November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

File-sharing network thrives beneath the radar
by R.A. Hettinga 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

<http://in.tech.yahoo.com/041103/137/2ho4i.html> Yahoo! Thursday November 4, 3:01 AM LIVEWIRE - File-sharing network thrives beneath the radar By Adam Pasick LONDON (Reuters) - A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the Internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice. For those who know where to look, there's a wealth of content, both legal -- such as hip-hop from the Beastie Boys and video game promos -- and illicit, including a wide range of TV shows, computer games and movies. Average users are taking advantage of the software's ability to cheaply spread files around the Internet. For example, when comedian Jon Stewart made an incendiary appearance on CNN's political talk show "Crossfire," thousands used BitTorrent to share the much-discussed video segment. Even as lawsuits from music companies have driven people away from peer-to-peer programs like KaZaa, BitTorrent has thus far avoided the ire of groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America. But as BitTorrent's popularity grows, the service could become a target for copyright lawsuits. According to British Web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages. "I don't think Hollywood is willing to let it slide, but whether they're able to (stop it) is another matter," Bram Cohen, the programmer who created BitTorrent, told Reuters. John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA, said that his group is well aware of the vast amounts of copyrighted material being traded via BitTorrent. "It's a very efficient delivery system for large files, and it's being used and abused by a hell of a lot of people," he told Reuters. "We're studying our options, as we do with all new technologies which are abused by people to engage in theft." FOR GOOD OR EVIL BitTorrent, which is available for free on http://bittorrent.com, can be used to distribute legitimate content and to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale. The key is to understand how the software works. Let's say you want to download a copy of this week's episode of "Desperate Housewives." Rather than downloading the actual digital file that contains the show, instead you would download a small file called a "torrent" onto your computer. When you open that file on your computer, BitTorrent searches for other users that have downloaded the same "torrent." BitTorrent's "file-swarming" software breaks the original digital file into fragments, then those fragments are shared between all of the users that have downloaded the "torrent." Then the software stitches together those fragments into a single file that a users can view on their PC. Sites like Slovenia-based Suprnova (http://www.suprnova.org) offer up thousands of different torrents without storing the shows themselves. Suprnova is a treasure trove of movies, television shows, and pirated games and software. Funded by advertising, it is run by a teen-age programmer who goes only by the name Sloncek, who did not respond to an e-mailed interview request. Enabling users to share copyrighted material illicitly may put Suprnova and its users on shaky legal ground. "They're doing something flagrantly illegal, but getting away with it because they're offshore," said Cohen. He is not eager to get into a battle about how his creation is used. "To me, it's all bits," he said. But Cohen has warned that BitTorrent is ill-suited to illegal activities, a view echoed by John Malcolm of MPAA. "People who use these systems and think they're anonymous are mistaken," Malcolm said. Asked if he thought sites like Suprnova were illegal, he said: "That's still an issue we're studying, that reasonable minds can disagree on," he said. GOING LEGIT Meanwhile, BitTorrent is rapidly emerging as the preferred means of distributing large amounts of legitimate content such as versions of the free computer operating system Linux, and these benign uses may give it some legal protection. "Almost any software that makes it easy to swap copyrighted files is ripe for a crackdown BitTorrent's turn at bat will definitely happen," said Harvard University associate law professor Jonathan Zittrain. "At least under U.S. law, it's a bit more difficult to find the makers liable as long as the software is capable of being used for innocent uses, which I think (BitTorrent) surely is." Among the best legitimate sites for movies and music: -- Legal Torrents (http://www.legaltorrents.com/) which includes a wide selection of electronic music. It also has the Wired Magazine Creative Commons CD, which has songs from artists like the Beastie Boys who agreed to release some of their songs under a more permissive copyright that allows free distribution and remixing. -- Torrentocracy (http://torrentocracy.com/torrents/) has videos of the U.S. presidential debates and other political materials. -- File Soup (http://www.filesoup.com) offers open-source software and freeware, music from artists whose labels don't belong to the Recording Industry Association of America trade group, and programs from public television stations like PBS or the BBC. -- Etree (http://bt.etree.org) is for devotees of "trade-friendly" bands like Phish and the Dead, who encourage fans to share live recordings, usually in the form of large files that have been minimally compressed to maintain sound quality. Email this article to your friend - View most popular Prev Story: Web calls may be more popular than thought - survey ( Reuters) Next Story: Net banking fraudsters step up the "phishing" scam ( Reuters) More Technology Stories 7 Time Warner's AOL unit to cut 700 jobs - source ( Reuters) 7 Time Warner's AOL unit to cut 700 jobs - WashPost ( Reuters) -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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campus network admins
by cypher＠tediouspath.com 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

