7:57 A.M. pdt October 14, 2002

I searched thru this thread for .JPG's

and only found just one

http://www.n810.com/hell.jpg

be 4warned i think thats may be the virius

EXACTLY why there are so few downloadable .JPEG's in this threads a myster to me

Hey HUb', if you've caught a computer virus, I don't think this is the place it came from. First of all, I don't believe .jpg's can carry viruses (but do correct me if I'm wrong!). Usually the viruses you catch from the internet are found in .exe or .vbs scripts and such. You've got to download them and start them up before they will infect you. Anyway, just to be sure, I went and downloaded this image and ran it through my virus scanner and it came up clean. So no worries there.

I've heard that there are a few tricks websites can pull to infect or hijack an unprotected computer, but I'm sure this isn't one of them. BadAstronomy is probably as safe as you can get (at least, as long as we can trust the webmaster [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]). Besides, aren't you running Linux or something? Very few viruses are designed to infect non-windows boxes, and the tricks I mentioned usually target weaknesses in IE and other M$ programs.

Final comment, from the description you gave on another page, it sounds like the problem is in your master boot record. MBR viruses are usually transferred by floppy disk, so you may want to check if you've been borrowing disks lately. Or the problem may be unrelated to a virus and is just a bad sector or something.

Hope this helps. Good luck on solving your problem.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Sorry, but I can't see how anybody can think Jay is Slime.

Conversations I have with myself usually degenerate into profanity much sooner.

Also, Jay does NOT have an agressive argument style, he's simply trying to answer/debunk somebody who is agressive.

I agree; this is a conscious approach on my part. I respond with aggression commensurate to the proposition. If people want to just throw ideas around to see what merit they have, I tend to be much more conciliatory. If they bang their fists on the table and say, "This is the way it is, and if you can't see that then you're just ignorant and misguided," then I pick through the argument with much greater rigor. And I think that's appropriate. There is a difference between exploring possibilities and trying to compel belief.

Slime has been refuted at every point.

That depends on your point of view. Have I listened to the "artifacts on the moon" testimony yet? No. I've been busy this weekend wrestling with the complex thermal characteristics of a computer the size of a tennis court. The battle goes on. So that point remains unaddressed. And likely others too.

Slime presented a lengthy stream of supposed testimony, only the surface of which I've scratched. Granted, everywhere I scratch the silver plating comes away to reveal common brass. But to say Slime has been refuted at every point is a bit premature. It's more accurate to say that every time Slime's evidence is scrutinized closely, it falls apart. That's not to say that it's all been scrutinized.

Most of the Disclosure evidence has to do with "screwy lights in the sky"¹. UFO enthusiasts themselves admit something like 90% of those reports have perfectly ordinary explanations. So what are we to do with the remaining 10% we can't classify? Do we immediately jump to the conclusion that they're vehicles using unfathomable technology piloted by intelligent beings from some other world with benevolent intent?

No, that would be absurd. There's just as much evidence that those 10% are due to angels, ghosts, or devils. Angels, of course, are reputed to behave according to rules we can't understand. Devils too, for that matter. I'm not equating UFOs with angels, just saying that if we're going to entertain fantastic hypotheses for these observations, why focus on just one fantastic hypothesis? There are whole legions of fantastic hypotheses waiting for our eagerly open minds.

The Disclosure Project also relies on the myth of the "trained" or "reliable" observer. Dr. Greer's witnesses are not the typical country bumpkins from Wamego, Kansas. They're people of some stature, training, and experience. My "betters", according to Slime. This conveys the illusion of authority. But there is no reason to suppose the limitations of human visual perception don't apply to these people too.

Experimentation has shown repeatedly over decades that there is no such thing as a "trained" observer. Training and life experience does not necessarily make one significantly more skilled at interpreting observations. There are large numbers of reports from highly experienced pilots that are known to be of normal but relatively rare origin (e.g., space booster launches and re-entry). These reports talk about "non-ballistic motion" and "under intelligent control". They routinely contain wildly inaccurate estimates of size, speed, and shape.

We learn two things about observation from these reports. First, that people -- even those we would consider reliable -- will tend to "fill in gaps" and interpret what they see. Everyone, even if he is my "better", falls victim to confirmational and other perceptual biases. Thus while a four-star general might seem to be a better observer than a Kansas dairy farmer, the data show this is rarely the case.

Second, it provides a "control" for observation. The pilots reports I allude to clearly fall into the 90% of UFO sightings that have ordinary explanations. The other 10% may simply have no specific cause associated with them. You can't point to the extraordinary nature of the observation as proof that the explanation must too be extraordinary. Our control group shows that the appearance of intelligence, immense size, impossible motion, and other items that appear in UFO reports can indeed be generated by relatively mundane occurrences. You can't say the explanation can't be normal because the observations are abnormal.

