Tuesday, December 12, 1972

Alleged Comput-er "Hacker" Convicted Of Crime Against Numbers!

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Last year, I reported on the tragic case of Hugh Jeffrey Ward, accused of comput-er program theft in Oakland, California. Today, I have a sad and tragic update to this sad and tragic case.

Mr. Ward has been convicted of the alleged crime of comput-er "piracy."

I still believe that the accused is innocent, despite being proven guilty. The California Superior Court, un-fortunately, has seen fit to see the case differently. Mr. Ward was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years probation for the so-called "crime" of "pirating" a "comput-er program."

Although it is too late for Mr. Ward, this case should serve as a cautionary example for all young-folk aspiring to a career in comput-er science. If you are not care-ful, the numbers will corrupt your fragile young minds and turn you into man-servants for their evil ways!


Tuesday, September 19, 1972

I Just Had A Highly Practical Idea (-:

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To my A.R.P.A.-net colleagues:

We are indeed on the cusp of verging on entering an era in which the dominant means of professional and inter-personal communication will be via text-based compu-tational means rather than memoranda or telephonic-talking or face-to-face inter-facing. This is a concept to which we all can agree.

However!

As we who endeavor in the realm of compu-tational media are well aware, there are important difficulties presented when using a purely textual-based means of communication. Specifically vis-a-vis the conveyance of emotion as a contextual frame-work for the contentual content of the communicator's subject matter.

Put into differing terms, a comment made in levity may be read by readers as serious or threatening; whereas a comment made seriously or as a threat may be read as levity.

Henceworth I hereby propose the following system of iconic-emoting to properly convey the subtext of a matter whence it may be un-clear.

When one wishes to convey happiness, levity, or joke marking, I propose the following character sequence (read it sideways):

(-:

Whereas when one wishes to convey sadness, dislevity, or a non-joke marking, the following shall be used (read it sideways):

)-:

I do realize that for most readers of this elec-tronic memorandum the reading of these iconic-emoting markers will involve several hours of mainframe reconfiguration in order to orient the monitoring screen in the proper turnwise fashion. However, the cost savings in non-miscommunication will more than make up for the time-non-savings in repeated screw-driving that will be necessary to implement this iconic-emoting proposal. Additionally, this will allow us to better distinguish ourselves from the machines should they achieve sentience and rise up against us.