I recently violated the network user agreement (they packet-sniffed and got the username/password for my FTP server and didn't like what I was sharing with myself) and was informed by the admin that I am now 'under observation' and that they "hope I don't like privacy". Considering this admin was an NSA employee, I tend to take that threat a little seriously. Two questions: 1) I'm assuming they can legally look at anything that comes in or out of my computer, but is that the case? Can they look at my computer itself, or take me off the network for the private contents of my computer? 2) Is there some sort of service I can use to have everything I do on the network encrypted, such as a tunneling service to the internet? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This message was sent from The Tedious Path Are you ready to travel The Tedious Path? http://www.tediouspath.com http://forum.tediouspath.com

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Gigabit Ethernet board for TCP/IP security
by R.A. Hettinga 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

<http://www.electronicsweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=37931&liA…> Thursday 4 November 2004 Gigabit Ethernet board for TCP/IP security SDC Systems offers a range of Gigabit Ethernet single board computers designed by ADI Engineering and based on Intel XScale and Intel IXA technologies. Designed for network security devices such as TCP/IP Offload Engines (TOE), firewalls, VPN equipment, IPSec and SSL accelerators, intrusion detection, and cryptography equipment, Shadwell supports line wire speed in both single and dual port versions. The board features an Intel 80200 processor, running at 733MHz, 256MB SDRAM (128Mbyte in the single mode), Intel 82545/82546 fourth-generation GbE MAC/PHY, and Intel 21555 PCI-PCI bridge. The board is implemented in a half size PCI form factor, and only dissipates 6W of power in the single port version. A Virtex-II FPGA can be used to offload of time-critical tasks including cryptography, firewall filtering, and virus scanning. www.sdcsystems.com Tel: 01462 473928 -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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[ISN] Online payment firm in DDoS drama
by InfoSec News 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/03/protx_ddos_attack/ By John Leyden 3rd November 2004 Online payments processing firm Protx is continuing to fight a sustained internet attack which has severely impacting its services for the fourth successive day. Since Sunday (31 October), Protx's systems have been reduced to a crawl because of a malicious DDoS attack. Although Protx felt it was on top of the problem by Monday (1 November) the attack once again intensified, prompting the company to draft in heavy duty DDoS defences which it hopes will finally thwart the assault. In a statement, Mat Peck, chief technical officer, Protx said: "Earlier today [1 November] the parties responsible for the Distributed Denial of Service attack on our systems stepped up their assault, this time pushing our systems beyond their capacity to cope. A large number of compromised machines from a wide range of spoofed IP addresses have been attacking our site in a varied and well structured manner. We have been working all day with Globix, our ISP, to implement a specific DDoS solution which can burst up to 1Gb connectivity during periods of peak load whilst also analysing and killing traffic generated by zombie machine on the Net." "We have migrated the WWW site across to this system first to check the functionality and now that's working, we will be moving the payment servers in the next few hours. This new service, whilst expensive, still mainly developmental and bleeding edge, should enable us to continue to process transactions even under DDoS attacks ten times the size we've seen so far. Future attacks will be dealt with in a matter of minutes instead of hours (or days as many victims of such attacks have found). We're continuing to work closely with the National High Tech Crimes Unit (NHTCU) to bring the perpetrators to task," he added. On 2 November Globix said it was also beefing up the hardware used by its systems in the process of moving across to a new platform. "Whilst all the payment services are available, some of the auxiliary services will not be available until tomorrow," Peck wrote in an update. However Register readers report problems processing payments through the service today. "Thousands of small transactional websites, like mine, have been affected," Reg reader Bruce Stidston tells us. At the time of writing Protx's website was unavailable but you can get an insight into what's going on through Google's cache of the firm's status page. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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[ISN] Online payment firm in DDoS drama
by InfoSec News 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/03/protx_ddos_attack/ By John Leyden 3rd November 2004 Online payments processing firm Protx is continuing to fight a sustained internet attack which has severely impacting its services for the fourth successive day. Since Sunday (31 October), Protx's systems have been reduced to a crawl because of a malicious DDoS attack. Although Protx felt it was on top of the problem by Monday (1 November) the attack once again intensified, prompting the company to draft in heavy duty DDoS defences which it hopes will finally thwart the assault. In a statement, Mat Peck, chief technical officer, Protx said: "Earlier today [1 November] the parties responsible for the Distributed Denial of Service attack on our systems stepped up their assault, this time pushing our systems beyond their capacity to cope. A large number of compromised machines from a wide range of spoofed IP addresses have been attacking our site in a varied and well structured manner. We have been working all day with Globix, our ISP, to implement a specific DDoS solution which can burst up to 1Gb connectivity during periods of peak load whilst also analysing and killing traffic generated by zombie machine on the Net." "We have migrated the WWW site across to this system first to check the functionality and now that's working, we will be moving the payment servers in the next few hours. This new service, whilst expensive, still mainly developmental and bleeding edge, should enable us to continue to process transactions even under DDoS attacks ten times the size we've seen so far. Future attacks will be dealt with in a matter of minutes instead of hours (or days as many victims of such attacks have found). We're continuing to work closely with the National High Tech Crimes Unit (NHTCU) to bring the perpetrators to task," he added. On 2 November Globix said it was also beefing up the hardware used by its systems in the process of moving across to a new platform. "Whilst all the payment services are available, some of the auxiliary services will not be available until tomorrow," Peck wrote in an update. However Register readers report problems processing payments through the service today. "Thousands of small transactional websites, like mine, have been affected," Reg reader Bruce Stidston tells us. At the time of writing Protx's website was unavailable but you can get an insight into what's going on through Google's cache of the firm's status page. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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[ISN] Online payment firm in DDoS drama
by R.A. Hettinga 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

