December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Leaflet for First Monday
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:32:45 +0200 (METDST) From: Erik Barfoed <journals(a)inet.uni-c.dk> Subject: Leaflet for First Monday To: tony durham <tdurham(a)cix.compulink.co.uk>, robert hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com>, ed krol <e-krol(a)uiuc.edu>, bonnie nardi <nardi(a)taurus.apple.com>, ian peter <ianp(a)peg.apc.org>, rich wiggins <rwwmaint(a)msu.edu>, vint cerf <vcerf(a)mci.net>, Ed Valauskas <g0094(a)applelink.apple.com>, Esther Dyson <edyson(a)eff.org>, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <rishab(a)dxm.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Dear Everybody Once again I forward you the plain text version of the First Monday leaflet, which I kindly urge you to distribute. Best regards Pernille Hammels| Editor Journals Division e-mail: journals(a)inet.uni-c.dk Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; name="fmleaf.txt" Content-ID: <Pine.3.89.9605151245.A25943(a)inet.uni-c.dk> Content-Description: Leaflet for First Monday CALL FOR PAPERS Editor-in-Chief Edward J. Valauskas, Internet Mechanics, Chicago, IL, USA (valauskas(a)firstmonday.dk) Consulting Editor Esther Dyson EDventure Holdings, New York, NY, USA (dyson(a)firstmonday.dk) International Editor Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, The Indian Techonomist, New Delhi, India (ghosh(a)firstmonday.dk) Editorial Board Vinton G. Cerf, Senior, Vice-Presiden at MCI Tony Durham, The Times Higher Education Supplement, UK Robert A. Hettinga, Shipwright Development Corp., USA Ed Krol, University of Illinois, USA Bonnie Nardi, Apple Computer, USA Ian Peter, Ian Peter and Associates Cathsworth Island, Australia Rich Wiggins, Michigan State University, USA First Monday is a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet - about the Internet. This scientific journal expands the frontiers of academic publishing by combining the tradi-tional values of peer-reviewing and strict quality control with a new way of publishing on the World Wide Web. Aim and Scope The aim of First Monday is to publish original articles about the Internet and the Global Information Infrastructure. First Monday will: - follow the political and regulatory regimes affecting the Internet - examine the use of the Internet on a global scale, by analyzing economic, technical, and social factors - analyze research and development of Internet software and hardware - study the use of the Internet in specific communities - report on standards - discuss the content of the Internet First Monday will appear in three formats 1. Monthly Mail from a Mail Server First Monday will appear first of all as an electronic mail posting from the First Monday listserver. This issue of First Monday will be sent to the subscribers on the first monday of every month as an ASCII text file. It will include all the articles of each issue and pointers to information resources located at various Web, Gopher, and other sites. 2. Web Site This is the place where subscribers - and newcomers - can read about the journal, learn how to subscribe, read previously published articles, and submit manu-scripts and other materials for publication. This Web Site will also provide access to objects and files that are part of the articles. These objects and files can be downloaded. All back issues of First Monday will also be available for downloading. 3. Annual CD-ROM First Monday will also appear as an annual CD-ROM, containing all articles published in a given year. This CD-ROM will be offered at a low price to subscribers at the end of the year. Will paper versions be available? First Monday is an experiment in electronic publishing, exploring the possibilities of communicating in this Internet medium. At the insistence of subscribers, we can offer printing, but only on-demand. Process The flow of a typical article, from author to publication: - An author is contacted by an Editor to write an _article, or - An author submits an article to a Editor by electronic mail. The article is forwarded by electronic mail to the Editorial Office in Chicago. - The Editorial Office starts the peer-review process by forwarding the article to reviewers by electronic mail. The Editorial Office is responsible for tracking the article, handling comments from editors and _reviewers to authors, editing, and creating a final accepted article. - This initial peer-reviewing process is private. - Articles that are accepted for publication are distributed to all subscribers in the monthly mail, and posted on the First Monday Web Site. The Web Site version of the article is likely to contain objects (illustrations, programs, and other digital items) that are not included in the monthly mailing of the plain ASCII text. - All articles published in First Monday will be included in an annual archival CD-ROM. This CD-ROM will be offered to subscribers at a low price. How to submit articles To submit an article to First Monday, simply send it _by electronic mail to the Editorial Office (Edward J. Valauskas), valauskas(a)firstmonday.dk. Preference will be given to articles which take advantage of the Internet, using graphics, programs, HTML features and components, and other features not pos-sible in print. The text of the article (exclusive of any other objects like pictures, tables et cetera) should not exceed 30.000 characters. Format The manuscript must be in its final form, as a plain ASCII text, suited for distribution in the monthly e-mail. If an Internet resource is cited, just type in the URL. _Manuscripts can be marked up in HTML, as long as the tags are recognizable by most popular Web browsers. Non-text objects, like pictures, programs, spreadsheets, audio files, and full motion video files, can be part of an article. These non-text objects must be forwarded as binary