# $Id: MYTHOLOGY,v 1.2 1999/09/09 07:43:12 proff Exp $
# $Smallcopyright:$

Here is something to amuse, delight and horrify - the tail of:

       _ONE MAN'S SEARCH FOR A CRYPTOGRAPHIC MYTHOLOGY_

I recently wrote a VNODE (4.4bsd) based encrypted file-system. Now
the day dawned when I decided it was high time to discard my rather
egocentric working name _Proffs_ (i.e Proff File System) and cast
about for a decent, respectable name. My first thought on this
matter was:

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard
   the entrance -- against whom or what does not
   clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there,
   and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known
   to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited
   him with as many as a hundred.

Only, what was the relation between KERBEROS and CERBERUS? Pups
from the same litter, or was the relationship a little more
incestuous? I had to find out. There was no way - n o  w a y - I'd be
having my encrypted file system playing second fiddle to that evil
authentication beast.

KERBEROS; also spelled Cerberus.  n.  The watch dog of
   Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance--against
   whom or what does not clearly appear; . . . it is known
   to have had three heads. . .

Mythology couldn't get any more incestuous than that.

450,000 bytes of Greek polytheism later, and I'm wondering if the
Gods of Olympus really had any high-paid guards to speak of except
the multi-headed mongrel from Hades. I'm feeling down. I'm cursing
the Ancients. I'm disrespectfully humming tunes `All and All it's
Just Another Greek in the Wall', and `Athena be my Lover' when I
discover:

JANUS: in Roman mythology, custodian of the universe, god of
   beginnings. The guardian of gates and doors, he held
   sacred the first hour of the day, first day of the month, and
   first month of the year (which bears his name). He is represented
   with two bearded faces set back to back.

Custodian of the universe. Guardian of gates and doors. Cooool.
Janus.  January. I like it.  Only while I'm liking it, I'm thinking
that I've heard the word Janus a lot before. I'm thinking it isn't
just me who has looked up from the middle of a Greek mythology
text, whilst in the throes of a name hunt with the words "Cooool"
on their lips.  No: the Gods of Olympus just don't smile on me that way.
AltaVista confirms the truth of Heaven's bad attitude towards me.
17,423 references.  _The Janus Mutual Trade Fund_, _The Janus
Project_, _Janus ADA95_, a dozen ISPs from Canada (what is *with*
these Canadians?), _Janus' cool word list_ (turns out to be not so
cool), _The Janus Ensemble_, _Hotel Janus_, _Janus Theatre_,
_janus.com_, _janusfunds.com_, _Janus_ an Australian Police drama
series and of course, the sixth moon of Saturn - _Janus_. Janus is
out-of-the-picture. I'm not sure whether to feel smug or grim about
the rest of the world's lack of originality.

Guards. Guardians. The Greeks didn't have many with bite and I'm
loosing patience with the whole culture. Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and
Thalia do not grace me.  What I need is something that evokes
passion within my cryptographic domain. And when you come down to
it, that means something which produces copious amounts of gore
and blood, at will, from those who would dare to pass its demesne
of protection.

     The Erinyes, or Furies, were three goddesses who punished by
     their secret stings the crimes of those who escaped or defied
     public justice. The heads of the Furies were wreathed with
     serpents, and their whole appearance was terrific and appalling.
     Their names were Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.  They were
     also called Eumenides.

Aye. Plenty of gore there. But somewhat lacking in cryptographic
analogy.  Fantastic material for the group that doesn't meet at number
41 West Chester drv. every Saturday night though. They will
appreciate what the Erinyes were trying to achieve.

Somewhat heartened, my mind turns to the Erinyes' dress sense. "..heads
of the Furies were wreathed with serpents, and their whole appearance
was terrific and appalling". Terrific. Serpents.

Terrific \Ter*rif"ic\, a. [L. terrificus; fr. terrere: to frighten
   + facere: to make. See Terror, and Fact.] Causing
   terror; adapted to excite great fear or dread; terrible; as, a
   terrific form; a terrific sight.