No, I don't claim these people are "nuts", as Slime continues to assert. I claim they are people exhibiting the normal limitations of perception to which all of us "betters" or "lessers" are subject. Skeptics may suffer from a deplorable lack of imagination, but they do believe that the physical world is likely much more complex than the conspiracy theorists believe.

So that leaves Sergeant Stone. Of all the witnesses, he alone talks about actual aliens. He can't be mistaken. He's either telling the truth, or he's lying. According to people I know to be familiar with military-style security, he's lying. Yes, yes, those consultants could be part of the cover-up, but that's the same tired, circular excuse we get for the unreliability of all the UFO evidence.

The bottom line is that Dr. Greer's evidence, while making for good television, is as unscientific as it can possibly be.

We HAVE to this in a public forum or other people are going to fall for this silliness.

The standard refutation applies. Nobody is forced to read this. But I don't take it away from some lurker who benefits from it.

NOTES
1. From This Island Earth.

First of all, I don't believe .jpg's can carry viruses (but do correct me if I'm wrong!).

You're not wrong. JPEG images are data only -- no executable content. Viruses, as you correctly note, must be some form of program: a machine-language binary file or a script of some kind that you computer interprets as a series of commands to perform actions.

By definition of a von Neumann computer, data can mean program and vice versa. Viruses can easily be contained in "ordinary" data provided that the interpreter of the data exhibits some form of buffer overflow bug which the malicious designer of the data can use to run code on the infected machine. However, this depends on this very bug and, more importantly, on a specific platform (there was an example of this.. i might look it up)

Oh yes.. there are many examples, the perhaps most embarassing being the M$ Outlook bug, where you could use ordinary email to execute arbitrary code on the target machine. (ungh) [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

<a name="JD2452562.LU2"> page JD2452562.LU2 aka JD2452562
its clear {now} to me what i've headed for
2 download some images from Lonakhod2 & Apallo 17
And then LOOK FOR SOME FLAT ROCKs
OR evidence of sedimentary layers in rock
formations .. now IF i just had some links

By definition of a von Neumann computer, data can mean program and vice versa.

No argument there.

Viruses can easily be contained in "ordinary" data provided that the interpreter of the data exhibits some form of buffer overflow bug ...

Right, forgot about that one.

Sections of a computer's memory in which data is stored temporarily after being retrieved from the network or a file is very often adjacent to portions that indicate what instructions are to be interpreted next. Programs that make naive assumptions about the amount of data to retrieve can be fooled by maliciously constructed data. They overwrite their own control sections and thereby redirect the microprocessor to the temporary storage where the malicious data stream has provided executable code.

Luckily this weakness is very unlikely when dealing with JPEGs. The use of the JPEG group's software is ubiquitous, and that code has been in use and refined for more than a decade. It is not susceptible to such an attack.

The vulnerability of software to such an attack is a factor of the programmer's skill. Sadly, despite the awareness for some time of the possibility of buffer overruns, modern programmers still occasionally cut corners and expose their users to this specific risk.

A buffer overrun attack must not only be constructed for a particular platform (i.e., combination of CPU and operating system) it must be constructed for the particular example of software (e.g., Outlook mail program, FTP server) it is designed to attack.

It seems there is at least one example of this in JPEG routines, btw, I didn't know about this one myself until I looked it up right now.. however, the bug was not quite in the IJG code itself, but in a Netscape custom routine that dealt with comment markers..
http://www.safermag.com/html/safer27/alerts/11.html

Oh, and look at how it works, isn't it beautiful [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

PS: I checked the COM markers on that image.. seem to be ok (hexdump | grep)
I felt like a conspiracy theorist (shiver) [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Fruh-Batz on 2002-10-15 11:48 ]</font>

... the bug was not quite in the IJG code itself, but in a Netscape custom routine that dealt with comment markers.

... which is, of course, something supplied by Netscape and not part of the standard JPEG libraries. I have extensive experience with the Netscape 4.x commercial code base and it's total crap. The 3.x code base was pretty elegant and robust. Beginning with 4.0 it appears to have been maintained and extended by people who couldn't pass elementary programming classes.

Now, thankfully, it's been subjected to a substantial rewrite.

I am astounded to discover that a Brit wouldn't know that the aliens built Stonehenge long before packing up their saucers and travelling to Egypt. The pyramids are modern by comparison.

Not so. It seems the Pyramids were built around 25,000BC, according to new research carried out by me on the back of an envelope in the pub last night. I got pictures too.

Well my research, done over coffee this morning, with all my notes carefully scrawled on a paper napkin, proves that Stonehenge was erected by aliens in 32,000 B.C. The bluestones were moved by tractor beam from the Presily Mountains in Wales and placed using portable antigrav devices. The sarsen sandstone was dragged from a quarry about 10 miles south of Salisbury by a group of indigenous celts who were given superhuman strength through alien genetic engineering. The sarsens were too heavy for the saucer's tractor beam - the aliens apparently forgot to convert from their q'irbet system of measure to English units, hence the reliance on muscle power.

