For years people have learned from hacking — its the most ancient human art. But, it seems the US has slid so far from its foundation, that now the sheer construction and presentation of information can within itself be considered in some way criminal.

A judge acting as thought-cop told 3 MIT students they were not to discuss their latest hack. Since the halt order, the availability of the information in the presentation has fluctuated. Decius makes mention of the evolving legal manifestation on Memestreams.

I believe information like this ought to be free, and so: a complete form of the content of the halted Defcon presentation is right here (in PDF format). Enjoy.

Summer, 2008. You can’t seem to buy a headline that doesn’t remind you that the price of gasoline is at a record high. Everyone is coming out of the wood-work talking Peak oil. Articles stapled to the same headlines fall back on the same, now tiring, discussion about rising demands, shrinking supplies, and the myriad speculative strategies playing out on the open energy market — they talk about anything except solving the problem. Thats because we’re not only at a peak in oil production (which generally drives all other production), we’re at a peak in our production of educated problem solvers. We’ve got a nation of pontificates (at times, myself included).

While Congress questions Big Oil hoping markets can police themselves (lasting it’s tie to capitalism), the opposite only seems obvious and true to consumers and the American people, leaving some of the best analysts wondering, “Is speculation or fundamentals driving the price of oil?” I prefer my question, is it Need or Greed? But, there should be no surprise so little has gotten done, Americans always worry first about who is to blame despite whats opportunities are lost in the meantime — thats the terrifying reality that landed us in Iraq: the need to blame. But, even as we grow nearer to what may amount to the largest energy crisis in American history (perhaps the history of all of our species), and America spirals downward, I realize I have a greater fear, one worse than expensive commodities: my fellow Americans.

Besides the pointless chatter surrounding oil that fills the media — which wastes more energy (in the form of oil, et al) than anything else given its return value — I hear a common notion threaded across the perspective of average Americans: Americans believe George W. Bush, our current President, did all this with a simple policy of “drill and veto.” But, and this is what scares me most, they also believe conversely, that when Bush leaves office these problems will go with him. They believe somehow through Bush’s ties to Big Oil, he was capable of masterminding this global economic shift at the most fundamental level: commodities pricing. Our President alone is not that powerful, thankfully. However, the American people are when they can be united.

So, my poor, undereducated Americans, so down-turned by bad policy, despite your instinct, please forget your dire need to blame. Realize that holding a belief that any such problems will vanish overnight is in fact a form of greed itself, and not need, and is an idea that is plain stupid. We as a society, must exercise the discipline we lacked prior to this, leading us here, in order to find the way out.

Beyond that, personally I feel, George W. Bush, our President, couldn’t mastermind a few elegant English statements in the form of complete English sentences given chair, desk, ink, pen and good reason to do so. And that my friends… is the problem with America, forget oil, we’re at Peak education.

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Peak education is the point in time when the maximum rate of distribution for global education, training, and knowledge is reached, after which the rate of that production and distribution enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, an education crisis may develop because the availability of conventional education, training and knowledge will drop and the population will rise, perhaps dramatically (Hubbert peak theory).

In August of 2007, scientists found a one billion light-year sized hole in the universe. Left to my unending curiosity, I’ve done a bit of thinking. And now, I’d like to offer the few ideas I had about the discovery. Ponder what intrigues, enjoy what silliness entertains.

Theory #1 - The Hole — the cold spot — is the area associated with the events of the Big Bang.

Not unlike a crater on some surface, this cold spot could represent an area where billions of years ago, the event we commonly refer to as The Big Bang, took place. While over time space itself (we believe) has expanded, one would expect most everything was expelled outward from that point at extremely high temperatures (leaving the most immediate area entirely barren). Everything was “vaporized” or more accurately put, transitioned to highly energetic plasma and gas. The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) tells how just how it was distributed. Does this “hole” give us an indicate from where?

Theory #2 - The Hole is Aliens!

By creating electromagnetic fields many linear detection methods can be deflected or subverted. It makes sense, at least depending on how you look at projects like SETI. And, of course these aliens would need to know the ole’ saying: out of sight — out of mind.

Theory #3 - The Hole represents the discovery of new physics

Last, the most likely: this region of space contains unknown properties or material with unknown properties to physics. This would lead to our inability to make accurate detections and potentially offer us a region of space that seemed to lack all features. We’ve only narrowly escaped our home venue of Earth. While it may seem a radical idea to accept, there is no evidence that our observations from Earth aren’t dramatically limited to a subset of realities describable by our derived physics only.

