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Messages - kmfkewm

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1126
Security / Re: How to Obtain an Anonymous P.O. box.
« on: May 17, 2013, 02:24 am »
Because if his order got intercepted then he would go to pick up his package like normal and.... well you can figure out the rest... ::)

But what if the vendor he works with keeps a list of customer addresses to turn into the police after being arrested? Wouldn't it be better if the vendor only has fake information? Then if he learns the vendor was arrested, he can drop that box and cut any link his identity has to that vendor. I know a lot of people who use fake ID boxes and in many cases they have learned a vendor they work with was compromised and dropped the boxes. What if he orders from a vendor and learns that everybody else who ordered from the vendor had an interception? Wouldn't it be better to be able to not go and pick up the package, than to have the package delivered right to him? I know this has happened in many cases as well. What if he orders from somebody who decides to blackmail him with his address? This has certainly happened to many people in the past. What if he just wants to switch up boxes every now and then? Perhaps he works with several vendors who send packages to his fake ID box, and then he switches to a new fake ID box and doesn't bring some of the old vendors over to it? Now he has reduced his threat surface area, because less vendors know his shipping information than would be the case if he used his real address (and identity).

What if he wants to make it more expensive for the police to arrest him? Look at what happened to Enelysion. They followed him around watching him send out orders, and they recorded the shipping information on several of his outgoing packages. They didn't follow up with all of those people, but they definitely have their addresses recorded. The same thing happened with Raw Deal and Webtryp, they had thousands of addresses compiled but didn't follow up on all of them. In all of these cases we learned of the operations before everybody was followed up on. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to drop a box and know that your address isn't on a big list of addresses of people known to order illegal drugs? Didn't a lot of people who ordered from the farmers market end up getting letters from the feds saying to stop ordering drugs? Wouldn't it be nice if those letters went to boxes registered with fake ID and long since dropped? I know several people who ordered from joot up until he was busted, and the ones who had shipments sent to fake ID boxes and who dropped them immediately after learning he was busted certainly slept sounder.

What about when your tracking says that your package was intercepted by the feds? Wouldn't it be nice to know that they are not going to be able to link it to you, because you are never going to go and pick it up?

I am still very convinced that using fake ID box is the best technique, particularly if you have an in state fake ID. The argument that using your real address gives you plausible deniability is totally flawed, the police will simply wait for you to open the package and then raid you. In one case they waited a full day and pulled the person over the next day as he left his house. The only good argument against fake ID boxes is that it adds an additional charge if you are ever caught, but I certainly think it reduces the risk of you getting caught in the first place.

1127
Security / Re: State-sponsored malware can inventory RAM
« on: May 17, 2013, 02:14 am »
It is good to keep in mind though that there are two things to consider. One is the correctness of the applications used. Poorly programmed software is going to have security vulnerabilities regardless of if it is running on Windows, Linux or BSD. Another thing to keep in mind though is that different operating systems have different security features for mitigating vulnerabilities. Running buggy software on OpenBSD is not going to be as big of a threat as running it on Windows XP, because OpenBSD has full ASLR which makes actually exploiting some vulnerabilities a lot harder. Qubes has really strong isolation which makes it a lot harder for an attacker who pwns an insecure application to then pwn the entire system. The differences between operating systems are even more important for really advanced users who know how to use the security features that the OS makes available. A noob using FreeBSD might not be way better off than a noob using Windows 8, but someone who has mastered the very feature rich Mandatory Access Controls of FreeBSD is likely to be better able to secure themselves than someone who has mastered Windows 8. So yes, insecure applications are insecure no matter which OS they are run on, but different operating systems have different features for mitigating the threats that insecure applications introduce. 

1128
Security / Re: State-sponsored malware can inventory RAM
« on: May 17, 2013, 01:58 am »
Agreed. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Quote
Java is both a language and a set of programs for executing software written in that language -- a single exploit could work on both systems because of the Java virtual machine.

Having never studied Java in much detail, I never knew this was how it worked. Thanks for the clarification :)

A great many modern languages usually work like that. Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, PHP, Javascript, C#, and many more. Some popular languages that usually work differently are C and C++ , and of course all of the assembly languages. It is a difference between interpreted languages (which  need interpreter software) and  compiled languages. Although all languages can be interpreted or compiled, almost all of the popular modern languages are primarily interpreted. Interpreted languages are dependent on the interpreter, but get the advantage of being cross platform (ie: java applications work wherever there is a java interpreter aka the java virtual machine). Of course there are a lot of different virtual machines / interpreters for these languages though, Ruby has about a dozen.

