February 2005 - cypherpunks-legacy

End of story for Hunter Thompson
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

<http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050221-115003-…> The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com End of story for Hunter Thompson By Stephanie Mansfield THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published February 22, 2005 Outlaw, druggie, Dunhill-smoking, Chivas Regal-drinking, anti-establishment literary icon Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide after becoming depressed about the United States' shift toward conservatism, said one longtime friend who spent the weekend at the Aspen, Colo., home of the late "gonzo" journalist. "He was depressed about the state of society," said Loren Jenkins, foreign editor for National Public Radio in Washington. A vehement opponent of President Bush, Mr. Thompson, 67, "was feeling maudlin about the current conservatism sweeping the country," Mr. Jenkins said. "He felt he'd had a long run, trying to create a freer society in the '60s and '70s and he felt it had all been closed down." Mr. Thompson's body was discovered Sunday by Juan Thompson, his son by his first wife, Sandra Dawn Thompson. His second wife, Anita, was not home at the time. The family issued a statement asking for privacy. In recent months, Mr. Thompson had suffered injuries and other health problems. While others expressed shock at Mr. Thompson's death, close friends " including Mr. Jenkins " did not. "Everyone who knew Hunter knew that he lived by his own rules and that he would end his life by his own rules," Mr. Jenkins said. But other friends said yesterday that Mr. Thompson seemed to be in good spirits during the past week. "I was there Friday evening at his home and left him at midnight," said longtime friend and neighbor Michael Cleverly. "We had a lovely evening. He was very upbeat. I'd have been less shocked if he had shot me rather than himself," said Mr. Cleverly. "He is the last person on the planet Earth I would expect of that." Mr. Cleverly, who knew Mr. Thompson for 25 years, said the writer " who lived at a compound called Owl Farm " had several assignments in the works, including a book of his photography. "He was in the midst of a productive life. My only speculation was that [the suicide] had to be an impulse, not something he'd been dwelling on." Mr. Cleverly also attended Mr. Thompson's annual Super Bowl party, and said friends were not aware of anything troubling the writer, except he had suffered "a terrible year physically." According to Mr. Cleverly, the writer fell in Hawaii and broke his leg. He also had back surgery and pain from an artificial hip. Yesterday at his favorite haunt, Woody Creek Tavern, patrons and writers gathered to remember Mr. Thompson, perhaps best known for his drug-fueled 1971 narrative "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which was made into a 1998 movie starring Johnny Depp. Recently, Mr. Thompson had been a regular columnist for ESPN.com Web site, and his columns had been collected into a book. Passionate about sports, Mr. Thompson gained a loyal following of younger readers who were not yet born when his name, along with Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote, became synonymous with a new style of observational, stream-of-consciousness magazine writing. He rode with the Hell's Angels " the subject of a 1966 book that established him as a leading practitioner of so-called "New Journalism" " and wrote a widely praised account of the 1972 presidential campaign and, like George Plimpton, became adept at participatory journalism. "There was an undercurrent of madness to his work," fellow writer Gay Talese said yesterday. "The story was always inside his head. It wasn't necessarily what he saw. His power was his disenchantment by just about everything in front of him." His last column recounted a 3 a.m. phone call to actor and friend Bill Murray, who portrayed Mr. Thompson in a 1980 movie, "Where the Buffalo Roam." Mr. Thompson had invented a new, "truly violent leisure sport" he called "shotgun golf," in which each player attempts to shoot his opponent's golf ball with a 12-gauge shotgun. "He was so vital and had endless number of friends," said Gaylord Guerin, owner of the Woody Creek Tavern. "He was an absolute genius." With his aviator sunglasses, cigarette holder and broad-brimmed hat, Mr. Thompson was the inspiration for the "Uncle Duke" character in cartoonist Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" strip. Known to magazine editors as a prima donna who turned in outlandish expense accounts and demanded high fees, he nevertheless earned respect for his entertaining rants. Mr. Jenkins said Rolling Stone once sent Mr. Thompson on assignment to Vietnam. Rather than cover the war, he spent his entire stay in a Saigon bar getting drunk and arguing on the telephone with editor Jann Wenner, who had canceled the writer's health insurance. He inspired a generation of future writers with his vivid first-person accounts of adventures fueled by alcohol and illegal drugs. "I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me," Mr. Thompson once said. He later admitted exaggerating his drug consumption, but truth never seemed to get in the way of a good story. Mr. Jenkins described his late friend as "who Mark Twain might have been if Twain had discovered acid." Flipped out and freaked out on everything from psilocybin mushrooms to peyote, Mr. Thompson wrote in the same vein as William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski. He especially admired the works of "beat" writer Jack Kerouac and Irish novelist J.P. Donleavy. But Ernest Hemingway was always an influence, and Mr. Jenkins said Mr. Thompson's death by self-inflicted gunshot reflected that influence. "There is a bit of the Hemingway thing," said Mr. Jenkins. "Both writers had their greatest success very early in their careers, and both created a persona built on that." While politically an enemy of all things Republican, Mr. Thompson proudly proclaimed himself a life member of the National Rifle Association and was known to keep a small arsenal of firearms at his home. Born in Louisville, Ky., on July 18, 1937, Hunter Stockton Thompson was a self-described "wild boy." After high school, he served two years in the Air Force during which he edited the base newsletter and wrote sports stories for a local newspaper. He then worked as a freelance correspondent for several newspapers and magazines before joining Rolling Stone, where he coined the term "gonzo journalism." Always worried about finances, Mr. Thompson churned out a series of books, including "The Great Shark Hunt" (1975), "Generation of Swine" (1988) and "Better Than Sex" (1994). A novel he wrote in the early 1960s, "The Rum Diary," was published in 1998, and he published a collection of short stories in 1991. "He kept everything," said Mr. Jenkins, referring to a cache of material " letters, faxes, memos and old articles " Mr. Thompson stored in his basement. One of Mr. Thompson's more colorful antics occurred in 1970, when he ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo., on the "Freak Power" ticket. The gonzo candidate " whose platform included changing the name of Aspen to "Fat City" and decriminalizing drugs " decided to shave his head, so he could denounce his crew-cut Republican rival as "my long-haired opponent." Copyright ) 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Return to the article Cl -- ----------------- 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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Code name "Killer Rabbit": New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