files to the Editorial Office. Non-text should conform to well established de facto standards on the net: PDF, GIF, JPEG et cetera. Priority will be given to particular items of a high scientific standard, and articles with a relevant timeframe can be published at short notice as a rapid publication. Only original papers written in English will be considered for publication. Copyright Authors submitting a paper to First Monday automatically agree to assign copyright to Munksgaard International Publishers if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. The articles published in First Monday are protected by copyright, which covers translation rights and the right to reproduce and distribute all of the articles in the journal. Authors submitting a paper to First Monday do so in the understanding that online publishing on the Internet is a new opportunity and challenge, but also a step into a new territory, where authors and publishers do not always have the means to protect against unauthorized copying or editing of copyright protected works. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "If they could 'just pass a few more laws', we would all be criminals." --Vinnie Moscaritolo The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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DCSB: The FSTC Electronic Check Project
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Notice the corrected reservation deadline date (now June 1st, 1996) :-) Sorry about that... Cheers, Bob Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents Frank Jaffe, of The Bank of Boston and The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) "The FSTC Electronic Check Project" Tuesday, June 4, 1996 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA Frank Jaffe is a Senior Systems Consultant in the Applied Technology Group at the Bank of Boston. Frank is currently the project manager for the FSTC Electronic Check project which involves over 30 companies. Frank has played a leadership role in planning the amalgamation of Bank of Boston's five major retail computer systems into a single, common software system; acting as project leader for a new teller system, and leading the screen phone R&D project in cooperation with Northern Telecom and Bellcore. The FSTC Electronic Check project will develop an enhanced all-electronic replacement to the paper check. Electronic checks will be used like paper checks, by businesses and consumers, and will use existing inter-bank clearing systems. Like its paper counterpart, the Electronic Check represents a self contained "information object," which has all of the information necessary to complete a payment. Likewise, paper checkbooks are replaced by portable Electronic Checkbooks; pens & signatures are replaced by signature card functions and digital signatures using advanced cryptographic techniques; stamps and envelopes by electronic mail or other communications options such as the World Wide Web over the Internet. The fully automated processing capabilities of Electronic Checks opens the possibility of other types of financial instruments, such as electronic cashiers, travelers, and certified checks. Electronic check writing and processing will be integrated into existing applications, from cash registers to personal checkbook managers to large corporate accounting systems, to greatly increase the convenience, and reduce the costs, of writing, accepting, and processing checks. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, June 4, 1996 from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $27.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, and the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have dress code: jackets and ties for men, and "appropriate business attire" for women. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, June 1, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston". If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Planned speakers for the following few months are: July Pete Loshin Author, "Electronic Commerce" August Duane Hewitt Idea Futures We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert Hettinga, rah(a)shipwright.com . For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu . Looking forward to seeing you there! Cheers, Robert Hettinga Moderator, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMZnOlvgyLN8bw6ZVAQEm8gP/deJ/J0ncmiUTJo82jeGMRp38q+8u+/LH zUZ3dgOCXFM9Nldni/EM0nKiRAgPJTqlcGkrE6Q44s2+ZSPtTiop2Tbx+3xoCW9t zTeKoLoTLgcS7LYS1b/VpcJqN9+q7gGxqmyAd88yZei+i4ZHw6kUGB6MyeHMPq+t CSrEOkkikXE= =SWUd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "If they could 'just pass a few more laws', we would all be criminals." --Vinnie Moscaritolo The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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Micro$oft Online Banking Strategy
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Extract from Micro$oft WinNews Volume 3, #17: >>>>>>> MICROSOFT ONLINE BANKING STRATEGY Microsoft announced that 58 financial institutions have committed to offering online banking using Microsoft Money through a group of leading banking-software vendors and banking-processing companies. To further help banks build their online-banking services, Microsoft is readying software-component technology for performing secure, ATM-like transactions using popular World Wide Web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. These tools to facilitate browser-based banking are scheduled to be available by the end of the year. In addition, the Microsoft Windows NT Server network operating system includes embedded support for Internet publishing, helping facilitate an end-to-end Internet banking solution. Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1996/may96 /hmbankpr.htm <<<<<<<

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(Fwd) Mail Delivery Failure.