1129
FinCen pursued both e-Gold and PayPal.
e-Gold was struck a mortal blow and is no more.
PayPal escaped by being bought by Ebay and doing exactly what finCen told them.
Which is why you have to bend over backwards in proving your identity to get a paypal account.

I expect something like that will happen to bitcoin... they'll threaten to shut down the exchanges unless the exchanges agree to onerous identity checks on their members.

The easiest tactic to avoid this...
..is to exit the USA bitcoin exchanges,
... perhaps try Intersango in Europe instead... or ones located in asia.

From the perspective of the exchanges themselves,
a prudent move might be to re-locate to countries where the USA has the least power:
China, Russia, Iran, Ecuador, ... possibly North Korea...
... perhaps even Israel.

This is why Bitcoin absolutely must implement Zerocoin. Then you can send a DNA sample to get coins and it doesn't matter, because they are anonymized AFTER you get them, electronically, in such a way that no identity verification process is even possible. Then the only issue is having an excuse for having so much currency. With Zerocoin the anonymity of Bitcoin is essentially ensured, regardless of the verification steps required to get coins.

As far as hiding the fact that you are cashing in or cashing out a lot of money into Bitcoin, there need to be exchanges between people. I know a lot of vendors cash out Bitcoin simply by finding other vendors who they trust who need Bitcoin to buy drugs. So you sell $10,000 of LSD and get X bitcoin, then you sell them to one of your friends who wants to buy $10,000 of heroin, at 1:1 price for cash in the mail. This seems to be a very common way of cashing out, as it avoids exchange fees on both ends and hides the fact that you sold $10,000 worth of Bitcoins. Of course it has the disadvantage of needing to trust people, and needing to know people who want to buy large amounts of Bitcoin.

Customers who spend legitimate money, or who are only buying personal use amounts, they don't even need to worry about how much money they cash in or out. And for them they simply need to use Zerocoin to break the tie between their authenticated identity and the Bitcoins that they spend. 

Somebody should set up a general Bitcoin exchange site in Russia or somewhere. You get an account and advertise that you want to buy or sell Bitcoins and the amount you are willing to pay or accept.Then you are matched up with other people, and can carry out the deal for cash in the mail or something. Sort of like a Silk Road but for Bitcoins. Silk Road doesn't actually sell drugs, it just lets people who sell drugs get together and carry out their deals. Bitcoin needs a site like that, a site that doesn't actually buy or sell Bitcoins but lets people get together to carry out Bitcoin trades for CIM.

1130
Off topic / Re: Private Scene Prices
« on: May 15, 2013, 05:04 pm »
Do private forums for this still exist? And why did all those old ones get taken down?

The old ones got taken down because over time they splinter apart, people break off from an established forum and make a new forum that shares most of the same member base until it overtakes the old forum, etc. They are not so much getting taken down as they are evolving, changing admins, merging together, splintering apart, changing servers, etc. The life of a private forum tends to be fairly short, several months usually although in some cases a year or two. But the members all know each other and the groups kind of migrate together for the most part.

For example, Sandoz Labs, a largely American / English Native community merged with The Bible, a largely European community with English as secondary language, when Bible was shut down many of the members went to RCN which then splintered off into FTWR which then turned into FTGB which then had someone on it splinter off into Su.pplier which broke apart into TLG, AFOYI and BBS (with the less trusted people on TLG and most trusted people on BBS), all three of which were shut down just prior to OVDB launching, which shut down but probably has a lot of members who joined SR after it went down.

That is just one example of a migratory path. This shit has been going on for a decade now, with a lot of different 'original communities' and 'forum lines'. I am just naming one of many, the others I wouldn't want to name because they are not communities I had much of a role in. Another thing is that a lot of the really old forums have pretty much disintegrated due to lack of need, people talk with instant message programs now and have known each other for a long ass time. If you want something you just hit up one of your IM buddies and ask them to ask around for you. For example I don't even really need to be on any forums because I stay in regular touch with a lot of vendors who used to operate on forums.

But there are definitely still a lot of private forums out there. I just don't really follow it much anymore. There are probably a lot more today than there were a few years ago even, over time the number of forums has always grown and I don't see why it would slow down really. Although one of the main phenomenon today is that people are on SR, so it is possible that SR kind of centralized everything to it. Instead of a noob forum starting and getting 100 members, then closing registration and another noob forum starting and getting 100 members, etc, all the noobs are just joining SR since it is so widely known and easily accessed.