Is it a symptom of society in decay that this word has come to mean:

Excellent \Ex"cel*lent\, a. [F. excellent, L. excellens, -entis,
   p. pr. of excellere. See Excel.] 1. Excelling;
   surpassing others in some good quality or the sum of qualities;
   of great worth; eminent, in a good sense; superior, as an
   excellent man, artist, citizen, husband, discourse, book, song,
   etc.; excellent breeding, principles, aims, action.

Or as Milton would say:

   To love . . . What I see excellent in good or fair.

On the other hand, David Hume (1711-1776):

   The more exquisite any good is, of which a small specimen is
   afforded us, the sharper is the evil, allied to it; and few
   exceptions are found to this uniform law of nature. The most
   sprightly wit borders on madness; the highest effusions of joy
   produce the deepest melancholy; the most ravishing pleasures
   are attended with the most cruel lassitude and disgust; the most
   flattering hopes make way for the severest disappointments. And,
   in general, no course of life has such safety (for happiness is
   not to be dreamed of) as the temperate and moderate, which
   maintains, as far as possible, a mediocrity, and a kind of
   insensibility, in every thing.

Perhaps it is the sign of a brain in decay, rather than a society that
I dwell on it at all, because Terrific hair serpents lead me
unfailingly into the arms of the Medusa. A guardian of fearsome looks,
but dubious motivations according to authorities like Clash of the
Titans (1981). But who cares, Princeton's history department no longer
wants to talk to me at all. I'm cast adrift, to rely on my Plasticine
childhood memories and the mythological swamp of the web.

   NAME: Medusa
   FAVORITE PASTIME: Turning men to stone
   PLACE OF ORIGIN: Los Alamos Secret CIA Lab
   SPECIAL GIFTS: Petrified Aggregate Projectist
   FAVORITE MOVIE: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
   GOALS IN LIFE: To be a nice person
   FAVORITE BOOK: Madonna's biography
   PET PEEVE: Bad hair days

Jesus. I've been sucked into comic book hell. Princeton, take me back.
I won't curse at the ancient Greek's sexual proclivities anymore. I'm
sure chaste marriages were very daunting to those yet to have them. I
was only joking. Lighten up will you?

The history faculty however was still licking its wounds, and was not
ready to forgive me. I'd have to find an authoritative source
somewhere else. Perhaps I could filter out the comic book hell
contaminants and come up with respected history Ivy, even if it wasn't
Princeton Ivy.

   To decapitate - to castrate. The terror of the Medusa is thus
   a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something.
   The hair upon the Medusa's head is frequently represented in
   works of art in the form of snakes, and these once again are
   derived from the castration complex. It is a remarkable fact
   that however frightening they may be in themselves, they
   nevertheless serve as a mitigation of the horror, for they
   replace the penis, the absence of which is the cause of the
   horror. This is a confirmation of the technical rule according
   to which a multiplication of penis symbols signifies castration.

   Sigmund Freud
   The Medusa's Head

You had to hand it to Sigmund. He was nothing if not authoritative,
and after reading his inspiring words on the terrific serpent haired
woman, it became clear to me that _Proffs_ and the Gorgon had somewhat
unresolved metaphorical incompatibilities. I didn't want my software
giving anyone a castration complex.

I felt it was incumbent upon me to put aside the denizens of Olympus
from contest verbatim.  I'd read Freud on Perversions a few years
before and knew Medusa was just a portent of what was to come.  What I
needed was another polytheist culture entirely.  Latin didn't help
me. Nearly all the Roman Gods had been vilely plagiarised from the
Greeks, Latin names or not.  Freud knew this as well as I did.  The
Norse gods were of little assistance to me.  The only one worth paying
school to was Loki, the Norse god of mischief. Loki was a very cool
dude, which was why his name has been appropriated as a moniker by
virtually every Bjorn, Sven, and Bob hacker to come out of Scandinavia
in the last 10 years. No, Loki was not for me.