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 14 May 96 at 19:35, Timothy C. May wrote: > (This is having yet another interesting side effect: the wealthy who > can afford digital DSS dishes are suddenly very uninterested in > local cable problems, and the impetus for improvement is lost. > Obviously the "poor" are then left with a decaying, outmoded > infrastructure. Even as a Darwinian, I have to feel for them. They > got sold a bill of goods, about how awarding "the franchise" to TCI > or Sonic or Galactronic Cable would result in "universal access," > and now they're stuck.) Hey Tim, where are your bandwith-saving manners? You should simply have said : "You asked for it, brother..." ? ;-) Regards! JFA DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 Unsollicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at US165 $/h Any sender of such material will be considered as to have ac- cepted the above mentionned terms.

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Anonymous message failed (wrong password)
by daemon＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The message you sent to the anonymous server could not be processed, as your password (in the X-Anon-Password: header) didn't match the one stored in the server. Either you have made a mistake, or somebody has used your account and changed the password. If the latter is the case, please contact admin(a)anon.penet.fi. You can check your current password by sending an (empty) message to send-password(a)anon.penet.fi. Contents of failed message: ------------------------- X-Envelope-To: <nick(a)anon.penet.fi> Received: from mail.crl.com(165.113.1.22) by anon.penet.fi via anonsmtp (V1.3mjr) id sma008018; Sun May 12 06:14:37 1996 Received: from crl2.crl.com by mail.crl.com with SMTP id AA19905 (5.65c/IDA-1.5 for <nick(a)anon.penet.fi>); Sat, 11 May 1996 23:10:02 -0700 Received: by crl2.crl.com id AA10484 (5.65c/IDA-1.5 for nick(a)anon.penet.fi) Sat, 11 May 1996 22:56:53 -0700 Date: Sat, 11 May 1996 22:56:53 -0700 Message-Id: <199605120556.AA10484(a)crl2.crl.com> To: nick(a)anon.penet.fi Subject: Cyber An@rchy From: cypherpunks(a)toad.com x-anon-password: have-fun

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Past one terabit/second on fiber
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the April 1996 issue of Fiber Optic Product news, there is an article on a Lucent Technologies (formerly Bell Labs...no relation...sigh...) product which wavelength-multiplexes quantity 8, 2.5 Gb/second signals on a single fiber, for a total of 20 Gb/sec. This is a real, purchaseable system. On the same page is a somewhat more experimental system, done by Corning and Siemens, in which eight channels at 10 Gb/sec each were transmitted on a single Corning fiber. "Wow", I said. Far faster than the 2.5 Gb/sec transmission that is currently fairly standard for long-haul fiber trunks. I wasn't prepared, however, for page 38, in an article titled "Research Teams Achieve 1 Trillion bits a Second." In fact, three separate groups did this. I copy the article below. CP relevance? Well, the justification the government uses to regulate the airwaves, via the FCC, is that the available bandwidth is limited, which it is. But that argument has never been true with fiber, at least in theory, and is becoming even less true in practice. For example, that recent flap over Internet-based long-distance telephone interconnects (LD companies don't want competition) is based on the fact that the normal providers of these services want to get their dime a minute rates come hell or high water. Sure, that's a might cheaper than it was a decade ago. But with fiber transmission probably less than 1/100th the cost of older coaxial transmission systems, per connection, it is unclear why they're even continuing to meter LD phone calls. Even if we only consider that 20 Gb/second fiber from Lucent, that is equivalent to about 300,000 simultaneous voice calls. With a standard, 36-fiber cable, that represents 18x300,000 two-way calls, or about 4.8 million calls. This is probably far greater than the maximum number of people on LD in the US at any given time, and that's just a single cable trunk. If we assume that the fiber cable costs $1/meter per fiber, and the cost of trenching, burial, and interconnects raise this to $10/meter/fiber, and if we generously assume that the average LD call goes 3000 miles (5,000,000m), that call occupies 1/150,000th of a $50 million fiber for a few minutes. If we suppose that the fiber has to gross $100,000,000 per year to pay for itself, and even if it's only operating at an average 10% load level(both assumptions are pessimistic, that only works out to a cost of 1.3 cents per minute per call. That's why these LD phone companies are so scared: If we can transmit Internet on