So there! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

The sarsens were too heavy for the saucer's tractor beam - the aliens apparently forgot to convert from their q'irbet system of measure to English units, hence the reliance on muscle power.

Oh come on! Every self respecting prehistoric aliens researcher knows that the q'irbet system of measurement did not come into general usage till 28,000 BC, making your assumption just plain wrong. I have no idea where you get your information from (for all I know, you just made it up), but it clearly does not agree with the general wisdom on this topic.

KSCS can't keep people from speeding up KSC Causeway. Seventy-five miles an hour, bumper to bumper, door to door in the mornings and afternoons.

__________________
I'm a Christian.
I believe the world is billions of years old. Why? Because God gave me COMMON SENSE!

Seventy-five miles an hour, bumper to bumper, door to door in the mornings and afternoons.

Sounds like most of Europe to me. BTW 75 mph would not be breaking the speed limit in most of Europe. Unless it's a 30mph limit!

It's posted 50 (and 45) in some places on the causeway. My first couple of days out there were frightening.

Of course, there's always the theory that NASA was trying to off me in a "traffic accident" to keep me quiet about what I learned regardi...

+++

NO CARRIER

__________________
I'm a Christian.
I believe the world is billions of years old. Why? Because God gave me COMMON SENSE!

Slime,

The point here is that lots of people--including experts in astronomy, physics, engineering, etc.--have examined the evidence, and the "UFOs are an alien phenomenon" side invariably winds up on the short end of the evidentiary stick. What you seem to be doing is ignoring any evidence that doesn't agree with your predetermined conclusion.

I'm not trying to depict you as anything. I'm trying to show that your persuasive methodology is neither a) persuasive or b) methodical. You reject the informed opinion of people who disagree with you and toss a few insults their way for good measure. Are you really trying to persuade anyone, or just make fun of people who don't agree with you?

Further, you seem incapable of believing that someone could form an opinion opposite yours without being brainwashed or biased. That's pretty hogwashical, and again, it's not scoring you any points in the argument.

More insults. Ignoring them, let me apologize for misrepresenting you--but at the same time, my point stands. Those who disagree with you--Jay, me, Steven Hawking, Bart Simpson--are biased or being brainwashed by someone (the media?).

Ignore Jay for a second. Let's focus on the fact that, again, there is faaaaaaaar more evidence against your claims than for it. You have to start postulating things like superluminal travel and cloaking devices, along with super-huge government conspiracies, to make your position stand up. Explain to me again why that's worthy of anyone's attention?

First of all, I have no idea what "a cropper" means. Blame it on my Yankee ignorance. But I'm not misrepresenting you on the logic claim. You said essentially that logical arguments flew in the face of the subject matter:

And second of all, no matter what David O'Leary may or may not have said, NASA is not a military agency. Period. End of story. It's a public agency, subject to FOIA. They don't report to the Pentagon. It's all right there in plain view, and PLEASE don't say "that's why we shouldn't believe it." (here's NASA's budget, by the way--look carefully for "super space weapons" http://www.nasa.gov/budget/budget2003_index.html)

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot. Geez, man, you're accusing ME of being logically inept? Despite the fact that I don't know all the editors in the world, my point stands. You're positing a conspiracy that simply doesn't exist. Saying "How do you know there aren't editors out there who deliberately suppress legitimate alien UFO stories even though none of the ones you've ever met have" is just as ridiculous as saying "How do you know there's not a vast media conspiracy in which every editor deliberately suppresses legitimate alien UFO stories."

Hmmm... so all the evidence you have... it's not in the public domain? Is that just because you have to pay to see it? I don't understand how if, as you assert, all the available evidence is flimsy and unreliable, you can form a firm, reliable opinion that, by golly, UFOs are the result of alien activity.

See? More insults. If you spent as much time putting forth persuasive arguments for your position as you did trying to zing the people you're arguing with, you might have better luck--or at least a better reception.

And I'm not a Cubs fan, I'm a Royals fan.

So until I agree with you, I will be locked in self-denial. Wow. I feel edified already....

__________________
PC load letter? What the @%$# does that mean?

To "come a cropper" means to fall down.

You're an ignorant Yankee. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] Well, slightly less ignorant now. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

But we're not talking about general usage of q'irbet. I'm talking about the first time it was used on Earth. As any self respecting alien researcher would know, q'irbet was a rationalization of the earlier
xt'iun (Ziztshun) system that had been in general use since the Horb'bung dynasty - at least 200,000 years ago. It may be that xt'iun was used, but that doesn't change the fundamental fact that the darn tractor beams weren't calibrated in English units.

I know you're just trying to cover your embarrassment over your lack of knowledge of a local neolithic monument, but there is no need. Being uninformed is only a problem if one refuses to become informed given the opportunity. You have now had the opportunity. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]