Wired magazine slams Annthrax!

[regnaD kciN]

The November issue of Wired contains a "preview" of "totally unbelievable" video games. That's "totally unbelievable" as in "they don't exist, we just made them up for a good laugh." In any event, along such supposed classics as Tom Clancy's "Junior Miss" and Shockingly Extreme Thong Volleyball!, you get the following:

In Ann Coulter Stop the Presses 2004, you're the conservative pundit's editor at Megacorp Publishing. The game begins as Coulter turns in her book manuscript, Let's Necklace Dissent, which is due to the printer in less than a month. One problem: It's full of lies. You must sift through the entire thing and find out which two pieces of information are actually true. There is a ticking clock in the screen's corner and a Morality Bar you have to keep out of the red or your career is over. This game is interesting simply because it can't be won.

;-)

[KelleyKramer]

1. Excellent!

And of course, you know there is going to be the obligatory request.. 'where's the link?'

Sounds like a fun game!

[foo_bar]

2. I don't get the Echelon thing

Do the "Echelon Bop" -- FBI CIA NSA IRS ATF BATF DOD WACO RUBY RIDGE OKC OKLAHOMA CITY MILITIA GUN HANDGUN MILGOV ASSAULT RIFLE TERRORISM BOMB DRUG HORIUCHI KORESH DAVIDIAN KAHL POSSE COMITATUS RANDY WEAVER VICKIE WEAVER SPECIAL FORCES LINDA THOMPSON SPECIAL OPERATIONS GROUP SOG SOF DELTA FORCE CONSTITUTION BILL OF RIGHTS WHITEWATER POM PARK ON METER ARKANSIDE IRAN CONTRAS OLIVER NORTH VINCE FOSTER PROMIS MOSSAD NASA MI5 ONI CID AK47 M16 C4 MALCOLM X REVOLUTION CHEROKEE HILLARY BILL CLINTON GORE GEORGE BUSH WACKENHUT TERRORIST TASK FORCE 160 SPECIAL OPS 12TH GROUP 5TH GROUP -- Have fun, Ashcroft!

If they isolated every occurrence of "Hillary" or "Bush", they'd index the NYTimes and 2/3 of the internet, which sort of defeats the purpose of filtration from a signal to noise perspective. Maybe some poor spook is running a ROT-13 echelon, so you might hit the paranoiac lottery with this one:

Qb gur "Rpuryba Obc" -- SOV PVN AFN VEF NGS ONGS QBQ JNPB EHOL EVQTR BXP BXYNUBZN PVGL ZVYVGVN THA UNAQTHA ZVYTBI NFFNHYG EVSYR GREEBEVFZ OBZO QEHT UBEVHPUV XBERFU QNIVQVNA XNUY CBFFR PBZVGNGHF ENAQL JRNIRE IVPXVR JRNIRE FCRPVNY SBEPRF YVAQN GUBZCFBA FCRPVNY BCRENGVBAF TEBHC FBT FBS QRYGN SBEPR PBAFGVGHGVBA OVYY BS EVTUGF JUVGRJNGRE CBZ CNEX BA ZRGRE NEXNAFVQR VENA PBAGENF BYVIRE ABEGU IVAPR SBFGRE CEBZVF ZBFFNQ ANFN ZV5 BAV PVQ NX47 Z16 P4 ZNYPBYZ K ERIBYHGVBA PUREBXRR UVYYNEL OVYY PYVAGBA TBER TRBETR OHFU JNPXRAUHG GREEBEVFG GNFX SBEPR 160 FCRPVNY BCF 12GU TEBHC 5GU TEBHC -- Unir sha, Nfupebsg!

[regnaD kciN]

3. Not just Hillary or Bush...

Think of all the messages that contain "Ruby," "City," "Gun," "Drug," "Special," "Forces," "Group," "Bill," "Of," "Park," "On," "Meter," "North," "Task"...I wonder if there are any e-mails that wouldn't get caught by this software!

[foo_bar]

4. what do you think Echelon does?

I mean, if it's just Google for private transmissions, they don't need any secret decoder ring pass phrases. If they do need red flags to reduce the internet universe to manageable size, you can bet they won't be flagging "Clinton" or "Hillary". Maybe names of bridges or bacterial strains.

[DUreader]

5. echelon is spyware that captures text based on keywords

those paragraphs are lists of supposed keywords the software would

capture for further sifting