<http://wcbs880.com/topstories/topstories_story_049165912.html/resources_sto…> WCBS 880 | wcbs880.com Experts: New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables * USS Jimmy Carter Will Be Based In Washington State Feb 18, 2005 4:55 pm US/Eastern The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet on Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them. The Navy does not acknowledge the $3.2 billion submarine, the third and last of the Seawolf class of attack subs, has this capability. "That's going to be classified in nature," said Kevin Sykes, a Navy spokesman. "You're not going to get anybody to talk to you about that." But intelligence community watchdogs have little doubt: The previous submarine that performed the mission, the USS Parche, was retired last fall. That would only happen if a new one was on the way. Like the Parche, the Carter was extensively modified from its basic design, given a $923 million hull extension that allows it to house technicians and gear to perform the cable-tapping and other secret missions, experts say. The Carter's hull, at 453 feet, is 100 feet longer than the other two subs in the Seawolf class. "The submarine is basically going to have as its major function intelligence gathering," said James Bamford, author of two books on the National Security Agency. Navy public information touts some of the Carter's special abilities: In the extended hull section, the boat can provide berths for up to 50 special operations troops, like Navy SEALs. It has an "ocean interface" that serves as a sort of hangar bay for smaller vehicles and drones to launch and return. It has the usual complement of torpedo tubes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and it will also serve as a platform for researching new technologies useful on submarines. The Carter, like other submarines, will also have the ability to eavesdrop on communications-what the military calls signals intelligence-passed through the airwaves, experts say. But its ability to tap undersea fiber-optic cables may be unique in the fleet. Communications worldwide are increasingly transmitted solely through fiber-optic lines, rather than through satellites and radios. "The capacity of fiber optics is so much greater than other communications media or technologies, and it's also immune to the stick-up-an-attenna type of eavesdropping," said Jeffrey Richelson, an expert on intelligence technologies. To listen to fiber-optic transmissions, intelligence operatives must physically place a tap somewhere along the route. If the stations that receive and transmit the communications along the lines are on foreign soil or otherwise inaccessible, tapping the line is the only way to eavesdrop on it. The intelligence experts admit there is much that is open to speculation, such as how the information recorded at a fiber-optic tap would get to analysts at the National Security Agency for review. During the 1970s, a U.S. submarine placed a tap on an undersea cable along the Soviet Pacific coast, and subs had to return every few months to pick up the tapes. The mission was ultimately betrayed by a spy, and the recording device is now at the KGB museum in Moscow. If U.S. subs still must return every so often to collect the communications, the taps won't provide speedy warnings, particularly against imminent terrorist attacks. "It does continue to be something of a puzzle as to how they get this stuff back to home base," said John Pike, a military expert at GlobalSecurity.org. Some experts suggest the taps may somehow transmit their information, using an antenna or buoy-but those modifications are easier to discover and disable than a tap attached to the cable on the ocean floor. "Unless they have some new method of relaying the information, it doesn't serve much use in terms of warning," Bamford said. He contended tapping undersea communications cables violates a number of international conventions the United States is party to. Such communications could still be useful, although the task of sorting and analyzing so many communications for ones relevant to U.S. national security interests is so daunting that only computers can do it. The nuclear-powered sub will be commissioned in a ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday at the submarine base at New London, Conn. The ceremony marks the vessel's formal entry into the fleet. The former president, himself a submariner during his time in the Navy, will attend. After some sea trials, the ship will move to its home port in Bangor, Wash. -- ----------------- 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: SHA-1 results available
by John Young 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