1131
Off topic / Re: Private Scene Prices
« on: May 15, 2013, 03:34 pm »
su.pplier was one of my favorite private forums. Nice sized user base, lots of activity, lots of different drugs at low prices and a really good sense of community. The Bible was the best private forum though, anybody here remember that place?

Follow The White Rabbit, Follow The Green Biker, The Looking Glass, Binary Blue Stars, Su.pplier, The Bible, A Figment of Your Imagination  were some old school (now long dead so nobody cares if their names are known) private forums.

1132
Off topic / Re: Will virtual reality sex be the revolution?
« on: May 14, 2013, 03:08 am »
We all know how porn has revolutionized relations between men and women. After all, it's very hard to be satisfied with an ordinary woman when you can watch porn and imagine having sex with a perfect 10.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/17/company-developing-fully-immersive-virtual-reality-sex-game/

Looks like VR, virtual reality sex, is almost here. It will probably be available within a couple of years and becomes mainstream within 10 years.

What will feminists and women in general do when most men would rather fuck a supermodel in virtual reality than have sex in real life with a fat, bitchy, smelly cunt?

Looks like women and feminists are going to lose out to technology!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

God...you are like...the perfect example of an angry man on the internet.  Jesus Christ.

You should have entitled this thread

"I hate women and love porn"

What the hell kind of porn are you watching that has perfect 10s?  Maybe the body is occasionally a 10, but most of those girls have some busted faces.  How do people get into the highly produced shit anyway?  I prefer watching real people fuck, home movie stuff.

But, maybe that is because I am a "feminist" or a  "slut" and I actually have had lots of real sex and enjoyed it a lot better than even the best porn or sex toy

Sweetheart, your anti-male shaming language and feminist man-hatred is not going to stop the coming technological sexual revolution.

Have fun growing old alone with your 10 cats.

Chuckles...

I hate cats...and I am the furthest thing from a feminist.

Women will be getting robots too you know...to avoid insecure individuals like yourself.  Men can be just as needy and clingy and jealous as women....they get worse actually.  I bet you anything that men will be more upset by their girlfriends and wives going out to buy robots that look like Jude Law but don't smother them.

But for females to enjoy VR sex first scientists would need to program AI that passes the turing test. For men to enjoy VR sex it is mostly only a graphics problem.

1133
Off topic / Re: What is your Autism Quotient
« on: May 14, 2013, 02:35 am »
Your Aspie score: 77 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 123 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

 :o

That is about in line with your score of 20 from the original test, which is only 3 points above average for males.

1134
hmm, except vendors will connect every day, so if you're watching the network, you can exclude everyone else.

The 90K daily users include people who connect occasionally. The number of people who literally connect daily may be 60K.

Then the numbers are:

Tor users

City of 100K: 20
City of 1M: 200

That makes things substantially worse for SR vendors, so it's best not to connect to the Tor network directly.

It seems to me from reading that metrics page that they still have not implemented directory guards. That makes it substantially easier to enumerate Tor clients. For a long time clients directly connected to the directory authority servers, the first time the client ran Tor and anytime that Tor had not been connected for about 24 hours or longer. Only after that did they use the directory mirrors, of which there are a few hundred. Quite a while ago they proposed adding directory guards, and having Tor users always connect to the DA's or mirrors through a set of random Tor nodes selected from a list of nodes included with the original download of Tor (optimistically trying nodes until you find some that are currently up). I thought they had implemented this by now but now it seems to me that they have not. That means watching the directory authority servers is a good way to enumerate Tor client IP addresses still. No matter what watching the Tor download page could do this though, unless users download Tor with open WiFi from a random location or similar. The best bet would be if they used directory guards + Tor starts coming bundled with popular Linux distros (even if it is out of date and doesn't include TBB, it could be used for the initial download of TBB from the centralized download site). I2P is still much weaker to client IP address enumeration though.

1135
Their traditional user estimating algorithm shows around 500,000 normal users + 25,000 bridge users, their beta algorithm shows about 800,000 users + 3,500 bridge users. They are not sure which is more accurate yet. It looks like Runa estimates between 300,000 and 800,000 daily users. Apparently I over estimated in saying over a million though. Their traditional way of counting users will not count a user who connects to Tor for the first time in several days and does not stay online long enough in a 24 hour period to refresh their list of Tor nodes through a directory mirror. The beta counts people who bootstrap at the directory authority servers and the directory mirrors.

http://www.terrylucy.com/post/6617697313/should-we-all-be-using-tor-to-help-protect-ourselves

Quote
The idea of Tor seems like a movement, a rebellion against the big brother society that we live in today. Can you tell me how many people use the service?