The problem craved for a polytheist mythology outside the realm of my,
and more importantly Sigmund Freud's, Western European upbringing.
The answer to my question was by definition locked within a body of
history I didn't know an onion skin about. In order for the pilgrim to
reach the master he must first place his foot on the path, no matter
how gradual the slope to the mountain of enlightenment. Zen Buddhism
is good like that. Fabricating parables as you go along that is.

   Zen master Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a
   question about Zen. A young novice began to imitate
   him in this way. When Gutei was told about the novice's imitation,
   he sent for him and asked him if it were true. The novice admitted
   it was so. Gutei asked him if he understood. In reply the novice
   held up his index finger. Gutei promptly cut it off.  The novice
   ran from the room, howling in pain. As he reached the threshold,
   Gutei called, "Boy!". When the novice returned, Gutei raised
   his index finger. At that instant the novice was enlightened.

But wait. This Koan isn't fabricated. At least, not by me. And unlike
most Zen Koan's I think you will agree that it pleasantly satisfies
Schopenhauer's "life, without pain, has no meaning".  However,
semantically I'm seeing a very unhealthy correlation to forgetting
one's encryption key and losing one's finger.

My mind is drawn to the memory of the real-life nightmare of laying in
the easy-chair of a Swanston St. hypnotherapist suite, gazing intently
into a bright, but distant red light, while chanting the mantra "I am
not cynical about hypnotherapy. I am not cynical about hypnotherapy.
I am not cynical about an Indian doctor with a 5th floor office
decorated coup'd'Edelstien. I'm not cynical about a man who claims
that his foremost clientele are rich middle aged women who have put
their jewellery somewhere "safe" and consequently are unable to recall
the location.  I'm not cynical about a hypnotist who extols the
virtues of having a M.D. so his patients can claim 2/3rds of the cost
of these jewellery retrieval sessions under Medicare. I do not have a
cynical belief that these middle aged women are in-fact suffering from
some form of Mesmer complex.  And by all the powers in Heaven, I have
no pessimism about recalling my god-damned pass-phrase!".

I never did remember the pass-phrase and you will notice Gutei keeps
very quiet about what he does with the novice's finger.  The data I
was trying to retrieve from ye old neural net was, let us say, the
location of the key to every chasty belt in the world, and I would
have traded placed with Gutei's novice, before you could say "Boy!
Was I enlightened".

I put my chin on my knee, and looked for flaws in the soft grain of my
beige plastic monitor casing. Unless I could jump into another reality
it was the end of the line for _Proffs_ and _One Man's Search for a
Cryptographic Mythology_. Boy! Was I bummed.

One of the great sins of programmers is procedural thinking.  And it
was exactly this sort of folly I was engaging in. There were around 6
billion other realities going about their business. I grant you that 2
billion of these were no doubt indulging in the confusion and
diffusion of an avalanche of pseudo-random mental images and sequences
we associate with dreams, and probably another 2 billion busy
expanding their minds with the powerful products of hash or decaying
into a compressive state of increasing entropy and liquor rounds. This
still left a select 2 billion souls with which to weave my work.  If I
approached them directly rather than by analysing the information
trails they left behind, I'd stand a good chance of getting my feet
onto the path of cryptographic mythological enlightenment.

I have a Swedish friend who calls himself Elk on odd days and Godflesh
on even days. Don't ask why. As far as I know he's not bisexual.
Being a man with a foot in multiples worlds he seemed like a good
place to start. Elk listened to my quest for cryptographic myth. He
pondered, and uncovered a diamond in the rough. MARUTUKKU.

  The third name is MARUTUKKU, Master of the arts of protection,
  chained the Mad God at the Battle. Sealed the Ancient Ones in
  their Caves, behind the Gates.

F a r  o u t. Master of the arts of protection. Chained the Mad
God.  Sealed the Ancient Ones in their Caves. Behind the Gates.
Even the very word MARUTUKKU looks like it has been run through a
product cipher.