fiber, that fiber can accept this extra traffic at very low marginal cost. Part of article follows: "Research teams Achieve 1 Trillion bits a second" Debra Norman, Editor in Chief. Three research teams achieved their ultimate goal by sending the most information possible over optical fiber. The scientists, including a 12-member group from AT&T Research, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, reported in post-deadline papers at the Optical Fiber Conference held recently in San Jose, Calif., that they had sent one terabit of information over non-zero-dispersion fiber in a second's time. In short, it is similar to transmitting the contents of 1,000 copies of a 30-volume encyclopedia in one second. The researchers had not expected to send that much data until at least the year 2000. In the paper, the group described a 1 Tb/s transmission experiment that utilized WDM [wavelength division multiplexing] and polarization multiplexing. The outputs of 25 lasers were multiplexed using star couplers and waveguide grating routers. The wavelengths ranged from 1542 nm (channel 1) to 1561.2 nm (channel 25) with 100 GHz channel spacing. All lasers were external-cavity lasers except for channel 16, which used a DFB laser. Four of the laser outputs (channels 10,11,17, and 25) were amplified and filtered before multiplexing. The multiplexed wavelengths were then amplified and propagatedthrough an polarization beamsplitter to align al the polarizations. Polarization controllers at the output of each laser allowed independent polarization control for each source. The 25 co-polarized wavelengths were split by a 3-dB coupler, separatedly modulated by LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulators, and then recombined with orthogonal polarizations in a PBS. The modulators have a small-signal bandwidth of 18 GHz and built-in polarizers. The 20 Gb/s NRZ drive signals were produced by electronically multiplexing two 10-Gb/s 215-1 pseudorandom bit streams using a commercial GaAs multiplexer. Two other groups from Japan, Fujitsu and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Co., also submitted papers reporting that they reached the terabit mark. All three groups achieved the record with different experiments. Scientists from NTT demonstrated 100 Gb/s x 10 channel (1 Tb/s), error-free transmission of all the 10 channels over a 40 km dispersion-shifted fiber using a low-noise single supercontinuum WDM source fitted with a newly developed arrayed-waveguide grating demultiplexer/multiplexer. By fully utilizing the super-broad bandwidth of the SC spectra over 200 nm, up to 5 Tb/s would be possible. Fujitsu researchers achieved 1.1 Tb/s (55 wavelengths x 20 Gb/s) WDM transmission over 150 km of 1.3 mm [?] zero-dispersion singlemode fiber using preemphasis and dispersion compensating fiber with a negative dispersion slope. BER [bit error rate] degradation was not observed in any channel, even without channel-by-channel dispersion adjustment. [end of quoted portion] Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: S-Tools 4 now available
by Matts Kallioniemi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 17:41 1996-05-13 CST, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: >> You will need either Windows 95 or Windows NT (at least v3.51) to use >> this, and all further releases of S-Tools (Win32s is not sufficient). ><sigh> >I suppose this is market pressure, but it means you are alienating a >number of potential users (including myself). Some of us are working >toward being Microsoft-free, you know. It's not just marketing, it's a fact of life. 16 bit operating systems are not supported any more. Just as 8 bit OSes haven't been supported for quite a while either. There will come a day when 64 bits are considered the minimum for useful software (large database systems are already there). You just can't stick with 16 bits forever, MS-free or not. Face it. Matts

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RE: Why does the state still stand:
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:01 PM 5/14/96 -0700, blanc wrote: >3 problems which immediately come to mind: > >. What if someone, hired on one occasion but fired at another, > decides in anger to > "turn coat" and report everyone to the > IRS (or other fine government agency)? I expect that as corporations move to the net, they will not have the highly centralized structure of existing corporations. In any case this structure is in large part imposed by the state in order to facilitate tax collection. For example the existence of the "Human resources department" is largely the result of state coercion of corporations. In web businesses ones primary relationship will be with ones immediate coworkers, rather than the greater corporation. They will consist rather of a network