A Brief Follow-Up Point

Actually, writing, yesterday about “Spirited Away”, I mentioned GURPS Japan, which put me in mind of a story that always makes me smile.

Or, at least, quietly laugh at bureaucrats …

Just as a bit of back-story, here, I’m a former role-playing-gamer – “Dungeons and Dragons”, “Traveller”, “Paranoia”, that kind of thing – and also worked at Arnold’s Gift Centre, many years ago, which used to sell them.

Handy for something of a pack-rat.

Now, RPG’s – if you’ll forgive the contraction – are seen as complicated, and seen as odd, but boil down to nothing more a somewhat geeky version of “Lets Pretend”.

And, in the early years, proliferated; – much like the collectible card games that are a descendant of them.

To the point where there was a game for practically every setting you could imagine, as well as tons of settings you couldn’t.

Complete with rules settings to go with them.

Which could be a bit of a headache if you wanted to change genres …

But 1986 saw the release of “GURPS”.

Or “Generic Universal Role Play System”, if you want the full title.

The whole point of “GURPS” was to have a central rules system – detailing how one made up a character, designed a setting, and actually ran a game – along with with modular campaign settings,  adventures, and extra rules, that a games master could buy, as, if and when needed.

It’s one of those campaign settings that caused a bit of a ruck, back in 1990; – “GURPS Cyberpunk”, in case you hadn’t noticed the picture of the cover …

Mostly because Steve Jackson Games, the publisher’s of both “GURPS” and “GURPS Cyberpunk” got raided by the US Secret Service.

Who thought that Steve Jackson Games had just published not a game, but a hacker’s handbook.

As you can imagine, Steve Jackson Games were a little put out.

As were the Electronic Freedom Foundation, who were originally formed to help SJG – successfully – fight the charges brought in court.   You can read the EFF’s summary, here.

But, to try and summarise, the US Secret Service thought Steve Jackson Games had thought “GURPS Cyberpunk”º was a handbook of computer crime*, rather than the (rather odd) kind of game it was.   And ended up with a lot of egg on their faces, as a result.

And handing Steve Jackson Games a nice pile of ‘David and Goliath’ style free advertising, as a result.

* I’ve actually got a copy of the 1st edition of “GURPS Cyberpunk”; – I learnt a lot about what hacking was, including the difference between ‘hacking’ and ‘cracking’, the former being a mixture of computer engineer, hobbyist, and academic, the latter being the cyber-criminal of the popular press.   But I’m blowed if I could tell you how to take over your PC.   Unlike the staff of BBCNews24’s “Click” …

º But I think I can leave Steve Jackson to speak; – here’s the intro from the first Edition of “GURPS Cyberpunk”.

“Meanwhile, Back in the Real World …

The staff at Steve Jackson Games would like to offer our somewhat bemused thanks to the United States Secret Service for their diligent ‘reality checking’ of GURPS Cyberpunk. It happened like this ... 

On March 1, the SJ Games offices, and the home of the GURPS Cyberpunk writer, were raided by the U. S. Secret Service as part of a nationwide investigation of data piracy. A large amount of equipment was seized, including three computers, two laser printers, and a great deal of assorted hardware. The only computers taken were those with the GURPS Cyberpunk files; other systems were left in place. In their diligent search for evidence, the agents also cut off locks, forced open footlockers, tore up dozens of boxes in the warehouse, and bent two of our letter openers in an attempt to pick the lock on a file cabinet. 

The next day, accompanied by an attorney, I personally visited the Austin offices of the Secret Service. We had been promised that we could make copies of our files. As it turned out, we were only allowed to copy a few files, and only from one of the three systems. Still missing were all the current text files and hard copy for this book, as well as the extensive play test comments from the bulletin board. 