It’s a bit difficult to count anonymous users, but we estimate that we have somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 daily users. We also have a graph showing the number of directly connecting users from all countries: https://metrics.torproject.org/direct-users.png

Quote
And assuming the same fraction live in the United States, that's 36,000 people, for a density of 1 in 8600.

In a city of 100,000, there are 12 I2P users.

In a city of 1 million, there are about 120.

Once you have it narrowed down to 120 you can do an intersection attack trivially against I2P users. You just need to continuously route data through their nodes waiting for them to disconnect, and try to correlate the online activity of the vendor to the up time of the I2P router. ie: if you see the vendor responded to your private message at 8 AM, you can rule out any of the 120 nodes that were not online at 8 AM. That will let you whittle down their anonymity set size even more.

1136
Off topic / Re: What is your Autism Quotient
« on: May 14, 2013, 01:30 am »
http://www.rdos.net/eng/ has a more comprehensive Autism test may be a bit more resistant to the selection bias that Astor thinks is influencing the results. You need to go to the Aspie Quiz link from the left bar. It asks for personal information (sex, date of birth, race) prior to taking it, but this can and should all be bullshit if you plan on posting results from it here. Unfortunately their site looks like it was made with geocities drag and drop editor about a decade ago.

My results:

Quote
Your Aspie score: 128 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits


1137
Quote
Yes, and they also (potentially) know all 20K IP addresses, whereas they know 0 Tor user IP addresses unless they run entry guards, and then they know some single digit percentage of IP addresses.

For I2P they probably know close to all 20k IP addresses, for Freenet it is not likely that they do.


Quote
It's not really comparable, because most I2P activity is internal to the network. So when discussing a correlation attack, it's only fair to compare "Tor use that only involves hidden services" to I2P, or to compare "I2P use that only involves outproxies" to Tor. On Tor you have 800 exit nodes, but as far as I know there are a scant few I2P outproxies. In fact, an attacker could easily run outproxies and control most of that activity.

A large percentage of the SR community only uses hidden services, specifically the market and this forum. So from that perspective, they are not susceptible to correlation attacks, their IP address is more difficult to enumerate (than on I2P), and they are part of a much larger anonymity set.

Setting aside attacks on the services, would you say SR users are safer on Tor or I2P?

Hidden services are still weak to correlation attacks, it just might be a bit harder for an attacker to be positioned to carry them out. I definitely think SR users are safer on Tor than I2P. The fact that I2P users are easily enumerated by itself makes Tor better for SR vendors. If SR vendors used I2P they would be quite fucked, as their crowd size is already "the people who are in this small geographic area where packages are shipped out of". If their crowd size was "The people who use I2P in this small geographic area where packages are shipped out of" they would be totally fucked, and using I2P would result in that scenario. However, there is an argument that people who do not leak their rough geolocation are safer using I2P in some ways. They are definitely less weak to timing correlation attacks than Tor users are, and that is a big advantage. On the other hand they are also far weaker to intersection attacks than Tor users are, due to the fact that they are so easily enumerated. Hidden services can have down time without their anonymity being hurt much if at all, Eepsites that have down time can quickly have their anonymity set size reduced or even eliminated.

Quote
Yes, Tor's focus on allowing safe clearnet access is a huge benefit, and (I believe) the main reason it is the most popular anonymity network. However, another big weakness for I2P is that there is no safe web browser, leaving I2P users much more vulnerable at the application layer (regardless of network layer considerations).

Tails has a version of Tor Browser that also supports I2P.

1138
Off topic / Re: What is your Autism Quotient
« on: May 13, 2013, 11:57 pm »
And here is an article about the cognitive profiles of people with Aspergers syndrome, now folded into high functioning autism (but possibly not HFA high functioning autism):

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=252

Quote

Ms. Kelly could see that all was not well with Aaron. The four-year-old walked with a strange lope, vaguely pigeon-toed, and slumped, as if wanting to fold in on himself. Even after a week of child care, he refused to make eye contact. When he did respond to questions, he spoke in a machine-like monotone.

