the wrong one. Every single one? Give me a break. All of those assertions are so clearly false, it just turns my stomach and makes me tune out any other *good* points that Kerry may have. The rhetoric is absurd.

It's clear hypocrisy: Accusing Bush of misleading the American public, while Kerry is systematically doing misleading of his own!

- Elonka

RE: The New York Times -- Op-Ed Columnist: Swagger vs. Substance

Chris Hall, an old friend of mine, who now teaches spacecraft design at Virginia Tech, posted a reply to my post in his own blog, which then got some interesting replies that I also think are worth reading. For anyone who'd like to check it out, please go to:

///////

Update: Whoops, sorry, the original URL I posted was incorrect, since I linked to the comments but not to his original post. The complete thread can be seen here:

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/Space/archives/001276.html

RE: Newt Gingrich on 'Runaway Courts'

Meme-ing for future reference. This is a 7-acre corn field near St. Louis that's been turned into a maze with over 2 miles of trails. I keep meaning to go check it out....

Great Godfrey Corn Maze

] John Kerry: "It was the right decision to disarm Saddam
] Hussein, and when the President made the decision I
] supported him."
]
] John Kerry: "I don't believe the President took us to war
] as he should have."
]
] John Kerry: "The winning of the war was brilliant."
]
] John Kerry: "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at
] the wrong time."
]
] John Kerry: "I have always said we may yet even find
] weapons of mass destruction."
]
] John Kerry: "I actually did vote for the 87 billion
] dollars before I voted against it."

A collection of "flip flop" quotes from Kerry, and the press release from the Kerry campaign where they try to explain context.

Kerry: Misleader-in-Chief?

Off the top of your head, how many Supreme Court Justices can you name?

Here's a factsheet on all of them, with brief summaries, and then links to longer bios and more information.

Supreme Court: Justices

Heh, I gave a talk last week on cryptography at the St. Louis "Gateway Open Technologies Expo." I was a keynote speaker there, along with Rick Berenstein, Chairman of Xandros.

Here's a review from the Missouri Linux Users' Group:

] About this time Elonka Dunin gave an excellent speech on
] classical cryptography, Kryptos, and the solving of
] Cyrillic Projector. If you missed this speech, you have
] my deepest sympathies. Her passion for solving
] inscrutable puzzles infected the crowd to the point where
] Christine finally had to force everyone out of the room
] to set up for Rick's presentation and Rick announced a
] new rule, he will never follow Elonka at a speaking
] engagement, ever!

LOL! I'm flattered. Berenstein was using the analogy that he felt like a guy with a gazoo who was scheduled to go on stage immediately after a rousing performance by the New York Philharmonic playing "Stars and Stripes Forever." ;)

To his credit though, I found Berenstein to be a charming and intelligent man who is a very entertaining speaker, himself. He had many of his own stories, such as the one about how he helped with getting a green card for Linus Torvalds. And Berenstein's talk on Xandros was interesting and informative. I've even now got a fresh new Xandros Linux partition on my laptop. :)

Kryptos & the St. Louis GOTexpo

] ] The time to reassert the right of the American people to
] ] instruct the court through the Legislative and Executive
] ] branches has come. America is a free nation and it is the
] ] duty of those who would represent the American people to
] ] find mechanisms for our generation which block activist
] ] judges from stripping us of the freedoms and values we
] ] believe in.
]

Every time I start leaning more towards voting Republican this election, I run into someone from the Bush administration who uses the term "activist judges", and every time I hear that term, I am so horrified, that it makes me go back to scrutinize other possibilities of who else I can vote for.

There are many things that I agree with the Republicans on. But the things I most disagree with them on are the social issues, and this absurd notion that judges are "activists" who need to be reined in. It's wrong-headed, and it violates one of my core values, which is a deep belief in the separation of powers between the branches of government. I really really wish Bush and the other members of his administration would drop the term "activist judges" from their lexicon. I lose respect for them every time they use it.

- Elonka

Newt Gingrich on 'Runaway Courts'

] Yusuf Islam, who scored several Top Ten hits in the
] Seventies as Cat Stevens before leaving the business to
] devote himself to Islam, was denied entry into the U.S.
] yesterday, because his name was on several border
] protection watch lists. Islam's plane, en route to
] Washington from London, was rerouted to Bangor, Maine,
] where the artist was detained for questioning.
 . . .
] Islam will be put on a return flight to London today.

Gah! As a big Cat Stevens fan, this news shocks and saddens me. :/

RollingStone.com: Cat Stevens Denied Entry to U.S.

] On May 26, 1972, Bush asked in writing for reassignment
] to an Air Reserve squadron in Alabama so he could work on
] the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton
] "Red" Blount, a close friend of his influential
] father. That was rejected because Bush was obligated to
] serve as a Ready Reservist until May 26, 1974, and was
] ineligible for assignment to the Air Reserve. About three
] months later, on Sept. 5, Bush asked to perform
] "equivalent duty" with the Alabama unit from
] September to November. Killian approved the request a day
] later. The orders went through on Sept. 15, and while
] Bush had missed the Sept. 9-10 unit training assembly,
] the document noted he could make the next two.
] Bush's Officer Military Record shows an Oct. 1,
] 1973, discharge from the Texas Air National Guard and
] transfer to the Alabama unit.

I like this article because it seems to have a more balanced view of what's known about the situation, and because it seems to be written from a military perspective rather than a political one.

Air Force Times: Bush and the Guard