In the course of that visit, it became clear that the investigating agents considered GURPS Cyberpunk to be ‘a handbook for computer crime.’ They seemed to make no distinction between a discussion of futuristic credit fraud, using equipment that doesn’t exist, and modern real-life credit card abuse. A repeated comment by the agents was ‘This is real.’   Now, I'll freely admit that this book is the most realistic cyberpunk game yet released. It has a lot of background information. But it won’t make you into a console cowboy in one easy lesson, any more than GURPS Fantasy will teach you swordplay. Sadly, the distinction appeared lost on the investigators. 

Over the next few weeks, the Secret Service repeatedly assured our attorney that complete ccpies of our files would be returned ‘tomorrow.’ On March 26, almost four weeks after the raid, some (but not all) of the files were returned. As of now, we have no idea when, or if, we will get the rest of our files, our BBS software, and our computers and printers. 

Why were we raided? We’re still not sure. My best guess is that the author of this book wound up on a federal List of Dangerous Hoodlums. While reality-checking the book, he corresponded with a variety of people, from computer security experts to self-confessed hackers. He knew a lot about computers and the ‘computer underground.’ Now it seems that anybody with any computer knowledge at all is suspect ... especially if they own a modem. And sharing that information makes you doubly dangerous, regardless ofthe First Amendment.

Maybe the cyberpunk future is closer, and darker, than we think. 

- Steve Jackson 

”

And to quote author, Bruce Sterling, “Reading it won't make you a hacker, any more than reading Spycatcher will make you an agent of MI5.”

The Daily Teaser

Well, here’s hoping your enjoyed yesterday’s question; tough enough for you?   Either way, here’s the answers. to them.

Q1) 29th March saw John Pemberton create the first batch of which fizzy drink?

A1) Coca Cola

Q2) It also saw the residents of which parts of the USA being allowed to vote?

A2) Washington DC

Q3) It also saw the US withdraw from Vietnam; – but in which year of the 1970’s?

A3) 1973

Q4) And the 29th March, 1871 saw Queen Victoria open what?

A4) The Royal Albert Hall

Q5) 29th March 1943, saw the birth of which member of the Monty Python team?

A5) Eric Idle

And here’s today’s (hopefully) equally as confusing questions …

Q1) The 30th March, 1820, saw the birth of Anna Sewell; – which children’s book did she famously write?

Q2) On this day in 2006, Marcos Pontes become the first astronaut from which country, to enter space?

Q3) 1981 saw an assassination attempt on which American politician?

Q4) Back in 1893, Thomas F. Bayard is appointed as the first US ambassador to which country?

Q5) And finally, back in 1533, Thomas Cranmer was appointed as the Archbishop of where?

Enjoy!

Spirited Away: That’s the spirit …

You know, I’ve got to confess, times are decidedly hard, at the minute …

Recent events, and the lack of hours at work, leave me with little in the way of finances, and no weekly quizzes to actively prepare for.

Beyond the daily questions I’m posting here, of course.

Feel free to leave answer for those, folks.   It’s nice to know I’m having an effect.

I’m so short of money that I’m can’t – at the moment – see how I’m to take up the very nice invite from the No Idea’s, to sit in with them on The Rising Sun’s quiz, tomorrow night.

Which is a very nice, and very flattering invite, indeed.   Adrian, Margaret, John and Trish have bee one of the most formidable teams I had taking part in one of my quizzes, and getting a invite from them is both an honour, and praise, indeed.

But – to quote an old cliqué I’ve heard, from the people who saw the truth of it – one day at a time.

Something I did mange to do, last night, was use the hard drive recorder to tape “Spirited Away” so I could watch it today.

And I’ve got to admit, I found it rather good.

I’m not usually one for cartoons.   I think, like many of us in Britain, I grew up on 2000AD and endless repeats of Tom and Jerry cartoons and tend to think anything beyond that is kids stuff.

Reinforced by the heavily censored version of Battle of the Planets shown by the BBC, when I was a child

Which isn’t necessarily the case, of course.

