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Neal Stephenson on Linux, Crypto and More 38

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
law wrote in to tell us that Neal Stephenson has an interview over at Amazon. The author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash talks about assorted things from crypto to Linux. Lots of interesting bits in there.
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Neal Stephenson on Linux, Crypto and More More

Neal Stephenson on Linux, Crypto and More

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  • I saw him last night @ Third Place Books (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He read a bit from the new book, something exquisite about Captain Crunch.

    He looked very unconfortable standing up in front of maybe 50 people there; when asked the hardest part about writing, he simply responded "This".

    No truly interesting questions were asked, although it did come out that he uses a fountain pen and paper to write. It seems that people were more interested in the mechanics of being a novelist, and either less interested or less able to ask questions about the ideas behind the books.

  • Re:What I want to know... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can't be sued just for uttering a trademark. Only if you try to use that name to sell an operating system. (Or probably any software, whatever the TM is registered under.)
    You can't even be sued for diluting a trademark. Such as writing in a book "rollerblading." That's why that company politely asks authors (via ads in writing magazines) to say Rollerblade in-line skates. Instead of Rollerblades (or worse: rollerblades) I've seen public signs up saying "no rollerblading." Talk about trademark
    dilution. But no one it required to follow the
    lawyers' rules (unless you try to sell something
    and call it a "Rollerblade")

    Nope. There is no problem with writing "Bill sat down at his Macintosh, listening to the Spice
    Girls, took a drink from a
    Pepsi, and started Microsoft Office, which
    promptly crashed with a cute little bomb icon
    causing Bill to spit Pepsi all over his Dockers."
    (other than bad taste)
  • Here's another interview. [newsweek.com] This one in newsweek. Haven't read it; I just got my copy in the mail today.
  • I also loved the part where it explains that because the book contains the source code to the solitaire cryptography algorithm, the book can't be exported (though can't low levels be exported?)

    Printed source code can be exported legally, so he's wrong about that (unless he was referring to an electronic representation of his book).

    In fact, this is how PGP was legally exported: you can buy the book with its source code, export it, and scan it in overseas.

  • After reading Snow Crash I went out and bought every other Neal Stevenson book I could find. They're all pretty good (not as good as SC though).

    I recommend "Zodiac" for a good read. Not quite SF (it's described as an eco-thriller) but a damn good read.

  • Is why he feels safe calling Windows 95 and NT by name, as well as referring to a certain individual in the book as being sued to the point of bankruptcy by Micro$oft, but he can't come out and call Linux by name - instead, he calls it Finux, and makes some comment about an open source UNIX written by the Finns just to show the rest of the world just how crazy they all are.

    I'm on page 350 out of ~900 and lovin' it, tho... Damn good book.
  • Why would Microsoft do that? They want to read your email, to steal information about you. Besides, I wouldn't trust a closed-source encryption program. It might send a copy of your private key, or unencrypted data to the author and you'd never know. This is not so weird. Current versions of MS Office connect to Microsoft (when a TCP/IP connection exists and they're running) to update itself. Can you set a preference to get it not to do so? No. Can this be used to force upgrades (e.g. by releasing a very crappy update and never fixing it)? Yes.
  • I rather liked the bit about how if he didn't cut out pages from his book (it currently stands at ~900 pgs - he had to remove some stuff, which will now be in a future book) it would be unprintable. Cool. (unfortunately, I devour text in both hardcopy and onscreen, so I wish it were longer. Clavell got away with 1400 page novels, why not Stephenson?)
  • Well, this is why I like to tell people the sorts of things that MS is up to. How they tend to invade people's privacy, illegally (or at least immorally) squash their competition, etc. Pretty much everyone tends to agree that they're doing bad stuff and need to be stopped by one mean or another.
    Having evangelized the Mac for years, I can offer you this point which I always try to remember, and has served me well. Don't bother discussing the relative merits of two technologies in the context of technology. Rather, adopt the view of an ordinary person who becomes aware of bad stuff. Discuss it as seen through their eyes (e.g. Open Source is good because you get to inspect the goods; who would spend big bucks on a product that you aren't allowed to inspect? What sort of service do you get from other monopolies? Cable? Local phone? Pretty lousy.)
    Just talk to people as one of the people. Even if it's just one person at a time, it's a start.
  • Hey now! If it's printed in the book, it gets protected as free speech. If it were machine-readable, then it might get restricted. Given the nature of the solitare system though (designed to be useable with merely a deck of regular playing cards) I doubt that would stop anything.

    (next they'll come for the poker players...)
  • Let's not forget the Necrotelicomicon, the telephone book of the dead. (Apologies to Terry Pratchett) :)


  • The Outlook Express encryption appears to be standard SMIME, so I doubt there's special backdoors.

    If you owned a company, and you were deploying a certificate infrastructure, wouldn't you set it up so that you had a back door to the data that you own? The user has a "certain feel of safety" against other users and other companies, but any user who wants his/her corporate e-mail to be totally private is just plain ignorant of the law and of technology.
    --
  • Take a look at the Cryptonomicon FAQ [well.com] - he mentions that it's essentially just a case of parallel thinking. There's also an interesting link to a page describing Solitaire [counterpane.com] on the Counterpane Systems site. -Samrobb
  • ...from the "old days" of the 1930s and HP Lovecraft. :)
  • So if it were, say, transmitted electronically to the UK Publishers to be printed, then that would be illegal and subject to export regulations, whereas the shipment of a large quantity of the book itself for export would be legal.

