December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 13:09:09 -0800 > From: David Honig <honig(a)sprynet.com> > Subject: Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. > At 08:47 AM 11/5/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: > >Here's a simple way to test the bounce-pattern of your micro-wave oven: > > Simpler: stick a neon-bulb with the leads twisted off into the oven. > Watch the glow vary. Put a cup of water in there since you're not supposed > to run empty. Yes, but they don't give you as easily measured level of the incident radiation. with a neon bulb or a flourescent tube (what I prefer) you have a hard time mapping radiation level to brightness with commenly available photometers. Photo quality stuff isn't nearly accurate enough. > > - Make sure the stake is in suitable ground without lots of quartz > > and other similar peizo-electric materials. > > Not piezo (though quartz is), but non conductive. You have to > tap the groundwater table. Sand, granite don't conduct. Sand has lots of piezo. You don't want piezo because the ground pressure on the stake will cause excessive noise. As to non-conductive, you *WANT* it to be conductive otherwise the signals will form ground waves and propogate horizontaly. You can see this with radar signals from aircraft that bounce off the tarmac (I used to live next to the Austin airport and had access to a spectrum analyzer). If the ground plane isn't conductive it isn't a ground plane. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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No Subject
by Anonymous 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

:: Subject: more on Dore's discovery of intelligence (satellite 415) http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/auscnfrm.jpg http://www.lunaranomalies.com/update2.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_203000/203133.stm

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Holloween II: Microsoft Plugs Linux
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

http://www.opensource.org/halloween2.html is a more extensive, (positively glowing) freshly smuggled (planted?) internal analysis of Linux by Microsoft. 103k, but definitely worth reading. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Now where am I gonna get a good horseburger?
by Michael Motyka 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

In CA it is now a felony to eat a horse. I don't remember asking to be transported to Walt Disney World...wait 'til someone other than Gary Larson anthropomorphises the chicken, cow and pig! On a lighter, more technical note - Avoiding carefully, for the moment, Harvey Rook's statement that weaknesses in cipher systems often lie in key generation and management and not in the crypto algorithms, I'll ask a few -naive- questions: If we construct a CSPRNG with a ?sufficiently? large state and then use the output of that PRNG to generate a new key for each block encrypted by a standard block cipher have we gained anything? Large files vs. small? When used with triple encryption like 3DES? The ROI for finding a single key is certainly much lower if the PRNG is "good". I've never seen a PR keystream for a conventional block cipher discussed so I thought I'd lob it out there. Mike