Yiqun L Yin writes 21 February 2005 about when the full SHA-1 paper will appear: We have submitted the paper to a conference for peer review, and we should receive a notification of the review results by early May. We plan to publish the paper after incorporating the comments from the review, and will let you know around that time.

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palm beach HIV
by Justin 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

Given the release of Palm Beach HIV+ patient information via "accidental" attachment to a widely-distributed email, should agencies with access to confidential information implement mandatory access control and role-based security so that, barring problems with the RBAC/MAC software, confidential data cannot be accessed by roles that have external network access? http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-paidslist21feb21,0,… I haven't found the list yet, but I found this: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/02/11/a20a… "In Palm Beach County, one of every 35 blacks is HIV-positive. That is compared with one of every 492 whites." Calling Tim May! Calling Tim May! -- Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

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U.S. Withholding Satellite Data
by Eugen Leitl 22 Feb '05

22 Feb '05

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/22/0539254 Posted by: timothy, on 2005-02-22 07:33:00 from the derives-from-a-mandate-from-the-masses dept. plover writes "Because of Congressional legislation passed quietly in 2003, the Air Force Space Command will no longer [1]distribute space surveillance data via NASA. There was supposed a three year transitional period where the data was to be made available via a NASA web site, but earlier this month their transitional server went down hard, and NASA has decided to not rebuild it. (It was scheduled to be shut down on 31 March 2005 anyway.) The only way to obtain satellite data now is by signing up with the official [2]Space-Track website. Part of the agreement to obtaining data from their site is that you agree to not redistribute their data. Of course, [3]amateurs are still free to redistribute [4]their observations, [5]including those of classified satellites." References 1. http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/notice.asp 2. http://www.space-track.org/ 3. http://www.satobs.org/satintro.html 4. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/satsum.html 5. http://home.t-online.de/home/R.Kracht/top50.htm ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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PCs do thousands of years of work
by R.A. Hettinga 21 Feb '05