While Aaron occasionally eyed the other children, he made no attempt to engage with them. In fact, Aaron seemed content to play with his toy dinosaur, a replica of a stegosaurus whose name, his mother laughingly told the staff, was “Amph.” Whenever Ms. Kelly or another teacher attempted to get him to join the group, Aaron pulled away, as if physical contact and closeness burned his skin. But when, by the end of the second week, Aaron was no more engaged with the group than he was initially, Ms. Kelly firmly explained to him that he needed to participate in a game of musical chairs. As she gently removed Amph from Aaron’s hands, he met her eyes with an expression of pain, confusion, even betrayal. Though Ms. Kelly tried to soothe him, Aaron’s tantrum escalated. He appeared not to hear or even to be aware of other people trying to talk to him. Eventually, he was removed from the classroom.

Later that day, when Aaron’s mother came to pick him up, Ms. Kelly discussed Aaron’s behavior. “He can be stubborn,” Aaron’s mother agreed. “He won’t learn manners,” she said, describing how Aaron interrupted people in the midst of conversation with a monologue on his favorite topic, dinosaurs. Aaron’s tantrums at home also disturbed and baffled his mother. Many times she couldn’t figure out what they were about, but she had noticed that they occurred most frequently when they were leaving the house.

Based on this conversation, it was clear to Ms. Kelly that Aaron’s problems were not confined to the center. When asked what his pediatrician had to say about Aaron’s behavior, Aaron’s mother confessed that he had recommended that her son see a psychiatrist, who could prescribe him medication to alleviate some of his problematic symptoms. “But I didn’t want my son on drugs,” she said. Nevertheless, Aaron’s mother agreed to allow a psychologist to evaluate Aaron.

The psychologist administered a sophisticated and exhaustive series of psychological, neuropsychological, and educational tests. Fortunately for Aaron, his family, and his teachers, this psychologist had evaluated children whose behaviors were similar to Aaron’s. With a verbal IQ of 140 and a full scale score of 122, Aaron did not fit the standard profile of a child with autism. Neither could he be categorized as “Oppositional-Defiant,” or ADHD, or obsessive-compulsive, though he exhibited signs of each of these diagnoses. The psychologist concluded that Aaron was one of a growing number of children with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Children With Asperger’s Syndrome
Every teacher knows children like Aaron. They’re “different,” “strange,” “eccentric.” They don’t fit in. They grow up to become the brainy kids, the computer “geeks,” socially aloof and alone. Though it may not have felt so to his mother at the time, Aaron was lucky to have been diagnosed so swiftly. Many children with Asperger’s Syndrome are initially misdiagnosed and thus treatment, however well-intentioned, is misguided and involves medication targeting one or more symptoms without taking the entire condition into account. Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is a neurologically based developmental disorder marked primarily by qualitative impairments in social interaction, communication, and behavior (Tanguay, Robertson, & Derrick, 1998). Named after Hans Asperger, an Austrian pediatrician who first identified the disorder in the 1940s, AS affects as many as one in 300 children. It is very rarely recognized before the age of three, and is thought to be far more common in males than females (Porter, 1996).

Asperger’s Syndrome is considered by many mental health experts to belong to the spectrum of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), and is often used synonymously with “high functioning autism” (Williams, 1995). Other experts believe that the characteristics of AS are different enough from autism to warrant its own category of diagnosis. With a later onset, less severe social and communication impairments, and a higher verbal IQ than autism, the diagnosis of AS implies a more promising prognosis, and therefore affects both treatment modes and outcome. Whether the diagnosis ultimately exists in its own category or not, the numbers of people being diagnosed with AS—children and adults alike—is steadily ising (Autistic Association of New Zealand, 1998). “Asperger’s Syndrome is such an inconsistently used term,” says Fran Goldfarb, Director of Parent & Family Resources at the Center for Child Development at Children’s Hospital-Los Angeles (personal communication, May 18, 1998). “The terminology, more than anything, tends to confuse people.”

According to Stephen Bauer, M.D., from the Developmental Unit of the Genessee Hospital in Rochester, NY, “For each case of more typical autism, [mainstream] schools can expect to encounter several children with a picture of AS” (1997). For this reason, teachers’ awareness of this syndrome is increasingly critical, not only in order to conference effectively with parents around their children’s educational needs, but to be able to work directly with these students on a daily basis. Children with AS can be tremendously challenging to teachers. The more education, empathy, and support the teacher brings to bear on this situation, the better the child and the classroom as a whole will fare.