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

> Robert Hettinga wrote: > > A government is just another economic actor. A very large > > economic actor with lots of guns and a monopoly on force, > > but an economic actor nonetheless. > > No they are not, > > Yes, they are. Can you say 'taxes'? Imposed by a gun. > Can you say 'interstate commerce'? What about it? > Can you say 'mint money'? Can you say 'federal reserve'? Can you say government fiat? > Can you say 'FDIC'? Can you say banking regulation at the point of a gun? > I thought so. Yep. > > History shows this. > > Really? What history? The Soviet Union is a prime recent example. British Mercantilism. Governments are ultimately bound to economics in the sense of human behavior and productivity -- the more they deny the nature of microeconomic actors, the quicker they self-destruct. History shows that every dynasty well eventually self-destruct, to think ours won't is foolish. My point is we don't have competitive governments per se, you have a power void that is filled by new government that can be just as hostile to those microeconomic actors. All our government failures have yet to produce a sustainable government. > False distinction. Politics is about control and power The fundamental laws of economics are supply and demand. As soon as you through force into the equation, it is no longer economic, it is political. > in human society that breaks down to force and money. The essence of money has no political roots. The essence of money is human productivity and trade. Money is tied to politics currently because it is regulated by force of government and the money *supply* is created by government fiat. > There you go again, confusing privacy with economics... The discussion *was* *privacy*, or did you completely miss the initial discussion? Privacy (as opposed to secrecy) is about discretionary disclosure of information. To invade privacy is to remove or prevent that discretion. There is an economic cost of doing so, and an economic benefit. Corporations are bound by those economics, whereas government can mandate transparency by whim and gun. > > use coercive force today preventing privacy, but government is > > their instrument of force. > > True, but that isn't a function of regulation per se only the > particular type of regulation that we have implimented. It is the *nature* of regulation. The end element of any regulation is a gun. Government is a natural instrument of collective legalized force by any group that can influence it, and to think it can't and won't be influenced denies human nature in regards to power. Every government is despotic by nature, force corrupts. > > They have a *legal* monopoly on force (within a state). > > No, they don't. It is perfectly legal for an individual to > own a weapon. The legal monopoly on the *initiation* of force. And in fact you have very little freedom (eternally diminishing) to obtain potential force (arms) and use it in a *reactionary* manner. You have absolutely *no* freedom to use it reactionary against government (which is in the face of the 4th). > There is also a clear distinction between the local police, > your state police, federal agents, military, etc. It is an irrelevant distinction in this case, it is all government. They do not use force against each other as any sort of competitive balance. > No it doesn't. It points to the fact that individuals want to > participate in some activity that some other party doesn't > want to occur. General democratic consensus is highly controlled by media and government propaganda (if they are not one in the same). What is the underlying motivation? Is hemp illegal because people don't want people to smoke weed, or because of the cotton lobby? Is the war on drugs so unbreakable because people don't want people taking drugs, or because the government funds black operations with its sales, uses it to confiscate private property, and as a sounding post for increased powers? Do people not want free banking, or does the government wish to protects its fiat currency and artificial stability flying in the face of economic reality? > It does not imply that the regulating party wants the potential > income from those activities. Money or power, more often than most people think. > Further more, even in a free-market there will exist > black markets. Provided you don't corrupt the meaning of free-market to include any possible black market, then yes, there will *always* be a black market. It can be made rather insignificant however. > The aspect of a free-market is that there is no consequence from > such actions (unless you want to admit to allowing corporations to have > their own hit squads). And again you pervert the meaning of free market. I'm tired arguing that subject with you, go read a book. Matt