I have, after all, seen Shrek and found it hysterical – plenty in there to make kids laugh, and adults laugh even louder, recognising the references.

But the  Japanese made and Hasao Miyazaki directed, Spirited Away is a different kettle of fish.

In part, I feel, because the film seems to keep the computer animation so prevalent in many animated films one sees, these days, to something of a minimum, giving Spirited Away a very old fashioned look and fell.

Another point is the simple fact is it is – as you may guess from the name of the director – a film made in Japan, originally for a Japanese audience, in Japanese – with English subtitles, I should add – and with a very Japanese look and feel to it.   I’m assuming it also draws from the varied animé traditions that have grown up in the land of the Rising Sun, over the past few years.

Which made it and very unique looking film, to my comparatively innocent eyes.

I think I can safely say I have a limited knowledge of Japan: with what I know largely picked up from news reports, an ageing copy of GURPS Japan, and the World War Two history I learnt at school, along with know roughly what Japanese letters look like, as they come enabled, under Leopard.

Actually, a bit of a side issue, here.   I used to work at a shop in Brentwood High Street, called Arnold’s Gift Centre, whose owner was a London-born chap called Arnold.   Obviously.   But I can remember something he said, when we saw a news report about the A-bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  – I think the report was about one of the anniversaries, but don’t quote me – and said he’d always mentally put the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a moral par with the Holocaust.

Which, as he was Jewish, always stuck in my mind, and definitely left an impression on me: and always gets me looking sideways at warfare.   It strengthened a long held certainty that wars are not the best way to sort out an international argument.

And that neither side behaves well in such a conflict, whatever side wins, or claims the high ground.

But, back to my earlier point, Japan is, to me, unfamiliar territory.

And “Spirited Away” an alien looking film.

But it’s also one that tells story that will be familiar, even though it’s in unfamiliar garb.

Quite simply it tells us of how Chihiro, the little girl at the heart of the story, is forced to grow up by travel through an alien enviroment, finding friends, love, meaning.

It’s a coming of age movie: a very familiar rite de passage.

And one that touches emotions in a way I’ve not seen a cartoon do.

I think I’d like you to see this film.

And let me know what you think, folks …

Today’s Teaser Questions

Well, here’s hoping you enjoyed the questions, yesterday.   

But before I post up the answers to them, here’s today’s Teaser questions; and I think question 1 will be obvious, it has been floating around for a while.

Q1) 29th March saw John Pemberton create the first batch of which fizzy drink?

Q2) It also saw the residents of which parts of the USA being allowed to vote?

Q3) It also saw the US withdraw from Vietnam; – but in which year of the 1970’s?

Q4) And the 29th March, 1871 saw Queen Victoria open what?

Q5) 29th March 1943, saw the birth of which member of the Monty Python team?

And here’s yesterday’s answer’s.

Q1) March 28th is the Feast of Saint Castor; how many Saint Castor’s are there?

A1) Five.

Q2) This day in 1979 saw a serious radition leak, where?

A2) Three Mile Island.

Q3) This day in 1939 saw General Franco end the Spanish Civil by taking which Spanish city?

A3) Madrid.

Q4) March 28th, 1819 saw the birth of Sir Joseph Bazelgette; which famous London architectural item did he design?

A4) The London sewer system.

Q5) 28th March, saw the death of Chick Fullis; – which sport did he play?

A5) Baseball

Hope they’ve keep you intrigued.

Disc Utilities

You know, it’s just occurred that I’m rather lucky, as a Mac owner, to have a copy of Disc Utility to hand.

For some year’s, now, I’ve been aware of basic computer security issues; little thing like making sure I don’t reply to dubious looking emails – we’ve probably all had one along the lines “Dear Friend, I represent a person who needs to get a large amount of money out of A. N. Country - if you give us your bank details, we’ll dump it there, and give you a percentage” – or making sure I BCC people, when I want to send an email to a lot of people – I’m guilty of that, certainly – and encrypting files on USB stick, if it’s sensitive info that should be keep limited to as few people as possible.