Features of Asperger’s Syndrome
Asperger’s Syndrome is a disorder that affects a child’s social, behavioral, speech/language, and physical abilities. The following are some common features of the disorder, divided by areas of strength and weaknesses, as compiled from articles by Ruth M. Ryan, M.D. (1992); Stephen Bauer, M.D., (1997); Amy Klin, Ph.D., (1994); Karen Williams (1995); the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition; the O.A.S.I.S. (On-line Asperger Syndrome Information and Support Home Page, updated 1998); the Asperger’s Syndrome Support Network Homepage (updated in September 1996); and the Autistic Association of New Zealand, Inc. (1998).

Areas of Strength


Children diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome

    Have excellent rote memory;
    Absorb information and facts easily;
    Have an average or above-average intelligence (IQ);
    Are usually verbally advanced;
    Are extremely gifted in specific areas such as math, science, music, and art;
    Are academically proficient in several subjects including reading, vocabulary, and memory skills;
    Have the ability to focus on an area of interest, albeit to the exclusion of other interests and activities;
    Are intensely curious about their particular areas of interest, albeit to the exclusion of other areas; and
    Can be absorbed into mainstream education with appropriate support services.

 

Areas of Difficulty
Although children with AS have many strengths, they also have areas of difficulty which make interaction with others and learning difficult. These areas are listed below.

In social situations, children with Asperger’s Syndrome

    Play in solitaire or with much younger or older children;
    Exhibit a lack of empathy or ability to see others’ point of view ;
    Demonstrate a lack of awareness of how their behavior affects others;
    Show absence of spontaneous interest in sharing experiences with others (they live in “their own world”);
    Have inappropriate behavioral and emotional responses to social situations (i.e., laughing at something sad);
    Suffer impairment in non-verbal expression (limited facial expressions and social cues; limited use of gesture, and inability to judge appropriate social distances);
    Have limited and/or missing non-verbal communication; and
    Are often teased and bullied by peers because they cannot perceive that others are fooling or manipulating them.

Behaviorally, children with AS

    Exhibit restricted and repetitive, often bizarre patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (these routines or rituals may be imposed on self and/or on others);
    Display repetitive movements, mannerisms, and vocalizations;
    Develop unusually intense attachment to particular possessions;
    Lack the ability to explain motivations, feelings, or reactions;
    Show inflexibility and rigidity of routine (when they are met with a change in plan or with a surprise, even a pleasant one, they become extremely anxious and upset); and
    Lack the ability to tolerate frustration, often resulting in emotional outbursts.

Children with AS display speech and language difficulties by

    Speaking in peculiar voices (monotone, machine-like);
    Not understanding metaphor/simile, figurative language, and abstractions (everything needs to be very concrete); and
    Expressing difficulty in holding give-and-take conversations.

Physically, children with Asperger’s Syndrome

    Are clumsy and ill-coordinated (unusual gait or stance);
    “Avoid and may become overwhelmed and confused by phsical contact with others” (Cesaroni & Garber, 1991);
    Have gross or fine motor impairment which may affect penmanship, keyboard manipulation, and drawing; and
    Utilize relatively little eye contact.

Students with Asperger’s Syndrome can also have erratic and irregular results from educational and psychological testing. A child with autism or AS “may be a ‘math whiz’ in algebra, but not able to make simple change at a cash register.” Or, he or she may have an astonishing memory for statistics or prose, but forget to bring his or her supplies to class day after day. “Uneven skills development is a hallmark of autism” (Moreno, & O’Neal, 1998).

Sensory Overload
An additional, fundamental feature of Asperger’s Syndrome is a hypersensitivity to external stimuli. People with AS may hear things more acutely than the average person, feel things more sharply, and smell things with exaggerated intensity. Thus they are often in a state of sensory overload. In her paper, “My Experiences with Visual Thinking, Sensory Problems and Communication Difficulties,” Temple Grandlin (1996) describes her experiences with autism. “Sudden loud noises hurt my ears, like a dentist’s drill hitting a nerve,” she writes. “Being touched sent a...tidal wave of stimulation through my body. I wanted to feel the comforting feeling of being held, but the effect on my nervous system was overwhelming.” She writes, “The fear [or anticipation] of a noise that hurts the ears is often the cause of many bad behaviors and tantrums.” Her revelations make accessible and understandable what would otherwise be incomprehensible to most of us.

Suggestions for Early Childhood Professionals
For each of the areas of difficulty, Williams (1995) outlines ways for teachers to deal with the AS child in the mainstream classroom. (Another invaluable resource, written from the perspective of an adult person with Asperger’s Syndrome, is the article by Temple Grandlin, Ph.D., “Teaching Tips for Children and Adults With Autism,”http://www.autism.org/asperger.html.) While there is not room here to enumerate them all, the following are some basic guidelines for helping teachers deal with the AS child in their classroom.