21 Feb '05

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/4270241.stm> The BBC Thursday, 17 February, 2005, 08:16 GMT PCs do thousands of years of work By Jo Twist BBC News science and technology reporter A global network of computer users has clocked up more than 4,000 years' worth of computer calculations in under three months as part of a huge grid project. Since November, thousands have joined the World Community Grid (WCG) which uses idle computer time to help solve serious health and social problems. Over 4,000 "teams" have been running a simple program which processes proteins for the Institute of Systems Biology. The Seattle-based institute is working out the role of proteins in bodies. The calculations completed so far by the thousands of ordinary desktop computers mean that the WCG has done 22% of the total analysis needed for the institute's Human Proteome Folding Project. "It makes me feel great because it is easy to sit back and let it run," Graham Hood, a community administrator for the 63-member My Online Team, told the BBC News website. "I can't think of a better way to put spare time into good use," added the watchmaker based in Birmingham. By the time the project ends it is predicted that more than 20,000 years of computing will have been done. Technical trouble-shooter As well as being a keen "protein cruncher", Mr Hood has also filled the role of technical trouble-shooter for those in the WCG community who fear viruses - not the biological kind. Participants only need to know how to install the software - no other expertise is required to be part of the effort. But that means some who take part may not necessarily be so savvy about technology and computer security either, which could cause problems. The software required to take part in the WCG is small, simple, and does its calculations without users realising it. "If you took 10,000 people and said it is costing you this amount a week to run your computer, would you prepared to donate that money to charity or put this program on the computer and it costs you nothing?" Graham Hood, My Online Team Small, encrypted files of protein data are automatically downloaded via a secure server when users connect to the net. With the current concern over spyware and viruses, WCG members have needed to ensure they remain secure online, but configure their systems to let the right kind of encrypted data in and out. Spyware are programs that surreptitiously install themselves on computers to gather information about users. They can slow computer processors and clog systems. "If you have a PC at home, it is more simple," said Mr Hood. "But if you are in corporation and you want to put 40 computers on the grid, due to the fact that networks have to be so secure, firewalls will block information getting back to the grid. "People have to get past the firewall in a safe manner." On the community's forums, advice is given out readily. The project is also a way of contributing to a good cause that avoids scam "charity e-mail" phishing attempts - e-mails which pretend to be from legitimate charities. This kind of scam recently hit tsunami relief fund-raising efforts. "If you took 10,000 people and said it is costing you this amount a week to run your computer, would you prepared to donate that money to charity or put this program on the computer and it costs you nothing?" Of course, a resource like cash is always a welcome relief for charities too, but at least computers which get more powerful year on year can do something useful, too. Premier processing league The teams and individuals also earn points for the processing and calculations each has done. Those with the most points, worked out and balanced against the specification of the computer and net connections speeds, are ranked in a league. The "Premiership" tends to comprise those who might have more than one processor linked up to the WCG. "One person from Hollywood has a render farm with 30 processors in it. So he is doing in one day what I have done in three months," explained Mr Hood. But Mr Hood and his team have crawled steadily up the rankings to be the 13th most prolific team, contributing more than 300 computers to the endeavour. Earning processing points and having rankings gives people something to aim for, aside from the greater humanitarian goals, according to Mr Hood. Each protein has to be analysed five separate times to be sure of results. The hope is that a better understanding of the roles certain proteins have will lead to the development of cures or better treatments for diseases like cancer, HIV/Aids, and malaria. Protein analyses can take years to complete on powerful supercomputers alone. A global network of desktop computing power doing the analysing means that time can be reduced to a matter of months. The WCG project, backed by IBM, is similar to others, like the successful Seti@home run by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Life project which examined radio signals for signs of alien communication. Another, the Smallpox Research Grid, linked together more than two million volunteers from 226 countries to speed-up analysis of 35 million drug molecules in the search for a treatment. The subjects of study for the WCG teams are chosen by an international advisory board of experts specialising in health sciences and technology. The board evaluates proposals from leading research, public, and not-for-profit organisations, and aims to be involved in up to six projects a year. E-mail this to a friend Related to this story: Computer grid to help the world (20 Nov 04 | Technology ) Sun offers processing by the hour (02 Feb 05 | Technology ) ET fails to 'phone home' (28 Mar 03 | Science/Nature ) Computing power aids alien hunters (19 Aug 02 | Technology ) RELATED INTERNET LINKS: World Community Grid Download WCG software IBM Seti@home Grid forum Human Proteome Folding Project Institute of Systems Biology My Online Team Folding@Home The BBC is not resp -- ----------------- 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: SHA1 broken?
by R.A. Hettinga 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