But I wasn't about to trust the work of a self-admitted Swedish
Sumeria freak who was obviously suffering from a bi-polar moniker
disorder. Was it mere coincidence that MARUTUKKU was an anagram for U
KUKU MART and U KUKU TRAM? I didn't want MARUTUKKU to end up as
another cog in the annals of Freudian analogy. What I needed was the
sort of Authoritative History that only Princeton's history faculty
could provide. The tablets of the Enuma Elish:

  The Akkadian Creation Epic

   Based on the translation of E. A. Speiser, with the additions
   by A. K. Grayson, Ancient Near-Eastern Texts Relating to the
   Old Testament, third edition, edited by James Pritchard (Princeton,
   1969), pp. 60-72; 501-503, with minor modifications.

   This work, the ancient Mesopotamian creation epic consisting of
   seven tablets, tells of the struggle between cosmic order and
   chaos. It is named after its opening words. It was recited on
   the fourth day of the ancient Babylonian New Year's festival.
   The text probably dates from the Old Babylonian period, i.e.,
   the early part of the second millennium B.C.E.

[...]

   The third name is MARUTUKKU  Master of the arts of protection,
   chained the Mad God at the Battle. Sealed the Ancient Ones in
   their Caves, behind the Gates.

[...]

   MARUTUKKU truly is the refuge of his land, city, and people.
   Unto him shall the people give praise forever.

All praise the MARUTUKKU! My search had born a ripe and tasty fruit
indeed. The quest for a cryptographic mythology was complete. Or was
it? The words of Hume kept coming back to me and I had a nagging
feeling that there was some substance in them.

If MARUTUKKU was my exquisite cryptographic good, of wit, effusive
joy, ravishing pleasure and flattering hope; then where was the
counter point? The figure to its ground - the sharper evil, the
madness, the melancholy, the most cruel lassitudes, disgusts and the
severest disappointments. Was Hume right? Because if he was, there was
only one organisation this string of hellish adjectives could
represent. The cryptographic devil with its 500,000 sq feet of office
space in Maryland. But surely there could be no reference to such an
organisation in the 4,000 year old Babylonian tablets.  The idea was
preposterous. Wasn't it?

TABLET VII OF THE ENUMA ELISH:

ESIZKUR shall sit aloft in the house of prayer;
   May the gods bring their presents before him, that from
   him they may receive their assignments; none can without
   him create artful works.  Four black-headed ones are
   among his creatures; aside from him no god knows the
   answer as to their days.

It's a cold and wintry night, here in Melbourne and the gusts of wind
and rain seem to be unusually chilling. What had I, in my search for a
cryptographic mythology, stumbled onto?

I look hard at the seven letters E-S-I-Z-K-U-R. A frown turns to
a smile and then a dead pan stare. I write down:

			  IRK ZEUS

--
Prof. Julian Assange  |If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people
		      |together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks
proff@iq.org          |and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless
proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu  |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "James R. Watson II" <jamesworld@intelligencia.com>
Subject: Re: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 15:42:19 -0500

Yes but Babylon was destroyed.  Why not Gabriel.  God's Archangel of Might.
He has never withstood a defeat.

James

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 09:50:41 -0500 (CDT)

What about the bloke who carried the souls of the dead accross the styx?

Damn, I forgot his name.

Or the styx itself?

Dante used Minos as a gatekeeper, I think.

Larry Niven certainly did.

Actually, Larry Niven's retelling of the Inferno contains all sorts of cool
source material.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: woods@most.weird.com (Greg A. Woods)
Subject: Re: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 11:40:58 -0400 (EDT)

[ On Wed, June 4, 1997 at 02:03:43 (+1000), proff@suburbia.net wrote: ]
> Subject: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology
>
> Here is something to amuse, delight and horrify - the tail of:
> 
>        _One Man's Search for a Cryptographic Mythology_.

Awsome!  Thanks very much for sharing that work of art!  It was indeed
enlightening and amusing!

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sebastian Dols" <sdols@adv.es>
Subject: Re: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 16:45:10 +0000

About mythology... If  I am not in a mistake, Gryphos  are the 
creatures, with eagle head and wings and with lion body , in charge 
of keeping the treasures hidden.