    Minimize transitions by anticipating and preparing the child for any change in routine or schedule and avoid surprises.

    Explain why. AS children do not have the intuitive ability to see that their behavior is insensitive or inappropriate. They need to be told why in very concrete terms.

    Help AS children develop self-consciousness around behavior that is socially insensitive or inappropriate by explaining the reaction their behavior elicits, why their behavior offended people, and why it would have been better to behave in a specifically defined alternative way in the future. Help them to “practice” this alternative way.

    Learn to differentiate between what the child can help and what he or she cannot help, behaviorally, emotionally, or socially. Speaking at length, regularly, with the parents is invaluable towards this end.

    The combination of firm expectations and flexibility is necessary with the AS child. Provide choices, but limit them. In addition, require that they follow the rules of the classroom, and learn to sense where their rigidity can and cannot be loosened.

    To the best of your ability, protect the child from bullying and teasing by peers. Aside from the obvious aim of avoiding hurt feelings, peer insensitivity can be an opportunity to teach and model empathy, even to do some role playing. AS children can also learn to “mimic” empathetic responses.

    Limit their tendency to perseverate on circumscribed areas of interest by designating a specific time during which they may discuss or ask questions about the topic. Likewise, use their interest area as a reward for completing assigned tasks.

    Be calm, predictable, and matter-of-fact in interactions with the child with AS, indicating compassion and patience. It will be “necessary to teach children [with AS] seemingly obvious things...” (Asperger, 1991).

    “Be positive. Be creative. Be flexible” (Moreno, & O’Neal, 1998).

Therapy, Medication, or Behavioral Modification?
No one knows better than professional educators that every child is an individual. Children with Asperger’s Syndrome are no exception. Each one exhibits his or her own cluster of behaviors and traits, some of which may be more attributable to inherent personality characteristics than to a feature of the Asperger’s disorder. Likewise, treatment for AS will be different with each child. Some will benefit from medication for problems having to do with attention, or anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Others do not seem to benefit from medication, but respond well to a supportive behavioral approach to their idiosyncratic ways of experiencing and dealing with the world. A therapist experienced in working with AS children and their families is invaluable. Teachers may find themselves in a position of having to refer the families for consultation to a mental health professional. At times they may have to deal with a degree of family denial. Therefore, your role in recognizing and supporting the family in dealing with their child is crucial.

Conclusion
With the ever-increasing number of children in mainstream educational settings being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, teachers and parents need to come together around the special academic, social, and emotional needs of the AS child. Parents are rightfully concerned that the bureaucracy of educational planning committees is not equipped to accommodate their children’s unique needs. Cognitively and academically, these students are, if anything, advanced, making them ill-suited for most special education programs. On the other hand, the emotional and social challenges of the mainstream school setting can be extremely taxing for AS children and their teachers. Education and awareness are the first steps towards a sympathetic and effective program for these frequently gifted children with special emotional and social needs. What’s singularly important to remember is that the AS child experiences the world in a high-volume way, uniquely and creatively. The more we can learn from them about patience, compassion, and empathy, the more we will all benefit.


However these articles are rather cherry picked to support my initial hypothesis that people with low functioning Autism are more likely to have exceptional visual memories  (although many are retarded in all areas) and people with high functioning autism are more likely to have exceptional verbal memories. Unfortunately, when it comes to Autism disorders, it is pretty much possible to find plenty of research supporting nearly any hypothesis you want to throw out there. I do believe that this is an accurate point of view though.

1139
Off topic / Re: What is your Autism Quotient
« on: May 13, 2013, 11:56 pm »
Huh.
41.
Not what I was expecting.
 
Quote from: kmfkewm
I think it is interesting how high functioning Autistic people are more likely to have minds like tape recorders, and low functioning autistic people are more likely to have minds like cameras.
That is interesting. I hadn't really considered it before, although I guess there are some presumptions under it I need to check, and then verbal ability would be part of it too. Something to look into today...