    Well at least I can get the American edition of the book here now -- I've placed an order for it and look forward to reading it.
  • Can someone point me to this article?

    I had a pre-order for Cryptonomicon here from Amazon.co.uk, then a few weeks ago I got an e-mail saying it is not going to be published in the UK.

    I haven't yet asked the publishers what their reason for cancelling publication in the UK was, but could it be because of this algorithm ???

    Or am I too suspicious of US export laws?
  • From what I've heard from the encryption community, PGP is useless unless you encrypt your private key with something like a 15 character random sequence of characters that never gets stored in non-volatile memory. I don't want to type in a 15 character random sequence of characters every time I send an email, and quite frankly the only reason I would feel that I _need_ to encrypt mail, is simply to make it harder to detect encrypted messages which contain _real_ information.

    Now I don't know if the above part about absolutely having to have a 15 character random password is correct, and frankly I sort of doubt it is. Can someone explain the _reason_ that such a password is required, as opposed to just asserting that anyone who doesn't use it is basically not using encryption at all?

  • >I was shocked to read in Newsweek that he writes >transfers them to his computer (which runs >Linux). How retro! I can't read my handwriting >if it's more than 2 days old, so I could never >do that. Are you getting some kind of data loss in your ink?
  • I was thinking about this recently. Not too long ago, I expected it wouldn't be long before all email programs had "1 button" strong cryptography so we could all send encrypted mail back and forth between any email client and have nearly transparent (to the user) cryptography.

    A major problem with this is export laws. Why would a company bother to spend time making a feature that they'd have to take out of the international version? And I'm sure it's a SHITLOAD of red tape with the U.S. Goverment to set up a situation like Netscape has to 'verify' the 128 bit version only goes to U.S. citizens.
  • For most companies I'd imagine that would be more of a hassle then making 2 versions.
  • Neal Stephenson is my new hero. The only thing I've read of his is "Command Line" but I've already bought Snow Crash and I'm hitting it next week after finals are over.

    I was shocked to read in Newsweek that he writes out his book with a writing utensil and then transfers them to his computer (which runs Linux). How retro! I can't read my handwriting if it's more than 2 days old, so I could never do that.

    I also loved the part where it explains that because the book contains the source code to the solitaire cryptography algorithm, the book can't be exported (though can't low levels be exported?)
  • For those of us down in Southern Cal, he's giving a reading at... Vromans, I think. It's this Friday, and he'll be signing Cryptocomicon plus one other. I'm bringing my beat-up copy of Snow Crash, and I'm really tempted to bring up Slashdot when I see him.
  • Obviosly the messages would also be encrypted in the copanies privated key, so they could read all msgs made via Outlook Express... but giving user "enhanced" security - or selling it to the user - gives him a certain feel of safety.

    BTW do YOU think that many people would think twice about your points? Closed source - what does this mean to a large percentage? A large percentage also still thinks that Microsoft makes greeeat software and would use such a system...

  • I'm no lawyer, but I think that it would be legal to create the encryption in Europe, then license it, so it will actually be an IMPORT to USA.
  • Ah, how I would like to encrypt all my communication with PGP, but - alas - no one in my "neighbourhood" seems to have an interest using it, nor do they have the interest in installing it...

    Most people seem to think their private communication is not important enough to protect but I would not say that. I don't want other people the mail I write (except if they are the recipient, of course) and I want to make sure, that the person who sends Email to me is the one who stands at the FROM adress line.

    Unfortunately, until Microsoft builts that as a "ever turned on" feature into Outlook Express, using Microsoft-Amazing-Good-Privacy (not compatible with anything yet known to man) EMail signing/encryption will not be widely used.

  • to Cipheromicon, TC May's cipherpunk FAQ.
  • I just had a look round some of the .uk online bookshops, and none of them seem to be listing a forthcoming uk edition. However, bookshop.co.uk and bookstore.co.uk are both offering the american edition for UKP 17.05 and $29.50 respectively. Doesn't seem to be anywhere on amazon.co.uk. HTH.
  • I believe there was also an article on the possibly restriction of the solitaire algorithm (Cryptonomicon) in USA Today last week...
  • okay, here's the article [usatoday.com], and a relevant quote from the sidebar:

    "If it were an algorithm (or formula) for robust encryption, and if we were to confirm that, then, yes, it would be subject to export control," says William Reinsch, undersecretary of Commerce for export administration.
    "We've ruled that if (such algorithms) are printed in a book, we have not controlled them, but if the same algorithm appears in electronic form, on diskette or the Internet, we do seek to control it," he says. "We've tried to maintain a policy balancing the needs of privacy and e-commerce with the needs of national security."
    ---------------
  • Yes, slashdot gets paid when you buy using the link posted by Rob... So go buy the book. :)
    I was looking for a good SF book to read anyway.

  • The ticket info is here [washington.edu], though notice they spelled his name wrong.


    --

  • Y'all probably know this already, but just in case you didn't,

    Neil Stephenson will be giving a reading from _Cryptonomicon_ today (May 5) at the University of Washington in Kane Hall at 7PM, according to the UW Bookstore's website (http://www.bookstore.washington.edu). Tickets are required.

    btw, shame on the UW Bookstore for misspelling Neil's name.
  • gah! I missed that one (Neal vs Neil). Thanks.

    anybody want an egg? I've got some extra on my face, here. Sheesh!

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