of relationships -- contracting will move up, and the Keiretsu structure will move down. I expect the institutional structure will resemble that of the mafia -- a loose confederation of networks rather than tight whole. Thus defection by one party can only cause limited damage. In my judgement the Keiretsu form of economic organization is growing in large part because of improved communications and lowered communication costs. The Keiretsu form does not in itself facilitate tax evasion, but it does mean that the state has to apply coercion more directly to more people in order to collect taxes, and that its coercion has to be more visibly arbitrary and disruptive. >. What if a company does not pay as expected - other than adopting > Assassination Politics, what method could an employee use towards > getting their expected remuneration for work done? In order to do business, one will need a good name (or good nym). If one does not have a good name, one will be poor. That is why I said "every man his own credit bureau". >. Wouldn't everyone need to have two jobs (or source of regularly > accepted cash), in order to be able to pay for services where > suppliers do not accept virtual cash transactions? (TCM has > mentioned before about the need to pay for some things > in tiny quantities - like quarters for a phone call, etc.) Existing forms of ecash are costly and inconvenient, hence unsuitable for spending in tiny quantities. I expect that in the not very distant future every shop will offer its own cash, and that some of these will be in the form of millicents -- suitable for automatic lightly supervised transactions between computers. I expect the transaction cost advantage will eventually be on the side of electronic money, rather than physical money. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: Past one terabit/second on fiber
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > In the April 1996 issue of Fiber Optic Product news, there is an article on > a Lucent Technologies (formerly Bell Labs...no relation...sigh...) product > which wavelength-multiplexes quantity 8, 2.5 Gb/second signals on a single > fiber, for a total of 20 Gb/sec. This is a real, purchaseable system. On > the same page is a somewhat more experimental system, done by Corning and > Siemens, in which eight channels at 10 Gb/sec each were transmitted on a > single Corning fiber. > > "Wow", I said. Far faster than the 2.5 Gb/sec transmission that is > currently fairly standard for long-haul fiber trunks. The ads say they are selling it - that doesn't mean shipping it... yet at least. (Note that my employer is a direct competitor of Lucent so I have a vested interest in setting the facts straight) > I wasn't prepared, however, for page 38, in an article titled "Research > Teams Achieve 1 Trillion bits a Second." In fact, three separate groups did > this. I copy the article below. Yes - this is still very much a lab situation only though. It will be quite a few years before we hit that in real systems. [...] > > Even if we only consider that 20 Gb/second fiber from Lucent, that is > equivalent to about 300,000 simultaneous voice calls. An OC48 signal (~2.5 Gb/sec) will handle 48 T3's or 48 * 672 voice calls. Multiply by 8 for 20 Gb/second and you get 258048 voice calls. Pretty close to 300k I guess. > With a standard, > 36-fiber cable, that represents 18x300,000 two-way calls, or about 4.8 > million calls. This is probably far greater than the maximum number of > people on LD in the US at any given time, and that's just a single cable trunk. I don't know that any number fiber cable is "standard" but 36-fiber cable is not unusual. To find the capacity of a cable, you have to cut the number of fibers in half (as you did) because generally each fiber is used only for a single direction of traffic. You then have to cut it in half again because phone companies have everything redundant. So, for a connection between two cities, there are generally 2 cables in different locations (so one backhoe doesn't get both), with on average only 1/2 the fibers in each carrying paying traffic. > If we assume that the fiber cable costs $1/meter per fiber, and the cost of > trenching, burial, and interconnects raise this to $10/meter/fiber, and if > we generously assume that the average LD call goes 3000 miles (5,000,000m), > that call occupies 1/150,000th of a $50 million fiber for a few minutes. If > we suppose that the fiber has to gross $100,000,000 per year to pay for > itself, and even if it's only operating at an average 10% load level(both > assumptions are pessimistic, that only works out to a cost of 1.3 cents per > minute per call. That's why these LD phone companies are so scared: If we > can transmit Internet on fiber, that fiber can accept this extra traffic at > very low marginal