--- begin forwarded text

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RSA looks ahead on RFID security
by R.A. Hettinga 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/18/rsa_rfid/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Security ; Identity ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/18/rsa_rfid/ RSA looks ahead on RFID security By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 18th February 2005 21:16 GMT RSA 2005 Cryptographic researchers are working out ways to make RFID technology more palatable to consumers ahead of its expected widespread deployment over the coming years. RFID tags are small silicon microchips attached to an antenna which emit a unique serial number by radio over short distances. Miniature RFID tags can be embedded in all kinds of consumer products and scanned from between two to three metres away, revealing information about the product and (potentially) its owner. Critics say the technology could reduce or eliminate purchasing anonymity and could even threaten civil liberties. The issue becomes even more acute with plans to put RFID tags into identity cards. Burt Kaliski, director and chief scientist of RSA Laboratories, said RFID technologies promise to become the most pervasive deployment of technology ever, but little attention has been paid so far to security and privacy issues. "The level of security and privacy needs to grow in proportion with deployment," he said. RSA is concerned that information stored on RFID tags could be read by anyone with an RFID reader - data thieves, hackers - or worse. Right now, this isn't much of a threat; but once the technology becomes widely adopted readers will drop in price. Over time, readers are likely to be built into mobile phones to facilitate applications such as comparison shopping. Such an application could take 10 years to hit the streets, but security researchers need to think of the issues it raises now before standards become "baked in", according to Kaliski. "Technology can help maintain the balance between those concerned about business efficiency and those concerned about privacy," he said. Traditionally, security systems are based on the premise that a system is trustworthy and it's up to the user to establish his credentials. With the possibility of rogue RFID readers, this premise no longer holds true and a different approach is needed. One approach is to change the IDs of tags from one interaction to the next. "The authentication process needs some kind of dynamic interaction and not just the assertion of identity," Kaliski told El Reg. <pHe revealed his thoughts RFID security during a meeting at this week's RSA Conference in San Francisco. Scientists from RSA have been studying the issue for several years. Earlier this month researchers from Johns Hopkins University and RSA Laboratories announced the discovery of cryptographic vulnerabilities in the RFID technology used in high-security car keys and petrol pump payment systems. The attack against Texas Instruments DST tags used in vehicle immobilisers and ExxonMobil's SpeedPass system discovered by researchers worked because of the use of a 40-bit key in TI's technology. "The design was a good attempt, given the constraints," Kaliski told us. . -- ----------------- 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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Geekzone: IT, mobility, wireless and handheld news
by R.A. Hettinga 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

<http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=4099> Geekzone: IT, mobility, wireless and handheld news PGP moving to stronger SHA Algorithm News : Mobile : Security, posted 19-FEB-2005 19:37 PGP Corporation is planning to migrate to a more secure version of the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) in the upcoming releases of its PGP Desktop and PGP Universal encryption solutions. According to a report released this week by a team at Shandong University in China, the SHA-1 algorithm that supports the digital signatures used in popular SSL browser security and encryption can be successfully attacked. The same team helped break MD5, another commonly used cryptographic hash algorithm, in August 2004. According to the company, all PGP products are architected to allow for rapid and non-disruptive migration of all encryption, hash, compression, and signature algorithms. PGP Corporation began planning the migration to more secure hash algorithms after MD5 was compromised last year. Jon Callas, CTO & CSO of PGP Corporation addressed the company's design philosophy in a September 2004 CTO Corner article entitled "Much ado about hash functions" . At the same time, PGP engineers began implementing a shift from SHA-1 to the stronger algorithms (SHA-256 and SHA-512) while preserving interoperability with existing software. The upcoming releases of PGP Desktop and PGP Universal will allow users to select from a broader range of authentication options. "The work done by the University of Shandong team is in the finest tradition of cryptoanalytic peer review," said Callas. "The best minds continually review existing algorithms, identify issues that need to be addressed, and the entire community of vendors and users benefits. We will continue to monitor the cryptographic integrity of the algorithms used in PGP products and upgrade them as required to provide our customers with the most secure information security solutions available." -- ----------------- 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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Arroyo calls for ID cards, wiretaps
by R.A. Hettinga 20 Feb '05

20 Feb '05

<http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=042210e5ec3539c8> Sunday 20th February, 2005 Arroyo calls for ID cards, wiretaps Big News Network.com Sunday 20th February, 2005 (UPI) The president of the Philippines has said a national identification card and a system for wiretapping is necessary in the federal antiterrorism bill. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo believes the two components will make antiterrorism laws more effective, the Manila Times reported Saturday. Let's have that proposal go through the debate in Congress but it is important, she said. We are one of the few countries that still don't have an antiterrorism or internal security law. However, some lawmakers said the wiretapping could be used as a weapon to harass people personally or politically and the ID cards could allow the the government to compile a dossier against unsuspecting citizens. Last year's legislation to establish a National Reference Card at age 18 would have contained the name, address, blood type and next of kin of the bearer as well as a data strip containing a reference number and other confidential data. -- ----------------- 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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