--- begin forwarded text

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Bush and a Butterfly
by R.A. Hettinga 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109953476293464515,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 4, 2004 COMMENTARY Bush and a Butterfly By MICHIO KAKU November 4, 2004; Page A14 Another squeaker -- almost. Once again, the presidential election seemed to teeter -- if only briefly -- on a razor's edge. But for scientists, even political events can raise scientific questions. Here, one is tempted to ask something that no one raised on Fox News or CNN: What is the smallest event necessary to tip the balance? Meteorologists sometimes talk about the butterfly effect, that even the flapping of a butterfly's wings might, at critical junctures, tip a storm cloud into unleashing a downpour. But quantum physicists ask a deeper question: Can even tiny quantum events tip a presidential election? If so, then perhaps the entire universe itself splits in half. In one universe, there is rejoicing in the White House. In another quantum universe, there is rejoicing in the streets of Paris and Berlin. Both would be possible universes. * * * According to the quantum theory, which rules the sub-atomic world, one can only calculate probabilities, not definite outcomes. According to the "many worlds" quantum theory, the universe splits in half each time a quantum event takes place, creating a cascading "multiverse" of possible universes. Even the smallest quantum event (like the impact of a cosmic ray) can have catastrophic consequences. What might have happened if a cosmic ray went through the womb of Hitler's mother. She might have suffered a miscarriage, and Hitler would never have been born. Imagine a world in which Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Gandhi, Churchill -- or even George W. Bush -- were never born due to a tiny quantum event. The mind is sent swimming by the possibilities. (We physicists like to tell the story of a Russian physicist who, witnessing the decadence of Las Vegas for the first time, put all his money on the first bet. When told what a foolish strategy that was, he replied, "Yes, but in one quantum universe, I shall be rich beyond imagination!") But since we cannot make contact with these parallel universes it might appear that this is just idle talk. Instead of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it seems as if physicists are asking how many universes can spin off from one quantum event. But there is one very important practical application: the future of computers and the wealth of nations. By 2020, Silicon Valley may become a Rust Belt. Moore's law will finally collapse, causing massive disruption in the world's economy. All things must pass, even the miniaturization of computer chips, the engine of the world's prosperity. Why? The Pentium chip today is so compact that it has a layer only about 20 atoms across. By 2020, this layer might become only five atoms across, in which case the Uncertainty Principle takes over, you don't know where the electrons are any more, and the chip short-circuits. Silicon chips are useless at the atomic level. Instead, physicists are frantically investigating "quantum computers," which compute on individual atoms. Spinning atoms are like tops, and their axis can be aligned up, down, or to any angle in between. Bits (like 0s and 1s) are replaced by "qubits" (quantum bits, which can be 0, 1, and anything in between). What makes quantum computers so powerful is that they compute not just in our universe, but in other quantum universes simultaneously. Even the CIA is interested in quantum computers, since they are so incredibly powerful they might be able to crack any known code. Quantum computers are still many decades away. But eventually, the nation which dominates the world economy may be the one which masters the nano world of atomic, and quantum computing. Then quantum events, instead of being the idle talk of quantum philosophers, will be the source of the world's wealth. The Silicon Age is coming to a close. Welcome to the Quantum Age, where even button-down bankers will have to learn the mysteries of the multiverse. Not to mention those who do the exit polls at American presidential elections! Mr. Kaku, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York, is the author of "Parallel Worlds," forthcoming in January from Doubleday. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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Re: This Memorable Day
by Nomen Nescio 04 Nov '04

