In response to Hal's questions... I think the Eternity Service, as I understand the idea (altho I haven't read the paper yet), is valuable to society. In some countries, the government may try to suppress views and information unpopular to them and the ES could help make the information available. Sort of like Radio Free Internet. This one use - helping people who may be living under repressive governments get access to more information - would make the service valuable. There is certainly a large risk to intellectual property holders, if people used such a service to distribute copies of software, music, videos, or whatever, to avoid paying royalties and etc. -- pj re the DES hack, has anyone asked Damien when the researchers go on vacation? ;^)