It is really a bit hard to piece together because there are so many different perspectives people look at Autism from (with some of them conflicting), some studies have conflicting results, and Autism itself is somewhat poorly defined and is a broad spectrum with many possible characteristics and ways of presenting itself (and its subtypes are equally poorly defined, with widely varying and conflicting descriptions across academic papers). For example, Aspergers (which I am pretty sure is now rolled into high functioning autism and is not an independent diagnosis anymore) tend to have low visual intelligence and high verbal intelligence, but many studies simply say "Autistic people" tend to have higher visual intelligence than verbal intelligence. I can also find papers saying that Aspergers and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are BOTH types of high functioning autism (not HFA) with HFA people having visual intelligence strengths and verbal weaknesses, and Aspergers people having verbal strengths and visual weaknesses. Certainly low functioning Autistic savants tend to have exceptional long term visual memory while having very poor verbal memory, and people with aspergers (which is a type of high functioning autism, but possibly not HFA depending on who you ask) tend to have exceptional verbal memories with poor visual memories. The only conclusion I can really come to from reading papers on this subject, is that the people studying these things have widely varying opinions, use widely varying language and are generally very disorganized. ( Then again I guess I am expected to have knowledge of physics and a lack of ability to understand psychology, so maybe the issue is with me ;) )   


Here is an article about the visual intelligence of people with Autism. I imagine they studied people with low functioning Autism, although it does not specifically say so. I assume they mean low functioning autistic people simply because people with Aspergers have the opposite cognitive profile (ie: they have poor visual processing abilities and superior verbal processing abilities).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110404093149.htm

Quote

Autism: Exceptional Visual Abilities Explained

Apr. 5, 2011 — Researchers directed by Dr. Laurent Mottron at the University of Montreal's Centre for Excellence in Pervasive Development Disorders (CETEDUM) have determined that people with autism concentrate more brain resources in the areas associated with visual detection and identification, and conversely, have less activity in the areas used to plan and control thoughts and actions. This might explain their outstanding capacities in visual tasks.

Aiming to understand why autistic individuals have strong abilities in terms of processing visual information, the researchers collated 15 years of data that covered the ways autistic brain works when interpreting faces, objects and written words. The data came from 26 independent brain imaging studies that looked at a total of 357 autistic and 370 non-autistic individuals. "Through this meta-analysis, we were able to observe that autistics exhibit more activity in the temporal and occipital regions and less activity in frontal cortex than non-autistics. The identified temporal and occipital regions are typically involved in perceiving and recognizing patterns and objects. The reported frontal areas subserve higher cognitive functions such as decision making, cognitive control, planning and execution,'' explained first author Fabienne Samson, who is also affiliated with the CETEDUM

"This stronger engagement of the visual processing brain areas in autism is consistent with the well documented enhanced visuo-spatial abilities in this population," Samson said. The current findings suggest a general functional reorganization of the brain in favor of perception processes -- the processes by which information is recorded the brain. This allows autistic individuals to successfully perform, albeit in their own way, higher-level cognitive tasks that would usually require a strong involvement of frontal areas in typical individuals. These are tasks that require reasoning -- for example, a research participant would be asked if a statement is true or false, or to categorize a range of objects into groups.

"We synthesized the results of neuroimaging studies using visual stimuli from across the world. The results are strong enough to remain true despite the variability between the research designs, samples and tasks, making the perceptual account of autistic cognition currently the most validated model," Mottron said. "The stronger engagement of the visual system, whatever the task, represents the first physiological confirmation that enhanced perceptual processing is a core feature of neural organization in this population. We now have a very strong statement about autism functioning which may be ground for cognitive accounts of autistic perception, learning, memory and reasoning." This finding shows that the autistic brain successfully adapt by reallocating brain areas to visual perception, and offers many new lines of enquiry with regards to developmental brain plasticity and visual expertise in autistics.

Dr. Isabelle Soulières of the CETEDUM and the Neural Systems Group at the Massachusetts General Hospital (NSGMGH) and Dr.Thomas Zeffiro of the NSGMGH, also contributed to the findings. The CETEDUM is based at the University of Montreal affiliated Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital and is part of the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre. It is officially known as Centre d'Excellence en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de l'Université de Montréal. The research was financed in part by grants from Autism Speaks, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec.




1140
Off topic / Re: What is your Autism Quotient
« on: May 13, 2013, 09:24 pm »
The average score of everybody who posted their specific score so far:

28 + 29 + 13 + 26 + 20 + 37 + 34 + 20 + 9 + 7 + 29 + 19 + 9 + 29 + 6 + 33 + 25 + 10 + 41 + 29 + 35 = 488 (up to shakedown)

488 / 21 = 23.23 , which is 6.83 points above the average in control groups, which is 16.4



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