I have decided to begin re-watching the entire original (seasons 1-9) run of The X-Files.
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@occult That's remarkable they bothered to do that correctly. Nice to see it!
@ai6yr I feel like these details were lost in the original broadcast run, merely due to the fact that in 1995 you generally couldn’t fact-check a show in real time while watching it. So for them to have paid so much attention to detail at the time is impressive and appreciated.
I’m sure if I checked back in the archives of the X-Files newsgroups, someone noticed.
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From “End Game” (S2E17), Mulder uses a handheld GPS. It looks to be a Magellan brand unit. Consumer GPS was still very rare in 1995, and selective availability was still in effect, so GPS accuracy was still ~100 meters.
The display shows real coordinates which actually plots to the Beaufort Sea which is exactly where the episode takes place.
Something I never would have picked up on before, the date displayed “03Feb95” seems to be the original air date.
@occult there were codes in those domestic GPS that, instead my model, were not unlike Street Fighter.
It unlocked the precision mode.
A friend of mine at work and I were pitching street map GPS to the fortune 500 company we worked for to do mapping for cars.
The business team said there was no market for GPS in cars.
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@occult there were codes in those domestic GPS that, instead my model, were not unlike Street Fighter.
It unlocked the precision mode.
A friend of mine at work and I were pitching street map GPS to the fortune 500 company we worked for to do mapping for cars.
The business team said there was no market for GPS in cars.
@knowprose I’m unfamiliar with how selective availability worked. I always assumed it was done at the transmission side. I should probably read the Wikipedia article on this. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on how GPS works and the engineering behind it; of course it’s all fascinating. I’ve never looked into how SA was implemented.
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@ai6yr I know, right? Some good attention to detail in this show. I’ve watched the entire original run a few times over 30 years, but I’ve been picking up on new details this time around. I actually have easy access to the internet to confirm while watching.
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@knowprose I’m unfamiliar with how selective availability worked. I always assumed it was done at the transmission side. I should probably read the Wikipedia article on this. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole on how GPS works and the engineering behind it; of course it’s all fascinating. I’ve never looked into how SA was implemented.
@occult in at least the early civilian devices, the calc and plotting was done on the device. All the trig right there.
So to service the domestic market required them to decrease accuracy. So they set it as the default in domestic devices.
That kept the government happy and the shareholders happy. And we who figured it out, we were exceedingly happy.
Lots of happy people.
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From “End Game” (S2E17), Mulder uses a handheld GPS. It looks to be a Magellan brand unit. Consumer GPS was still very rare in 1995, and selective availability was still in effect, so GPS accuracy was still ~100 meters.
The display shows real coordinates which actually plots to the Beaufort Sea which is exactly where the episode takes place.
Something I never would have picked up on before, the date displayed “03Feb95” seems to be the original air date.
A reference to the Clipper Chip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) in “Memento Mori" (S4E14) from 1997.
The history of the Clipper Chip project is a fascinating story about the politics and history around strong #cryptography, #surveillance, and #privacy in the early 90s.
See the writing on this topic by @mattblaze (https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/escrow-acsac11.pdf) and @matthew_d_green (https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/07/20/a-history-of-backdoors/).
It is worth studying and for those who did not live through it.
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A reference to the Clipper Chip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) in “Memento Mori" (S4E14) from 1997.
The history of the Clipper Chip project is a fascinating story about the politics and history around strong #cryptography, #surveillance, and #privacy in the early 90s.
See the writing on this topic by @mattblaze (https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/escrow-acsac11.pdf) and @matthew_d_green (https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/07/20/a-history-of-backdoors/).
It is worth studying and for those who did not live through it.
While reading about this subject, remember to look at it through the lens of everything going on today with modern mass surveillance, and recent legal cases around E2EE messaging.
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A reference to the Clipper Chip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) in “Memento Mori" (S4E14) from 1997.
The history of the Clipper Chip project is a fascinating story about the politics and history around strong #cryptography, #surveillance, and #privacy in the early 90s.
See the writing on this topic by @mattblaze (https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/escrow-acsac11.pdf) and @matthew_d_green (https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/07/20/a-history-of-backdoors/).
It is worth studying and for those who did not live through it.
“Killswitch” (S5E11) makes another cryptography reference with a mention of 64-bit encryption. Taking place in 1998, this would be referring to DES, and that same year, the EFF built Deep Crack that could break DES in 56 hours. #TheXFiles
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“Killswitch” (S5E11) makes another cryptography reference with a mention of 64-bit encryption. Taking place in 1998, this would be referring to DES, and that same year, the EFF built Deep Crack that could break DES in 56 hours. #TheXFiles
This episode also features a hacker working on a clearly self-maintained and repaired laptop held together with duct tape.
This guy obviously adheres to #permacomputing principles and more than likely runs #Plan9.
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This episode also features a hacker working on a clearly self-maintained and repaired laptop held together with duct tape.
This guy obviously adheres to #permacomputing principles and more than likely runs #Plan9.
@occult I mean… given where the hardware market is going, I think a lot more people will discover permacomputing soon (if not entirely on their own volition…)
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A reference to the Clipper Chip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) in “Memento Mori" (S4E14) from 1997.
The history of the Clipper Chip project is a fascinating story about the politics and history around strong #cryptography, #surveillance, and #privacy in the early 90s.
See the writing on this topic by @mattblaze (https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/escrow-acsac11.pdf) and @matthew_d_green (https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/07/20/a-history-of-backdoors/).
It is worth studying and for those who did not live through it.
@occult @mattblaze @matthew_d_green wow (ok didnt really read this post nor hear the audio but) my eyes can .. i can feel the tearing in that CRT's refresh rate ... and it's oddly comforting
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In an alternate universe, deep in a datacenter, Scully takes control of the situation and orders Mulder to kill the AI.
“Ghost in the Machine” (S1E7).
@occult the third person in the room (no idea what their name is), at one point, looks from right to left and then a few seconds later, looks back in a robotic way that almost seems like the tape was reversed. Having never seen this episode, my guess is that he's the actual AI and not the CRT TV with all the words on it.
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This episode also features a hacker working on a clearly self-maintained and repaired laptop held together with duct tape.
This guy obviously adheres to #permacomputing principles and more than likely runs #Plan9.
I guess I missed that time The X-Files had an episode in Vegas where the Lone Gunmen attended a conference called DEFCON.
@thedarktangent, did you know about this at the time? The funny thing is in the episode (S6E20), it was a defense contractor conference and they were not playing “spot the Fed”.
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I guess I missed that time The X-Files had an episode in Vegas where the Lone Gunmen attended a conference called DEFCON.
@thedarktangent, did you know about this at the time? The funny thing is in the episode (S6E20), it was a defense contractor conference and they were not playing “spot the Fed”.
@occult One of the tables they stop at was modeled after Uncle Ira’s Fun Farm of Death (MECO) so it was really cool to see.
The latest incarnation was the last Bourne movie held in Vegas with a lot of familiar imagery.
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I guess I missed that time The X-Files had an episode in Vegas where the Lone Gunmen attended a conference called DEFCON.
@thedarktangent, did you know about this at the time? The funny thing is in the episode (S6E20), it was a defense contractor conference and they were not playing “spot the Fed”.
@occult @thedarktangent DEF-CON 99
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