Response to Hurricane Katrina If you're here because you followed a search engine link to http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/computers/results.full.txt or http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/computers/results.txt, try http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/computers/antispam.html instead.

Computer Interests of Allen Smith

I have been involved with computers since the age of 12 or so, when (due to my bad handwriting, caused by brain damage at birth) my parents gave me my first computer, an Apple II+. I am glad that I started out with a text-based computer, since I find that my brain and GUIs (Graphic User Interfaces) such as Micro$oft Windoze and Macs do not get along, and moreover I have observed that such tend to promote a lack of knowledge of the real workings of computers. About the only GUI that I can get along with (that I have found) is X Windows, which I use on the Silicon Graphics (SGI) computers in this computer lab. (This cerebral incompatibility with most GUIs is probably at least partially a consequence of the brain damage I mention above, which has also resulted in other handicaps like Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) - originally Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), when I was younger.)

I was involved with BBSes in my teens, and when I went to college (at Earlham in Richmond, Indiana), became heavily involved with USENET (newsgroups) there. (Try a Google search for the username "allens" and hostnames "earlham.edu" and "yang.earlham.edu" for a small fraction of my USENET writings from my younger days. Some of my views have changed since then; some haven't.) This was not via the Internet, but via BITNET; I accessed it through a VAX running VMS.

Here at Rutgers, and prior to that in my research with my father, I have become involved in the use of computers for scientific research. My own research will be a mixture of computer and "wet" lab work. Some of my work in helping set up and administer/maintain the Molecular Modeling (Computer) Laboratory here (the guy in the picture isn't me, BTW, but Rob Muldowney, the current lead admin) has been as a part of this and in preparation for this. Other portions, such as writing the software that takes class rosters (e.g., for the Homology Modeling Course), have been because I support the other scientific and educational activity that takes place with this laboratory, and is planned here for the future (plus that, as a result, I have root privileges on these systems...). (This part of what I have done is not actually an aspect of my being a TA employed by Rutgers University, or for that matter a Graduate Student at Rutgers University. As one consequence of this, as with these pages, I retain copyright on all products of said work.) Also see the main page on this server at http://cesario.rutgers.edu for more information on this computer laboratory.

Among my (self-imposed) tasks on these computers is that of maintaining their email capabilities (I am the local postmaster). As a part of this, I have to deal with spam (UBE - Unsolicited Bulk Email). (Dealing with spam coming to me personally is also a growing burden that I am trying to reduce as well as I can, so as to free up my time for more productive activities.) As well as this task, I have an emotional involvement with spamfighting. I was on USENET, and on email lists, prior to the introduction of (significant levels of) spamming. (This was, at least to any significant degree, with Serdar Argic (aka Ahmet Cosar, and possibly Hasan Multu), who was spamming not for a commercial purpose - one reason why I reject the UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) label for spam, as well as freedom of speech/press concerns with distinguishing spam by content instead of consent - but for a political one. He posted vast quantities of material claiming Armenian massacres of the Turks in 1914-1918. Given his behavior, nobody was particularly surprised to do a bit of fact-checking and find that this is about as inaccurate as claiming massacres of Germans by Jews during WWII (see Nizkor for more on this topic) - the massacres were by the Turks of the Armenians. That Turkey is still attempting to deny this causes me to have more worries about the future of Turkey than I might otherwise have... See:

for more information on this topic.) I remember the good that was there (as well as the flamewars et al); I remember the potential, and hate spammers for harming it as much as they have. See my antispam page(s) for more resources on this topic.

I am also the main person in charge of security for these computers, and am somewhat involved in computer virus security for the department (due to that SGIs are effectively immune to worms targeted at PCs and Macs, and I can thus often spot them when everyone else is getting infected). Some interesting events have come out of this (see VMyths.com for more background on that one), especially in combination with my political views. Other involvements of computer security - and, more generally, the interest that I have in protecting the Internet against problems such as spam, irresponsibility, etcetera, without governmental intervention - with my political views include:

cryptography
anonymnity, pseudonymnity, and other topics in online privacy
the cypherpunks (I was on the cypherpunk mailing list for some time, including posting while it was being monitored by the FBI et al)
The disruptions of security research, including academic research, caused by the DMCA (e.g., the Felten case, the IEEE censorship (now fortunately retracted), and many others; see http://www.digitalspeech.org for some further discussion of the DMCA, Hollings' CBDTPA nonsense, etcetera).
usage of the DMCA by Scientology to try to silence its critics (note that Scientology has a long history of attacking free speech online, and that, unlike many of Scientology's critics (e.g., some Christians in Europe and Russia), I have no particular religious antipathy toward new religions.
The German National Railroad (Deutche Bahn) suing search engines to try to force them to remove links to material regarding sabotage methods. I don't approve of train sabotage against trains carrying nuclear waste, as has happened in Germany (committed by anti-nuclear protesters there) but limiting freedom of speech/press is not how to stop it. (I personally favor warning possible saboteurs (including those attempting to physically block the train) that they will be shot if they get close enough to cause problems - automatic weapons are very useful against rioters - and that the train will not stop if it's about to run over one of them. The recent death of a protester due to being stupid enough to lie down on the train tracks should be considered suicide.) I note with pleasure that, just as with prior censorship attempts by Germany (such as vs neo-Nazis, whom I have no more agreement with than I do with anti-technology types such as many anti-nuclear-energy protesters), mirrors already have sprung up (see http://sio.midco.net/puntr3, http://contracabal.org, and/or http://vicric.com/trummel for another such instance, or http://www.justicefiles2.org for yet another (I agree with the second case, BTW, given that those wishing to suppress speech on supposed privacy grounds are the same people - law enforcement et al - who wish to deprive the rest of us of our privacy)).
The University of California at San Diego's administrators are forcing student groups to censor what pages they link to in the name of the so-called "anti-terrorism" USA "PATRIOT" act; see:
- http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-959544.html
- http://checafe.ucsd.edu/ratcliff-1.html
The link in question is to the FARC, a group whose ideology I most definitely don't support (neither do I support the general ideology of the student groups in question) - but that does not mean I support limiting freedom of speech/press as a way of attacking them. (If the US government really wanted to do something about the FARC et al, they'd legalize drugs, depriving them of a major source of revenue. Of course, that would also deprive law enforcement agencies and their employees of a major source of revenue...)
Cyberwarfare (aka information warfare), which is a thoroughly pragmatic reason why increased governmental involvement (including not only by China et al but Germany and the US) in the Internet's management is a rather bad idea. In regard to ICANN, my antispam pages discuss this further.

and related areas such as true randomness usable for cryptographic security. (IRIX unfortunately lacks a satisfactory /dev/random from which one can get (effectively) true random numbers. Substitutes such as EGD are, as yet, not as reliable, secure under unusual circumstances, etcetera as is needed. I have done some work on EGD, but have had the problem of memory leaks in Perl; I may work on it again sometime, since I've upgraded our version of Perl to one with less leak problems.)

My main computer language, as implied by the above, is Perl. (I am on CPAN as ALLENS, BTW.) I am much more of a verbal person than a mathematical or spatial one, so I get along a lot better with it than I do with C (still less horrors like Fortran, which some biochemists like my dissertation advisor still use for some masochistic reason - yes, I'm teasing him with this reference...). I also don't get along with the forced (and inefficient) object orientation in languages like C++ and Java. I have a couple of modules on CPAN, and quite a number of other Perl modules that I have not yet submitted (mainly due to lack of time, although the lack of a standard Perl Taint module also doesn't help for some of them). Most of my available Perl work, other than the CPAN modules, can be located on my antispam page(s) - one exception, which is linked to both my research and my antispam work, can be found at Digest-Nilsimsa-0.07.tar.gz, a proposed revised version of the Digest::Nilsimsa Perl module.

Other computer resource links are below. Note that I do not necessarily agree with all - or even almost all - of the viewpoints of the below-listed pages/organizations/people, nor do I necessarily think that all the programs linked to by the below are great programs in and of themselves (although, if the program in question is why the below link exists, I at least think it's useful for something).

This is viewable in Any Browser.

Page written by Allen Smith (send mail to meatcan2@beatrice.rutgers.edu, substituting easmith for meatcan2 - see my antispam page(s) for why).

I am not responsible for any pages linked from these, except for those that I have written. Neither is the Structural Biology Computational Laboratory, the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Cook College, Rutgers University responsible for (or have any copyright on) pages that I have written. My webpages are not official Rutgers webpages.