From the mind there can be no escape. A simple notion can influence, until we’re a daze in thought. Yet, some thoughts are so complex and run so long they are able to penetrate the core of the mind from which they spring. Some realizations so ultimate they might even revoke our sense of self. For even when we are lost in thought do we rarely understand the truth, that we are lost to thought. Here the BBC covers exactly that in a documentary entitled Dangerous Knowledge. The film covers a group of geniuses who each ended their quest for knowledge in suicide.

Well, thank goodness for this news that the Fermi Paradox is back with a vengeance. And, its such an amazing question to think about: How come, despite billions of years of time, millions of light-years of life-supporting space, and all the complexity of the Heavens, the Universe is filled with what we can call the “Great Silence”? As Fermi put it, “Where is everybody?” What are they doing? Why can’t we detect them? Why can’t they detect us? No one seems to know.

A number of prominent futurists, a list that includes Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, have speculated that the destiny of advanced intelligence is to re-work the cosmos itself. This has been imagined as an intelligence explosion as advanced life expands outward into the cosmos like a bubble. The entire Galaxy would be re-organized with much of its matter converted into computronium. Eventually, it is thought that the laws of the Universe will be re-tuned to meet the needs of advanced civilizations.

Interestingly enough I myself am writing a science fiction novel with the working title “Tether.” And, its about human beings discovering exactly this kind of cosmological engineering technology –Science moving at the speed of fiction…

Unfortunately, we do not appear to inhabit a Universe that even remotely resembles this model. The cosmos appears natural and unperturbed. This is reminiscent of the God problem and the presence of evil. We live in a Universe that is hostile, indifferent and pointless. If advanced ETIs had the capacity to re-engineer the Universe such that it was safer, more meaningful and paradisical they would have done so by now. By virtue of the fact that we observe such a dangerous Universe we should probably conclude that such a project is not an option.

This is all mostly true. But, of course the Universe appears dangerous to us, and the project seems as though its not an option. For one thing, and with this example its entirely a given: we would not be the species doing the cosmological re-engineering!

If this case were true, our Universe wouldn’t be tailored for us. In fact, given that, the Universe would appear especially in this case, dangerous and unperturbed as we observe it. Put another way, these aliens being different from us, would likely re-engineer a Universe that was not ideal for us.

Indeed, with clear reflection on this idea, one realizes logically, it is only because we have no working theory of Life, let alone for which this universe would be ideal, that we have no working theory in which the Universe could be re-engineered for life, to be ideal. Nor any theory to counter that notion directly.

What this does, is, give us more directions to go in. An interesting idea might be, as we see few species opt for technology on our planet as a means of solving evolutionary problems, that perhaps it is an indication of the success of species throughout the history of all life which opted for technology. In other words, perhaps technology is a bad thing to opt for. What if everybody was only ever able to engineer their own accidental destruction? Or, perhaps even more forward thinking, our accidental and eventual creation?

Science allows scientists to practice theory. Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t work. Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why. Therefore, through programming, Computer Science allows computer scientists to combine theory and practice; nothing works and no one knows why. Therefore, let us not forget as stated quite sharply in Taligent’s Guide to Designing Programs, there is no code faster than no code.

Alright, so, what exactly is going on over at Wired? And, precisely what is Bruce Schneier smoking? Better yet, where can we all purchase some to sell to terrorists when we run into them (since thats what all the talk is lately)?

Talk about shitting the bed…

This is desire directing science and about as bad as it gets. The theory discussed in the article is used in quite a strange way. Mangled in order to make predictions about the resultant conditions of terrorism on a whole society, the corespondent inference theory, they say here, indicates terrorism doesn’t work. Certainly something scientists would like to believe, if you ask me, anyhow — I admit, that is just my opinion, about the only evidence I have of what I allege is the article and the way the idea is used.

Allow me though, using all my mighty force, to engage in a most epic debate. But, whilest I do this and rather quickly I might add, I will need… one, and only one piece of evidence, to make my case. Brace yourself, so you aren’t startled by the dramatic entrance of booming percussion, ladies and gentlemen.

I give you, my evidence: the United States of America.

