Category: Uncategorized

As I mentioned in the previous article — in which I announced that I had a Symbolics XL1200 Lisp Machine for sale — I also have a number of my deadbeat ex-housemate’s books. After having held onto them for five years in the expectation that I would send them to him once he paid me back, I have decided to sell his books.

All of them, regardless of original price, are going for five bucks apiece. If you live in Toronto, come pick ’em up (I live in the High Park area). If you need them shipped to you, you’ll have to cover shipping. All are in decent to good condition, all with their covers intact.

Want one? Want ’em all? Contact me at joey@joeydevilla.com.

It’s going to take me a while to catalogue all the books for sale, so I’m going to do them in installments. Here’s the first installment: books on cryptography and information security.

The Cryptography and Information Security Books

Among the books is a set of silver-and-red paperbacks of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. This set features proceedings from various information security and cryptography conferences in 1999, suitable for citations in you upcoming dissertation:

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1560: Public Key Cryptography – Hideki Imai and Yulian Zheng (Eds.)

  Second International Workshop on Practice and Theory in Public Key Cryptography, PKC ’99, Kamakura, Japan, March 1999 – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1648: Financial Cryptography – Matthew Franklin (Ed.)

  Third Internation Conference, FC ’99, Anguilla, British West Indies, February 1999 – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1726: Information and Communication Security – Vijay Varadharajan and Yi Mu (Eds.)

  Second International Conference, ICICS ’99, Sydney, Australia, November 1999 – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1729: Information Security – Masahiro Mambo and Yulian Zheng (Eds.)

  Second International Workshop, ISW ’99, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 1999 – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1787: Information Security and Cryptology ICISC ’99 – JooSeok Song (Ed.)

  Second International Conference, Seoul, Korea, December 1999 – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

• Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1796: Security Protocols – Bruce Christianson et. al. (Eds.)

  7th International Workshop, Cambridge, UK, April 1999, – Proceedings [Paperback][Springer]

There are also the following security books:

Intrusion Signatures and Analysis by Stephen Northcutt, Mark Cooper, Matt Fearnow and Karen Frederick [Paperback][New Riders 2001]

Network Intrusion Detection: An Analyst’s Handbook, Second Edition by Stephen Northcutt and Judy Novak [Paperback][New Riders 2001]

Modelling and Analysis of Security Protocols by Peter Ryan and Steve Schneider [Paperback][Pearson 2001]

Information Security Management Handbook, 4th Edition (here’s the Amazon link for the 5th edition) by Harold F. Tipton and Micki Krause (Eds.) [Hardcover][Auerbach 2000]

Cryptography Theory and Practice [First Edition] (here’s the Amazon link for the 2nd edition) by Douglas R. Stinson [Hardcover][CRC 1995]

Rethinking Public Key Infrastructures and Digital Certificates: Building in Privacy by Stefan A. Brands [Hardcover][MIT Press 2000]

Cryptography in C and C++ [First Edition] (here’s the Amazon link to the second edition) by Michael Welschenbach [Paperback][Apress 2001]

As I said earlier, if you want to buy any of these, contact me!

In a previous post, I asked how you would respond to the following:

Are their [sic] any Godly uses for higher math?

I’ve come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra, geometry et.al., was that

it seemed to me that these were basically atheistic academic disciplines, useful for promoting evolution or

other Godless leftist sciences, but not with any obvious Christ-centered or positive, conservative uses.

If I’m wrong about this, I’d appreciate it if people could show me how this discipline can have Godly uses.

I also feel this could be useful in developing better ways of teaching higher mathematics

if such uses could be found.

The statements above are the sort of thing that we’ve come to expect from a certain portion of the

political right: less educated yokels, mistrustful of science or any sort of empirical analysis, preferring

to go with their gut and a literalist interpretation of the Bible.

For the comedy writer (or even a sarcastic blogger, such as Yours Truly), it’s a gold mine of

material.

And Now, a Twist…

However, the statements above were never made (hence the phrasing of my question).

Well, they were made, but I did a little search-and-replace

of some key words.

The actual statements, made by one Ken Burch, come from this thread on Babble,

the discussion forum for Rabble, a strongly left-leaning Canadian

political site.

Here’s the item as it really appears, with the words I changed highlighted:

Are their [sic] any progressive uses for higher math?

