070905

 

Socorro, NM

Saturday July 9, 2005

     6:55am  I woke up around 6:30 this morning. I just sat there and waked and baked and smoked half of this cigarette I had left. I still love how I ended up at this haven. Oh, and I never mentioned this, but since the first day I got here, since that time Lee drove me over, I found a pair of combat boots in the freezer. Size twelve and everything. There's also a sleeping bag and bedroll in the fridge. I think this stuff belongs to this guy named Phil, that I remember from last year. But man, they are size twelve boots, just perfect. I keep playing around with the notion that they might be a blessing. Are those here for me to find? They're size twelve, after all. I don't know what to do. Should I take them? I don't know. I guess I'll see how I long I stay at this house and see if Phil ever shows up and I'll ask him about them. That's what I'll do.

                   I forgot to mention that yesterday at the Capitol Bar they had free burgers.

     7:30am  Cool, I found a better stash spot for my backpack than under the sink. It's in the top of this closet. I'm going to go now.

     7:50am  I walked down Reservoir and then to the plaza. Right now I just got to California and I'm turning left. I want to score me some breakfast somewhere.

     8:02am  I walked to the Smith's grocery store and used the bathroom. I took a shit and shaved.

     8:21am  At the Smith's I bought me a big cinnamon roll and I'm eating it out front.

     9:12am  I just came out of the Walmart. I played videogames for a while. F-Zero on Gamecube. I got bored. I have three hours until noon for the library to open. Maybe I'll go hit up that Burrito Tyme place I saw a couple of days ago.

     9:28am  I came over and sat down in the shade next to the Tasty Freeze and smoked a snipe I found and took a hit of weed. I'm going to read my book. I'm just waiting until noon, for the library to open. I need to get fifteen bucks. I've got six in my wallet.

                   Oh yeah, at the Capitol Bar last night one kid gave me two bucks, so another kid gave me two bucks, then another kid gave me two bucks.

     9:34am  This side of the tape is going to run out soon. I'm just going to let it play.

Page 275

                   "Political leaders and senior bureaucrats themselves underestimate how dependent they have become on computers—and how vulnerable, therefore, to those who know how to manipulate them for power purposes. The reason for this is that most governmental computer processing typically occurs at the lowest rather than highest levels of the mind-work hierarchy. We don't see Presidents or party chiefs punching keyboards or gazing at screens. Yet the people on top make scarcely a decision, from the choice of a warplane to the determination of tax policy, that does not rest on "facts" that have at some point been manipulated by specialists using computers.
                   Whether it has to do with hospital beds, import controls, or meat inspection, by the time any problem or policy comes up for a vote or a decision, it has been described (and counter-described) in terms that are quantified, aggregated, abstracted, and preformatted for the computer.
                   And at every point in this process, from the creation of a data base to the way information in it is classified, to the software used to analyze it, the information is open to manipulation so subtle and frequently invisible it makes such standard political info-tactics as secrecy or leaks look crude by comparison.
                   When we add the distortions produced by meta-tactics to all those deliberately introduced by officials and politicians who play the conventional "info-games" described in the last chapter, we can reach only one conclusion:
                   Political knowledge reaches the decision-maker only after passing through a maze of distorting mirrors. Tomorrow the mirrors themselves will reflect still other mirrors."

Page 276

"THE KIDNAPPED FINGER

                   A rapidly accumulating international literature tells lurid stories about computer crime—about bank swindles, espionage, viruses sent from one computer to destroy the contents of others. Movies like WarGames have dramatized the dangers from unauthorized entry to the computer and communication systems that control nuclear weapons. According to a published report in France, the Mafia has kidnapped an IBM executive and cut off his finger because it needed his fingerprint to breach a computer security system.
                   The U.S. Department of Justice has defined a dozen different methods used in computer-based criminal activity. They range from switching or altering data as they enter the computer, to putting self-concealing instructions into the software, to tapping the computers. Widely publicized cases of "computer vi ruses" have illustrated the potential for sabotage of military and political communications and computation.
                   But relatively little thought has been given so far to the ways in which similar techniques might alter political life.
                   One day in 1986, Jennifer Kuiper, a staff aide of Congressman Ed Zschau, saw her computer screen go blank. When she got her machine up and running again, two hundred letters had disappeared. Four days later hundreds of letters and addresses disappeared from the computer of Congressman John McCain. Capitol Hill police, claiming to have eliminated the likelihood of staff error, launched a criminal investigation.
                   According to Zschau, himself the founder of a computer software firm before entering politics, "Every office on Capitol Hill can be broken into in this way. . . . It can bring the work that a member of Congress does to a complete halt."
                   Writing in the Information Executive, specialist J. A. Tujo pointed out that, with 250,000 word processors used in the offices of American lawyers, it "becomes feasib le for a lawyer's unscrupulous opposing counsel to glean compromising information by illegal access" to his or her computer—and that this can be accomplished with cheap electronic equipment purchasable in the corner Radio Shack.
                   Politicians and officials, however, may be even more vulnerable. Thousands of computers, many of them linked in networks, are now found in congressional offices, the homes of elected officials and lobbyists, as well as on the desk tops of hundreds of thousands of civil servants who regulate everything from soybean quotas to air travel safety standards. Unauthorized and secret entry could cause endless troubles and shift power in unexpected ways.
                   Computers also increasingly populate election campaign headquarters. Thus new, virtually undetectable games can be played in the ballot box itself."

     10:14am  I read my book for a while by the Tastee Freeze. I'm going to go hit up the burrito place now.

     10:18am  I am at Burrito Tyme. I'm going to try my luck.

                     Jose, en Burrito Tyme, le pedi y me dio. Te lo agradezco, señor. Todo el mundo recibe crédito, gracias.

                     That guy told me, "Mucho gusto." I'm going to walk to the library and eat this and wait for it to open.

     10:28am  I just asked this old man for a cigarette and he didn't give me one.

     10:43am  I walked to the library. There's still like an hour and fifteen minutes until it opens. I'm going to sit down and eat and read my book. I might take a nap or something.

     11:22am  What was the name again? Merkaba, soul vehicle. Look it up on the web.

     11:35am  This weird dude with a cane just came up and "listened" to my story. He has directed me to go to Australia and then to England. He gave me all these directions. He said I was going to meet a lassie.

     11:50am  I am talking to Nick and his friend Sally in front of the library. What was your email? leftynm@msn.com

Next day..