Terrorism from the analytical perspective of the tactician offers clear and pure lines of thinking on the ultimate goal of the terrorist — to win. Terror is only a tactic, terrorist only a label. Terrorists employ as we’ve seen, extremely violent even self-violating acts to oppose enemies only hoping to create a viral air of concern — what we have also seen is that, that works just fine. This, in turn, leads to a progressive change in the way of life for said enemy, and change in their respective tactics. And, especially for Americans, who lived a very different way prior to the morning of September 11th, 2001. Or, did everyone forget that?

To say terrorism is ineffective, is to wash away any possible excuse for the behavior of the American public in our last two Presidential elections, that is for sure. Truly, it says then what about America if terror is entirely ineffective against us? How desensitized have we become? What then is the cause for our current state too?

I cannot believe this idea that the small demands of terrorism are not in some way met, when all is imbalanced in our country. You may run the circular argument that our country is this way because of corruption, but then, one must question, who is corrupting those politicians or leaders, if not the same kind of criminal element both foreign and domestic, each not worth the various labels prescribed them.

The idea of having a phobia probably causes most Americans to feel anxiety, that worry in itself though, in some cases, might just be another phobia — that is how I know, not all phobias are created equal. While the term phobia can mean having an irrational fear of something, lets not also exclude that it does also mean to have an irrational sensitivity to something.

Still, I feel warm considering the idea that “it all” began when I was just seven or eight years old, sitting behind a keyboard for the first time. Only because that idea itself, makes my progression over the last two decades, seem epic. Chances are, there was nothing epic going on. More than likely “it all”, as I so vaguely put it, was the result of a major case of infophobia.

Something we all suffer from… from time to time.

Now, I suspect, your mind will probably want to attack that word — infophobia — so allow me to do it first: there is no such word as infophobia, at least not in any English Dictionary that I have looked over.

Infophobia is not the battle-cry of some counterculture. Nor is it some industry’s new favorite buzzword. And, infophobia is not some fancy, underhanded term coined so that you’d land in the chair of a therapist either. In fact, infophobia is my very own term.

Let me clarify though, I don’t mean “my very own term” in the usual quaint sense. I mean, its my own term because I registered Infophobia as a trademarked business name. Surely though, shameless plugging is not the reason I brought the term up.

Infophobia describes the cause for (my) anyone’s irrational compulsion to know as much as possible at all times through as many mediums as he/she can find, and despite one’s physical limitations. The term is used to describe the cause for why someone seeks sources of information and information itself, only compulsively.

So, now you know what I mean, when I say, Infophobia. But, does it really mean anything — does such an “illness” exist?

Yes, it does.

We know this kind of behavior/phenomena has occurred in the past, because today, we see the results of the typical symptoms. For instance, one can directly correlate the advancements of information technology with a progressive trend toward open syndication of information. That is, starting with the advent of the Internet, one can find countless examples, on and including, the World Wide Web, or, through the birth of the Open Source Software Community, later leading to Web 2.0 philosophies of free use and collaboration — where one observes the complete transformation of these venues into Infophobic platforms. Clearly, members of these social networks are compelled, through the fear of missing some bit of data, and are motivated to stay connected, in order to remain having a sense of relevance — this is the very nature of popular culture.

We can consider almost any amount of demand in almost any form, with the purpose of information syndication, a typical result of one, or any combination of Infophobic symptoms. This demand is driven by what we can call the Principle of Ideal Preference. Simply stated that is, that the majority of the embodiment of a demand will always tend to prefer ideal results.

The best, simplest example is the “market shopper.” As consumers in a market, the embodiment of the demand is the ideal purchase of ideal products. No one goes shopping with the preference of buying something less than ideal, or in a less than ideal way. Even if it were suggested someone wanted to purchase something already broken, or from some far away place — already broken, or far away are restrictive and define the criteria by which the consumer has entitled the item, or the process ideal.

This is not simply a case of curiosity not so easily dismissed, either. Infophobia is a more deeply rooted part of the human pathology. And, understanding Infophobia, the fear of informational uncertainty itself, or of an awareness that avenues of information are potentially being missed, is integral to understanding the mindset applied during the development of innovative concepts. These fears, worries, and/or concerns invoke thought processes which help to sure up errors found at design time.

Infophobia promotes many of our current, and especially are most effective, analytical, human behaviors. Beyond just analysis, it is this pathological process that motivates, and re-enforces what would otherwise be a fleeting curiosity, and cements these impulses into evolving, problem-solving behaviors.