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:43:40 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone > (fwd) > Anarchy is usually defined as the absense of government. What > exactly makes up a "government", what are it's defining characteristics? Well let's see.... control over some geographic area arbitration of conflict tithe from the inhabitants of that area regulation of economic systems by controlling the medium of trade (ie money) > Simply a device for reallocating wealth?--Insufficient, there are > lots of mechanisms for that. No, government control economies that's not the same thing as having re-allocation of wealth as a goal. That's more a responsbility of a business than a government. Governments, at least in principle, are concerned with stable economies and the continued existance of same. Who exactly, if anyone, is holder of that wealth is in principle irrelevant to the definition of political systems as a general expression of human psychology. Though it is clear the devil is in the details. > A body that lays down standards and rules of conduct?--Sounds like > a church or industry consortium to me. It sounds like an expression of the social aspects of human psychology. Whether it's a church, industry consortium, local LEA, local fire dept., etc. > A heirarchical (sp?) structure that uses fear, propaganda and force > to reallocate wealth, enforce standards and rules of conduct, and other > things at whim (for varying values of "whim", from the "whim" of a > dictator, to the "whim" of the "body politic"). Who cares whether it's heirarchical or flat (as in an anarchy or free-market). The point is that abuse takes place. It is no more ethical to bash somebodies brains in under an anarchy than it is in a democracy or a communicsm. > Now, THAT is a government. Yes, some of what it enforces is > probably a good idea (i.e. everyone driving on the same side of the road, > &etc) some if it is kinda silly (don't smoke dope, or you're going to jail > (Here, have a beer)), and some of it is downright stupid and shortsighted > (encryption policy, not drinking beer out of a bucket on the sidewalk). Sounds like an expression of the range of human beliefs. Whether something is right, wrong, stupid, etc. is a function of individual statements of importance and ranking of consequences. > Anarchy is not having to be effected by that, being "free" to > follow what one thinks is right. Which unfortunately includes the neighbor being able to take your property by force since he believes it's right. > How one gets to that state is not really > relevent. Tell that to the mother of the kid who got killed last night because he had something somebody else wanted. Also explain to here how under an anarchy there isn't any recourse for her other than to try to find that person herself and kill them.... Yep, that is a very efficient and ethical system you wanna build. My statement above simply lays out the position having Privacy > (for large enough values of privacy to be meaningful) and Freedom (for > large enough values of Freedom to be meaningful) one is effectively in an > anarchistic state. That is what "close enough to be meaningful" meant. Freedom is the right to do what you want *WITHOUT* impinging or otherwise limiting others right to express their desires and wants. Anarchy clearly won't do that. > Privacy is (at least it's my understanding) the ability to hide or > mask information in such a way that only people you wish to have access > to it do. If privacy exists you don't have to hide things because nobodies looking in the first place. You only need to hide things if you're reasonably certain somebody else wants it. > There are varying degrees of Privacy, from "Well, at least they Yep, like there are varying degrees of pregnancy. Either somebody is looking or they aren't. > don't analyize what's in my feeces, even if they do watch me take it" to > being able to completely hide any information at all from anyone. No, that is varying degrees of *respect* for privacy. Not the same animal at all. > Freedom is the ability to make choices, and exercise those choices. Without impinging on others freedom. It's worth noting that anarchist don't add that last one in there because it blows their whole little house of cards completely away. > Just like privacy, there are varying degrees of freedom, from the > convict who can chose wheter he/she wants to eat that slop or go hungry, to > the president of the US who can (apparently) bomb people with impunity, lie > under oath & etc. No, there are varying degrees of respect for freedom. > When the amount of freedom and privacy is high enough, it is > indistinguishable from anarchy. Sure it is, because under anarchy there is no protection that one persons expression won't interfere with anothers expression without resorting to violence. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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FYI: Digicash bankruptcy
by Robert Hettinga 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: "Nahum.array" <nahum.array(a)csci.ca> Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 14:32:51 -0500 To: ibc-forum(a)ARRAYdev.com From: Nahum Goldmann <Nahum.Goldmann(a)ARRAYdev.com> Subject: FYI: Digicash bankruptcy Mime-Version: 1.0 I believe this kind of information is invaluable. Personally, I do not subscribe to Agre's doom and gloom. For years I'm saying that there is a very little "i" and a very large "C" in iCommerce. Chaum might be many bright things but an entrepreneur he definitely ain't. But than it's quite difficult in this new paradigm for all of us. Of course, Bob Hettinga could have saved quite a lot of energy and avoid much disappointment if he did pay for that my trip to Antigua. I always believe that unpaid advice is not listened to, and here is a good prove of this concept. Have fun. I'm sure it will come. Eventually. Nahum Goldmann ARRAY Development http://www.ARRAYdev.com ======================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:36:52 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)alpha.oac.ucla.edu> To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> Subject: [RRE]Digicash bankruptcy Sender: <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.2 by Fog City Software, Inc. List-Subscribe: <mailto:rre-on@lists.gseis.ucla.edu> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:rre-off@lists.gseis.ucla.edu> [With the bankruptcy of Digicash, it is time to assemble the definitive list of underperforming Internet technologies. The received wisdom is that the Internet lies at the vortex of a historically unprecedented era of intensive and disruptive technological change. A sober reading of the evidence, however, supports