cost. I can't vouch much for your cost numbers - other than to apply the factor of 2 adjustment noted above. I would add that much of a phone companies cost is in billing and customer service, etc. Not the cost of installing and maintaining the fiber and equipement. This is how the smaller carriers buy lots of bandwidth off of the big guys, and remove all the billing, etc. problems to themselves. They big guys are still making money selling the bandwidth, and the little guy makes his profit by selling for slightly less than the big guy and somehow making his billing, customer service, etc. cost him less. Internet telephony should make the use of bandwidth even more efficient - thereby cutting costs. The big guys who own the fibers will still make money - the pipes that carry internet traffic are still needed. But the little guys will get squeezed out. (until they become ISPs ;-). Internet traffic could theoretically be carried over this large amount of protection fiber (mentioned above) that is out there for a much lower marginal cost than the current T3 or OC3 pipes that are being used. The only "problem" being that these are lower priority channels, so that if a failure occurs anywhere, the traffic on them is dropped. Most customers are demanding high uptimes so much that the idea of a very lost cost, but much less reliable service hasn't caught on yet. Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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SS Follies
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>Although knowingly providing a fake social security number when one >>has any expectation of gain is, I believe, a felony. >> >>42 USC. sec. 408. > >Indeed. Except that this only applies to official uses. Obtaining a gain from a particular SS "account". I don't think it applies if you lie to your employer. >Plus, should one "just make a number up," odds are good that it "won't >compute," that is, that it will either collide with an existing number (and >identity, and reported income) or that it will fail the checksum/allocation >tests. No checksums involved (scheme invented in the '30s before that sort of thing) but there are unused ranges and geographical ranges. Freeware program like ssn.exe (available in all the usual places) will let you vet numbers. >The IRS imposes penalties for faking SS numbers. (Not to mention the >punishment meted out by the Sturmgruppenfuhrers of the SS!) If you use a "wrong" SS# on a W-4 form you will (some of the time but not always) receive a computer generated note from the SS warning you that your earnings have not been deposited into the proper account and if you don't correct the error you may lose benefits. Further action almost never occurs. Obviously more of a problem if done on 1040 forms. >A simple transposition of two digits may not get you zapped, but a >large-scale transposition or outright falsification will. If and when they >catch up with you. In the case of a school or cable TV company or something that wants the SS# to use for ID or credit purposes, nothing bad is likely to happen even if you are "caught". The SS doesn't verify SS#s for the credit agencies these days so they've had to build their own databases. If caught by private parties, all you have to do is say, "the SS# is Mark of the Beast mentioned in Revelations. It is part of a Satan-inspired One-World-Government Plot to establish *His* rule over the earth. I will not abide it." They leave you alone after that. Civilians are remarkably easy to cow if you express strong opinions. Real dialog from September 1983 in a Midwest State: Officious Intermeddler: "Why aren't you in school?" 12-year-old girl: "My daddy doesn't believe in sending me to those schools. He says they're controlled by Communists." Almost real dialog from the Spring of 1996: Parent: "My child has no SS# because (he/she) has lived overseas for (his/her) entire life." College admissions bureau-rat: "But how can (he/she) have a Passport without an SS#?" Parent: "That's our problem, not yours unless you've joined the State Department in the last 15 minutes." Most SS# problems occur in cases where one interacts with official persons. Since it is rarely necessary to interact with official persons, one can easily minimize these problems. Don't return their phone calls to your voice mail. Don't go to their offices. Like Rumpole of the Baily with his letters from Inland Revenue, drop their notes into the circular file. Don't ask, don't tell. Very little prison time has (yet) been served for SS# fraud. This may change if the "Immigration in the National Interest Act of 1996" passes since it increases penalties for uttering false documents in some cases. It doesn't apply to your interactions with your cable company. DCF

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