04 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 R.A. Hettinga: > Are you high, junior? Or is it just your politics that sound so... > sophomoric? > Communism, Fuck Yeah!!! States are People Too!!!! Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. (Euripides) You too. Sad it is. Howcome the Americans became so egocentrical and cynical that anyone who dares to speak up and support compassion for his fellow man automatically is a communist? It's a sincere question, no doubt in my mind that we won't get a sincere answer though. Reading your email actually reminds me of those of Tim May, he also seemed to be full of bigotry and hatred and deeply disliked anyone who were unfortunate enough to be poor. > Our culture -- yours, too, bunky, since I bet you don't shit into a > hole in the floor and pray 5 times a day for, as Hanson > appropriately No I don't shit into a hole, but I can still try to be unbiased and extend a though or two to other people who are not so fortunate as we are to be born in the rich part of the world. > Ah. That's right. I'm not "nuanced" enough. It's too *complicated* > for anyone who didn't take your sophomore (cryptomarxist) "History > Studies" class, or whatever. Please. To me it's enough to at least try to understand and try live by the spirit of the Bible. It's also quite ironical that all those right wing voters actually read communist propaganda in church, since that is the logical conclusion of your arguments made here. > There we go. Wisdom from a thug. How about this thug, instead, kid, > quoted just about as much out of context as you have yours: > > "When the hares made speeches in the assembly and demanded that all > should have equality, the lions replied, "Where are your claws and > teeth?" -- attributed to Antisthenes in Aristotle, 'Politics', > 3.7.2 > > Oh. That's right. One shouldn't read Aristotle. He was a White Male > Oppressor... You like quotes, ok here I have a small collection for you, maybe one or two of them qualifies as white oppressors too, I don't know. Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. (Nietzsche) An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. (Thomas Jefferson) I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts. (Abraham Lincoln) It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. (Voltaire) What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? (Mahatma Gandhi) Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. (Martin Luther King) > Sheesh. When will September ever end? In my calendar it's November already, I don't know about yours. Johnny Doelittle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 iQA/AwUBQYoOvDVaKWz2Ji/mEQLUvgCfZJiR4Nmtvpe00RHmsfJujf1opfYAn289 PIgwc3xyE+/RolLAFBqAc6Ks =cwYX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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the new Keyser Sose (was Re: "Do androids dream of electric camels?")
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