something much closer to the opposite thesis, viz, the Internet is a modest and useful new tool that, despite itself, has given rise to an astonishingly wasteful mania whereby perfectly good capital is plowed into one ill-conceived technology after another. Consider: interactive television, VRML, Active X, network computers, "push" technology, agents, "social" interfaces, resource visualization, cryptographic payment mechanisms (aka "electronic commerce"), and others that I hope you'll remind me about. Each of these has been the object of a frenzy that has compelled all manner of smart people, and a whole lot of dumb ones such as myself, to say things like, "boy oh boy, the world is going to be completely different a year from now". This has been going on continuously since the PR hype that accompanied the run-up to the (failed) Communications Act of 1994 and then the (passed but then catastrophically failed) Communications Act of 1996. It has been fanned by Wired magazine, whose capitulation to Conde Nast has ended an era that should never have begun, and now it is marked by the bankruptcy of David Chaum's Digicash. All right-thinking people were in favor of Digicash, whose technologies were as intellectually elegant as they were socially responsible. The problem is that the Digicash people were living in the world of Alice and Bob -- a place where a mathematical proof can change the world in perfect defiance of the dynamics (if you can call them that) of large, highly integrated institutions. Like many Internet-related startups, Digicash existed only to the precise extent that the press was writing about it, and now it doesn't exist at all. So right now would be an excellent time for us to renounce the false idea that we are living in a time of unprecedented technical change. Yes, the Web has been going through a period of exponential growth. But no, that growth is not at all unprecedented, and in fact it is running behind the penetration rates that earlier technologies such as the radio and gas cooking achieved once they started being adopted on a mass scale. (See, for example, Ronald C. Tobey's scholarly and absorbing "Technology As Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home", Univ. of California Press, 1996.) Nor has the underlying Internet changed at all quickly. The Internet protocols that we use today are unchanged in their essentials from about 1982. In fact, once the real history of this era is written, I think that 1982 will shape up as the true annus mirabilis, and 1994 will simply be seen as the era when the innovations of ten to fifteen years earlier finally caught public attention and reached the price point that was needed to achieve the network externalities required for its large- scale adoption. If we get out the rake and drag away all of the detritus of the underperforming technologies that I listed above, and compare our times on an apples-for-apples basis with other periods of technological innovation -- including the Depression era, for heaven's sake -- then I think we will have a much healthier perspective going forward. As it is, people the world over have been propagandized into a state of panic, one that encourages them to abandon all of their experience and common sense and buy lots of computer equipment so that they will not be scorned by their children and left behind by the apocalypse that is supposedly going to arrive any day now. No such apocalypse is going to occur, and all of the TV preachers who have been announcing this apocalypse should apologize and give the people their money back. Yes, the world is going to change. Yes, information technology will participate, and is already participating, in a significant overhaul of the workings of most major social institutions. But no, those changes are not going to happen overnight. The sad line-up of underperforming technologies should be understood not as serious attempts at innovation but as a kind of ritual, an expensive and counterproductive substitute for the chants and dances that healthy societies perform when they are placed under stress. Maybe once we get some healthy rituals for contending with technological change ourselves, we will be able to snap out of our trance, cast off the ridiculous hopes and fears of an artificially induced millennium, and take up the serious work of discussing, organizing, and contesting the major choices about our institutions that lie ahead.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html or send a message to requests(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu with Subject: info rre =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:02:08 -0500 From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs(a)philodox.com>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu, e$(a)vmeng.com, cryptography(a)c2.net, cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net Subject: Re: DigiCash Inc. to File Reorganization, Seeks Partners to Drive eCash Forward -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Okay. Contrary to my own previous -- and painfully recent -- opinions on the matter, Digicash, Inc., is, more or less, in play again, or it will be if there is enough money chasing it. Whatever "enough" means. Putting on my Gordon Gekko hat, here, I'm interested in finding out a few things. Yes, I have seen the greater fool theory of the blind signature patent operate more than a few times, but I am, nonetheless, driven to think about this, and I might as well be public in my musing, at least for the time being. For expenses of any new company, it should be pretty clear by now what I would do with the DigiCash technology portfolio. I would put a real good intellectual property lawyer on the payroll, keep the cryptographers who would still consent to stick around, keep or improve whatever software test people they have left, and do nothing but sell licenses and implementation certifications, using the the underwiting model at <http://www.philodox.com/modelpaper.html> as a roadmap. For this imaginary company's revenue, aside from direct fees for validating a developer's, and possibly an underwriter's, implementation of the protocol, the trustee would be the only point of patent royalty collection and payment from the underwriters and developers to the new patent holder. As far as the current installed base is concerned, I would probably spin off a company to support those customers, and give it a non-exclusive license as if it were any other developer. This assumes, of course, that DigiCash BV/Inc. didn't issue exclusive-by-country licenses. While it appears on the surface that they have done exactly this, I have been met with what seems like incredulity from various DigiCash folks when