Which the UK’s Civil Service seems to be rather bad at doing, when they leave laptops on trains …

I also know that if I’m replacing a hard drive, it’s important to make sure of a thing or two.

From the little bits and bobs I’ve picked up over the years – having worked in a pub full of cabbies, bankers and, more to the point, here, IT professionals – I know that our computers hard-drives are capable of storing huge amounts of information.

Music, video, photos, letters we’re writing, recipes; near enough everything, bar the kitchen sink.

And if you’re a kitchen sink designer, I’m not going to take bets, there, either …

It also stores things we take to take for granted that we’ve put there; things like passwords, personal information, bank details.

Stuff like that.

Stuff that we’d rather keep to ourselves, if at all possible, and not handed to people who’d be happy to have access to it to do … stuff …

Dubious legality type … stuff …

With the amount of credit and debit card fraud being reported in the media, I’m sure you can see my point.

So, when we’re replacing our computers hard drive we want to make sure the personal information on it – including those rather valuable bank details – aren’t accessible to criminals, crooks and fraudsters.

Let me give you a case in point.

A few years ago, the BBC decided to get hold of some second hand hard drives – from Nigeria, I seem to recall – to see how easily traceable a person was, from the data left on a junked drive. The reporter bought a second hard drive from a dealer in Nigeria, and was able to recover the previous owners home address, bank details, and other bits and bobs from it.

And then turned up on the unfortunate prior owner’s front door step, to ask him what he thought about it.

I recognised the chap; – it was one of the regulars at the pub I was working at, at the time; a cabbie called Ted. Who was, in his own words, gobsmacked to find out how easily doable it was to get all he, and his families, details from the recovered disc.

Now, admittedly, the BBC used what, at the time was fairly pricey forensic hard drive recovery service to get to the info.

But given that the technology for doing this sort of thing will get more available as time goes by and that the article itself was written some three years ago, well …

So we can see that some basic techniques will become more and more important as time goes by. I can only compare it to making sure you don’t leave you wallet in your car, when you sell it to a second hand car dealer …

Or leaving your front door keys in the lock, when you go shopping …

Little things like that

Which is wear things like Disc Utility come in handy.

One thing we can do – indeed should do, if we’re disposing of our old computer, rather than selling it on – is to literally destroy the hard drive.

Putting a screwdriver or hammer through is generally considered a good idea.

But if you’re planning to sell the drive, or the computer, on eBay, something like that?

Then wiping the drive as thoroughly as possibly is usually the answer.

For some time, Apple have included Disc Utility with Mac OS X. It’s OS X’s all-in-one software tool for formatting a hard-drive when you wish to install an operating system.

Or partitioning an exterior drive into separate sections.

Or do all of the same, to a USB flash drive, CD, or DVD.

Just as importantly, you can also use it to it to wipe a drive. It’s got a trio of options, when needed.

It can do a quick erase of the free space on the drive. The next level up will erase the drive by writing zeros over the data, generally agreed to be reasonably secure. However, Disc Utility can also do a 7-pass erase, which writes zeros over the space seven times, or a 35-times pass, which writes zeros over the space, thirty-five times. Something of an overnight job, but also one that’s generally considered very secure. And as I recall Spencer Kelly, presenter of BBCNews24’s “Click” saying at the time, reputedly secure enough to stop the Pentagon recovering the data that had been on there.

My point is this; I think we all need to take basic precautions, and this, for me, strikes me as one.

I also know that it’s a route not available to Windoze user’s, out of the box, although I’m told fdisc is available, but not the easiest one to use.

However, I’d suggest those of us that need to check out Source Forge, the open source directory, for some useful stuff. The link to that is on my Links page, but you can also find it here.

But if you’re reading my blog, and know of a good app, please, feel free to leave a comment and a link.