Maybe your pet could be this 8D.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 14:27:15 -0600

proff@suburbia.net wrote: 
>        _One Man's Search for a Cryptographic Mythology_.

  I enjoyed your recounting of your divine/sublime search.
If you ever desire to search through the "post-ancient rites
of the Computer Age" then check out the works below.
-- 
Toto
"The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/
"WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs"
http://bureau42.base.org/public/webworld
"The Final Frontier"
http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/carljohn/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alan Thew <Alan.Thew@liverpool.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BoS: Cryptographic Mythology 
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 19:40:49 +0100 (BST)

I actually read it all. Wonderful stuff!

--
Alan Thew                                       alan.thew@liverpool.ac.uk
Computing Services,University of Liverpool      Fax: +44 151 794-4442

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Doug Hughes <Doug.Hughes@Eng.Auburn.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology 
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 09:02:38 -0500


Great yarn!

Had you considered Charon? guardian of the underworld? Sailor of the 
river Styx? (One could make an interesting analogy between the underworld
and cryptography..)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Pomes <ppomes@Qualcomm.com>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology 
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 10:18:11 -0700

What a piece of work!  Excellent and educated; thanks for sharing that
with the list.

/pbp


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology 
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 12:53:23 -0400


proff@suburbia.net writes:
> 
> Here is something to amuse, delight and horrify - the tail of:
> 
>        _One Man's Search for a Cryptographic Mythology_.
> 
> I recently wrote a VNODE (4.4bsd) based encrypted file-system. Now
> the day dawned when I decided it was high time to discard my rather
> egocentric working name _Proffs_ (i.e Proff File System) and cast
> about for a decent, respectable name. My first thought on this
> matter was:

The rest of this was highly amusing.

I was wondering, though, if your VNODE encrypting file system was
available to the public. :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Kwiat <kwiat@gov.yk.ca>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
cc: firewalls@greatcircle.com
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 09:19:23 -0400 (EDT)


On Wed, 4 Jun 1997 02:03:43 +1000 (EST) proff@suburbia.net wrote:

> Guards. Guardians. The Greeks didn't have many with bite 
and I'm.....> loosing patience with the whole culture.

...Have you considered Mahakala? -Tibetan Buddhist guardian 
of the Dharmas (natural laws, phil. incl. physics) It 
chains into the whole Hindu pantheon, but it makes an 
entertaining stop in Tibet in the 800's to engage the 
services of the local Bon religious security deities. They 
have interesting methods, having had their experiences with 
the Mongols etc. The chaotic aspect is particularly 
appealing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Mr. Man" <Satan@DeMoNiCuS.com>
Subject: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 11:19:01 -0400

Prof.,

Absolutely brilliant.  I enjoyed your "story" immensely.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andrew Purshottam <woutput@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@suburbia.net
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 14:32:24 -0700

Speaking of guardian deitites, I believe the aboriginal Australian peoples have 
a guardian of the afterlife, named "Timara" who appears as a stick figure
with outstretched arms in some cave paintings. This is a vague memory 
from a CD box for aboriginal music.

Andy

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Richard Schroeppel" <rcs@cs.arizona.edu>
Subject: Kerberos & Cryptographic Mythology
To: proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 10:03:37 MST

This is probably known only to alumni, but MIT students
all agree that "Tech is Hell".  Kerberos was used to
protect the MIT campus network workstations.