I talk about it, so, for the time being, I'll take them at their word when they tell me it isn't so. Actually, when I think about it, it may be immaterial, as there are lots of countries on the internet to park underwriters and trustees in, and they can denominate their bearer cash instruments in any currency they want. One way or another, the software side of DigiCash would be gone. We figure out what the net present value is of the current licenses, and hope that a company can be formed around that cashflow and spun off into a separate software development company. If we're lucky, we make money on the spinoff and keep the patent. If we're not lucky, DigiCash will probably have to get rid of it's current obligations before *anyone* clueful would step in to pick up the patents, and just the patents, alone. Obviously, what has been spent so far building DigiCash, BV or Inc., is immaterial to any discussion of the future. Just like what happened to Chaum, et. al., when Negroponte and companies um, executed, the purchase of last version of DigiCash, we have to completely forget the all the money which has been spent on Digicash BV, now Digicash Inc., so far, and ignore the howls of the current investors, as painful as that may be to listen to. :-). They knew the job was dangerous when they took it, anyway... Okay, that's a nice story. How about some actual data? I expect the best way to get a handle of royalties is to start soliciting actual projected royalty estimates from potential developers and underwriters, but, frankly, I think that most developers and underwriters, like the rest of us, have no real idea how much money they're going to make. Nonetheless, if anyone's interested in telling me, offline, what they think they would would be fair royalty payments, either as an underwriter or as a developer, I'd like to hear their estimates. My PGP key is attached. My own rule of thumb, for cash anyway, is that an underwriter can probably charge no more than a bank charges to one of their non-customer ATM transactions. That's probably no more than $3.00 a withdrawl. They also get to keep the interest on the reserve account, if any, of course. Frankly, if the royalties are low enough, that may be more than enough revenue to bootstrap a business with, and I would personally lobby for as low a royalty structure as possible. That, of course, is driven entirely by the cost/revenue picture, but it might be that a majority of the short-term operations can be bootstrapped out of validation fees. That leaves all the other potential markets for blind-signature macroscale digital bearer settlement, everything from long-duration bandwidth purchases for IP or voice dialtone on up to actual securities transactions themselves. Most of these potential applications will occur after the patents expire, but whoever owns these patents should allow not only licenses to all comers, but, more to the point, should allow all *licensees* to worry about the legal ramafications of the patents' use. If a particular licensee can find a legal jurisdiction to offer utterly anonymous digital bearer instruments backed by totally anonymous reserves, then, as long as the licensee pays up, god bless 'em. The patents should be licensed within the law, certainly, but, other than that, their use should be considered value neutral, like all technology. As in all bearer markets before them, the digital bearer trustee will be the point of maximum legal compliance, and, as such, will be the functional "policeman" of the system. I leave the interesting solution of bearer-backed trustees for some other day, probably after the patents have long expired. Okay. There's lots more to talk about, of course, but I'm kind of tapped out on this for the time being. If you're an intellectual property lawyer, and you fancy yourself running the DigiCash patent portfolio, contact me directly. I'm not sure exactly what I can do, if anything, but I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, as the potential core person of this as yet imaginary enterprize, up to, and including what it would cost for you to sign on for this much fun as at least in-house counsel, if not the actual CEO. :-). In addition, if someone has a reasonable non-proprietary(!) estimate of the projected revenues on all those outstanding ecash contracts, that would be nice to know as well. The terms of those contracts, are, of course, probably unknowable at the moment, at least until someone has enough known scratch to belly up to the table, sign an NDA and take a peek. Of course, then they couldn't tell us anything anyway... Isn't this fun? Cheers, Bob Hettinga [Public keys ommitted] ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------160D55EEEBD38D036F141A24-- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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No Subject
by Mixmaster 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Re voting for politicos: just received this spam... --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- Subject: Psst..... Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:31:39 -0500 Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19981104093139.00b88b80(a)nyc-services.nis.newscorp.com> >>> >>>>When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits. >>>> >>>>Pass it on. >>>> --------- End forwarded message ----------

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Euro-Telecoms Standards gives access to GSM & other specs
by Adam Back 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Someone pointed out this information to me. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) have granted access to allow everyone, not just members, to their specifications. These include the GSM specs. Start here: http://webapp.etsi.org/publicationssearch/ Adam

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Re: Project 415
by John Young 18 Dec '03

18 Dec '03

Duncan Campbell says he doubts the Paul Dore story has anything to do with P415/Echelon, which is a collection system not a satellite. Moreover, the description of a "deep space" satellite does not fit the the known parameters of those that gather intelligence. Might be a completely new type but that's a stretch. One article Anonymous posted says Paul Dore denies having anything to do with the Web page we cited here as having been removed. Another says the SETI people are pissed about the incident, one saying it has set SETI's credibility back "by a 100 years." Still unexplained is the reason for the now 11,000 downloads of Duncan's 1988 article on P451/Echelon in the last 36 hours. Could be an alien bot, pissed at being awakened by SETI putzes' screen savers.

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