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[return to "Kevin Mitnick has died"]
1. ChuckM+Jd[view] [source] 2023-07-20 01:56:07
>>thirty+(OP)
I was not aware he was ill. Always sad to hear people that are taken by cancer.

I didn't know Kevin, but am friends with Tsutomu Shimomura who worked with authorities to get him arrested. Tsutomu worked with me a bit when I was at Sun trying to get a cryptographically secure subsystem into the base system specification. It was fun to listen to his side of this story.

The 80's was a really weird time for computer enthusiasts, and it was the period of time when what was then considered the "hacker" community schismed into what today we might call "white hat" vs "black hat" hackers.

As a person who considered themselves to be part of that community I was personally offended by how the story of Kevin painted everyone who thought of themselves as a "hacker" as a criminal. It made for good story telling to make these folks "pirate" or perhaps more accurately "privateer" types in their swashbuckling ways of sticking it to the man. People would say, "Exposing security holes is like solving puzzles (which is fun) and important because if I don't do it, well somebody 'bad' will." And while I'm here, why not make it hurt for them a little bit to incentivize them to fix this problem quickly!"

I didn't disagree with the importance of pointing out security problems, but the flamboyant way it was done scared the crap out of people who were both clueless and in a position to do stupid things. As a result we got the CFAA and the DMCA which are both some of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation after the so called "patriot" act.

The damage that did to curious people growing up lost the US a significant fraction of their upcoming "innovation" talent. While not diminishing the folks who leaned in to the illegality of it.

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2. mcv+fR[view] [source] 2023-07-20 09:42:29
>>ChuckM+Jd
> I was not aware he was ill. Always sad to hear people that are taken by cancer.

It was pancreatic cancer, which is the deadliest cancer. It kills very quickly and as far as I know, it's impossible to cure.

It killed my mom: 3 months between diagnosis and death. She didn't want treatment because it couldn't save her; it would only postpone the inevitable and she didn't want to spend the rest of her days in hospitals.

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3. puzzli+Td1[view] [source] 2023-07-20 13:06:17
>>mcv+fR
Note that it really depends on the type of the pancreatic cancer. While pancreatic adenocarcinomas are some of the worst cancers out there (overall 5y survival of 8%), others like pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours have a fairly good prognosis. Famously, Steve Jobs sought alternative medicine solutions to the latter, which was probably misguided.
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4. samsta+or1[view] [source] 2023-07-20 14:11:36
>>puzzli+Td1
I come from a long line of clinical/medical folks in my family - and me on the tech side of medicine...

That said the following is me talking out my ass, but I have followed a very few number of pancreatic cases - jobs being one... and there is one anecdotal that I would hope people closer to such cases can chime into ; how much wine did these people drink (jobs was a prolific wine drinker)

Im wondering if sulfates from wine are a major player.

https://www.distractify.com/p/patrick-swayze-alcoholic

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5. 2devnu+5w1[view] [source] 2023-07-20 14:30:18
>>samsta+or1
If they were a major player it wouldn’t be so subtle, it would be an industry wide problem. Alcohol causes pancreatic cancer for sure, but sulfites specifically? I’d beed a lot of evidence to believe that.
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6. samsta+Sy1[view] [source] 2023-07-20 14:41:16
>>2devnu+5w1
Sure, but that shouldnt preclude looking into it...

As you stated "*I need a lot of evidence*" - which is exactly what I am asking for. "Moar evidance"

And sulfates may not be the right metric...

So if we can fully identify dietary commonalities of pancreatic cancer patients, then we can get a little farther down this path to understanding...

What would be the most amazing use of "AI" would be to have a biological model of a pure human body (as far as nutrients and blah blah are concerned) - then cycle through feeding that biology various substances and seeing how it propogates through the system)

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