Rich Schroeppel   rcs@cs.arizoan.edu  (and MIT '68)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stan Kelly Bootle <skb@crl.com>
Subject: RE-Cryptographic Mythology
To: Julian Assange <proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Cc: Jim Carroll <PJCARROL@ca.oracle.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 20:38:54 -0700 (PDT)

Julian: Jim Carroll passed on yr delightful adventures
in classical onomastics -- it's a theme I've discussed
several times in my UNIX Review column, exploiting mainly
the Greek and Roman pantheons. Your pursuit of the
Akkadians is most commendable -- may I quote you on
MARUTUKKU and ESIZKUR? I plan to challenge my readers to
expand these into credible, retro-acronyms* -- or perhaps you
have already tackled this? BTW Cerberus is just the Latin
transliteration of the Greek Kerberos -- the latter is
preferred, I think, because it removes any ambiguity re-
pronunciation -- if the kappa fits, wear it. Pluto placed his
bad dog at the entrance of Hades to keep the dead IN and the living
OUT! The archetypical corporate firewall?
However, to borrow from the current security vocab, this arrangement
had several _vulnerabilities_: many heroes diverted Kerberos
by shoving cake in its 50 mouths (according to Hesiod);
Orpheus** lulled it with his lyre; and Hercules just clubbed
the shit out of it. Hints to beat the eponymous firewall?
PAX etc., Stan Kelly-Bootle
Contributing Editor: UNIX Review; Object Magazine (starting Jun'97)
Contributor: Software Development Magazine
skb@crl.com; http://www.crl.com/~skb
* See entries @ acronym; retronym; onomancy: _The Computer
Contradictionary_, Stan Kelly-Bootle (MIT Press, 1995)
** Yes, there's an ORPHEUS package (Open Resort-Property Heuristic
Engagement and Utilization System) coined by Steve Yancey.
PS: Janus is taboo, of course, being the "Guardian of Gates."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steen Hansen <steen@dds.dent.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Mythologic security guards
To: proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Cc: steen@dds.dent.ohio-state.edu
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 8:06:59 EDT


Hello,

I read in Unix Review that you are looking for mythologic guards for your
encrypted file system.

In the nordic mythology, there is Heimdal, the watchman for the rainbow
bridge (Rimfaxe), that leads to "Asgaard" the homestead of the gods. Heimdal
had a sight so sharp he could see to the end of the world, and his hearing
could hear grass grow!


Steen

--
Steen Hansen Hviid, CCP                E-mail: hansen+@osu.edu
Systems & LAN Administrator      Dentistry: We/Fr    792-1915
University Technology Services   Stores:    Mo/Tu/Th 292-2501
The Ohio State University

The traveler sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see.
  --Gilbert K. Chesterton

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steen Hansen <steen@dds.dent.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: SV: Mythologic security guards (fwd)
To: proff@iq.org
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 13:13:02 EDT


I remembered the name of the rainbowbridge wrong. It was called 
Bifrost!

The following is taken from  

http://www.luth.se/luth/present/sweden/history/gods/Old_norse_myth.html


>At Urdawell which is guarded by the three fates the gods have their
conferences each day. They ride daily over the bridge Bifrost, a
bridge which shimmers in all the colours of the rainbow and is
watched by the god Heimdal (also called Rig), nine mothers and nine
sisters son and beholder of Gjallarhornet which is nordic tales last
trump . Heimdal sleeps lighter than the bird, sees one hundred
traveldays in each direction from his castle Himinbjorg and has
such sharp hearing that he can hear the grass and the wool grow.


--
Steen Hansen, CCP                E-mail: hansen+@osu.edu
Systems & LAN Administrator      Dentistry: We/Fr    792-1915
University Technology Services   Stores:    Mo/Tu/Th 292-2501
The Ohio State University

The traveler sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see.
  --Gilbert K. Chesterton

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Philippe Regnauld <regnauld@deepo.prosa.dk>
Subject: Acronym for MARUTUKKU
To: Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 13:10:38 +0100

Playing around with an acronym generator, and fiddling the output (time for
lunch):

M angled 
A ccess 
R eturned
U nto 
T respassers 
U nheeding
K rypto 
K ey 
U nity


-- 
 -[ Philippe Regnauld / sysadmin / regnauld@deepo.prosa.dk / +55.4N +11.3E ]-
  "Pluto placed his bad dog at the entrance of Hades to keep the dead IN and
   the living OUT! The archetypical corporate firewall?"
   -- Stan Kelly Bootle, about Cerberus ["MYTHOLOGY", in Marutukku distrib]