I’ve come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra, geometry et.al., was that

it seemed to me that these were basically reactionary academic disciplines, useful for

designing weaponry or potentially repressive computer technology, but

not with any obvious humanistic or social positive uses.

If I’m wrong about this, I’d appreciate it if people could show me how this discipline

can have progressive uses.

I also feel this could be useful in developing better ways of teaching higher mathematics

if such uses could be found.

Now how would you respond to the statements?

(My thanks to Colby Cosh, from whom I found out about the Babble thread.)

Update: After you finish with this article, be sure to read Part 2.

How would you answer this question?

Are their [sic] any Godly uses for higher math?

I’ve come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra, geometry et.al., was that it seemed to me that these were basically atheistic academic disciplines, useful for promoting evolution or other Godless leftist sciences, but not with any obvious Christ-centered or positive, conservative uses.

If I’m wrong about this, I’d appreciate it if people could show me how this discipline can have Godly uses.

I also feel this could be useful in developing better ways of teaching higher mathematics if such uses could be found.

Let me know how you’d answer such a question in the comments, and I’ll expand on this in a later post.

Here’s another job opportunity that’s opened up at Tucows: NOC Assistant. The details are in this post on the Tucows blog.

DemoCamp is Back!

After a little break for the holidays, we’re please to announce the return of DemoCamp with DemoCamp Toronto 12! It takes place on Monday, February 5th at No Regrets Restaurant and Lounge (42 Mowat Avenue, Toronto). The presentations start at 6:30 p.m. and run until about 8:30 p.m., after which the social part of the evening begins.

What is DemoCamp?

DemoCamp is an event in which the various players in the Toronto tech community — programmers, engineers, designers, managers, agile process people, entrepreneurs, marketers, promoters, journalists, students, tech enthusiasts and users of technology — to get together, show off their current projects, talk, exchange business plans and business cards and meet. The idea behind DemoCamp is to encourage local techies to share ideas and get to know each other, and as a result make our tech community more vibrant and prolific.

DemoCamp is essentially a high-tech “show and tell” session. It’s a chance for local techies to show off their latest projects, whether they’re complete or works in progress. Keep in mind that we don’t want marketing pitches or sales presentations; we want to see demonstrations of your technology at work! That’s why one big philosophy of DemoCamp has traditionally been “no slideware”.

At the start of their presentations, presenters must answer these questions:

1. Who are you?
2. What are you presenting?
3. What do you hope to the community will gain from your presentation today?
4. What would you like from the community in response to your presentation?

Another major philosophy of DemoCamp is “there are no spectators”. Just because you’re not presenting doesn’t means that you can’t play a role. We encourage people to ask the presneters questions and start conversations.

Who’s Presenting at This DemoCamp?

Here are this month’s presenters:

• Will Pate will talk about Flock, a Mac OS X-based web browser designed with social interaction in mind.
• Mike Beltzner will talk about how they do distributed development over at the Mozilla Project.
• Albert Lai will talk about Bubbleshare, which was recently acquired by Kaboose.
• There will also be a number of people who’ve presented at previous DemoCamps, and they’ll tell us about the current state of the projects they presented.

A Bit About the Venue

No Regrets is a great restaurant on the western edge of Liberty Village, the warehouse district south of King between Dufferin and Strachan streets. The space is nice, the staff are very friendly, and the food is great. I recommend the roasted red pepper soup, the sandwiches, their selection of draft beer and my current favourite, the smokehouse salad.

Come on Down!

If you want to see what the bright lights of the Toronto tech community are up to, or want to get involved in one of the most dynamic technology scenes anywhere, you don’t want to miss this events. Save the date: Monday, February 5th at 6:30 p.m..

If you’re looking for work and think you’d be up for managing two of Tucows’ biggest services — Hosted Email and Email Defense — come take a look at the Tucows Blog, where we’ve got the details of this job position.

The Tucows Squishy Cow certainly gets around! The latest sighting is on the cover of this week’s Quick and Simple magazine, a weekly produced by Good Housekeeping, where she’s used to illustrate the cover story, Goodbye Clutter!.

(Yes, I know that the Squishy Cows are manufactured by a company that sells them to companies other than Tucows, but I still think of the Squishy Cow as ours.)

For more Squishy Cow sightings, go check out Flickr; you’ll find them tagged with either squishycow or squishycows.