At 8:34 PM +0000 11/3/04, POPBITCH wrote: > >> Hardline Honeyz 2 << > Al Zarqawi: the unusual suspect > > Mysterious Jordanian celebrity executioner Abu > Musab Al Zarqawi is a huge hit with lovers of > Hardline Honeyz. With a $25m price tag on his > head, al Zarqawi shot to fame as the star of > "Sheik Abu Musab Al Zarqawi slaughters an > American infidel with his own hands", a video > showing the death of Iraq hostage Nicholas Berg. > But is Al Zarqawi for real? > > A Jordanian of that name did fight in Afganistan > in the 80s and in Kurdish Iraq in the 90s, > with a group called Ansar al-Islam, but no more > was heard of him until Colin Powell's famous > warmongering speech to the UN named him as the > link between Saddam and Osama. Since then Al > Zarqawi has become a mythic bogeyman blamed for > almost every real or imagined terrorist threat. > > *Suddenly he was al-Qaeda's bioterrorism expert > and head of terror camps in Saddam-era Iraq; he'd > never previously been linked to either. > * US intelligence experts say Berg's executioner > clearly didn't have a Jordanian accent. > * Iraqi insurgents claimed Al Zarqawi was dead, > and all new captured operatives from Ansar > al-Islam say they've never laid eyes on him. > * CIA said he only had one leg after an operation > in Baghdad, but since the executioner in the > video clearly had two they now say, er, he has > two after all. > > So... Al Zarqawi: he's the new Keyser Sose. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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Your source code, for sale
by R.A. Hettinga 03 Nov '04

03 Nov '04

<http://www.adtmag.com/print.asp?id=10225> - ADTmag.com Your source code, for sale By Mike Gunderloy Well, maybe not yet. But what does the future hold for those who consider their source code an important proprietary asset? Halloween this year featured more scary stuff than just ghosts and ghouls. It was also the day (at least in the Pacific time zone) when the Source Code Club posted their second Newsletter in a public Usenet group. Despite their innocent-sounding name, the Source Code Club is a group of hackers who are offering to sell the source to commercial products. Their current menu of source code for sale looks like this: * Cisco Pix 6.3.1 - $24,000 * Enterasys Dragon IDS - $19.200 * Napster - $12,000 They also claim to have the source code for many other packages that they haven't announced publicly. "If you are requesting something from a Fortune 100 company, there is a good chance that we might already have it, they say. Now, you might think this business is blatantly illegal, and no doubt it is. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible. They're posting their newsletter to Usenet, probably from an Internet cafe somewhere, so that's not traceable. They'll take orders the same way, and require orders to be encrypted using their PGP key, which is at least reasonably unbreakable at the moment. (As of this writing, I don't see any encrypted messages posted to the newsgroup they use, though). For payment, they're using e-gold, which claims to protect the anonymity of its account holders. Now, it seems reasonably likely that the Source Code Club folks will eventually get caught; going up against Cisco's resources displays at least a strong conviction of invulnerability. But even if these guys get caught, there are deeper issues here. Ten years ago, no one could have dreamed of trying to set up such a business. Ten years from now, advances in cryptography, more forms of currency circulating on the Internet, and improvements in anonymity software are likely to make it impossible to catch a similar operation. What will it mean when hacker groups can in fact do business this way with impunity? First, it's important to note that the ability to sell wares anonymously won't necessarily imply the ability to get inventory. Your best defense against having your own source code leaked is to pay careful attention to its physical security. These days, if I were developing an important commercial product, I'd make sure there was no path between my development or build machines and the public Internet. Hackers can do lots of things, but they still can't leap over physical disconnections. Second, I'd use software that prevents temporary storage devices (like USB sticks) from connecting to the network, and keep CD and DVD burners out of the development boxes as well. It's also worth making sure that your business doesn't depend entirely on source code. While the intellectual property that goes into making software is certainly a valuable asset, it shouldn't be your only asset. Think about ancillary services like training, support, and customization in addition to simply selling software. Finally, note that the Source Code Club business model is based on taking advantage of people wanting to know what's in the software that they purchase. About the pix code, they say "Many intelligence agencies/government organizations will want to know if those 1's and 0's in the pix image really are doing what was advertised. You must ask yourself how well you trust the pix images you download to your appliance from cisco.com." Microsoft (among other companies) has demonstrated how to remove this particular fear factor from customers: share your source code under controlled circumstances. That doesn't mean that you need to adapt an open source model, but when a big customer comes calling, why not walk their engineers through how things work and let them audit their own areas of concern? Given the shifting landscape of intellectual property, and the threat from groups such as the Source Code Club, these are matters you need to think about sooner rather than later. Otherwise you may wake up some morning and find that your major asset has vanished without your even knowing it was in danger. Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD .NET, MCDBA is an independent software consultant and author working in eastern Washington. He's the editor of ADT's Developer Central newsletter and author of numerous books and articles. You can reach him at MikeG1(a)larkfarm.com. This article originally appeared in the November 2004 issue of Application Development Trends. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.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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