On Aug 9, 12:37pm, Timothy C. May wrote:
And don't forget "Teledesic," the 800-satellite (or something huge) project of Bill Gates and McCaw Cellular. Graham Toal discussed this recently in a post on software key escrow and Microsoft's possible involvement in SKE.
One of the things which has to be worrying the spooks right now is that communications in general is swiftly becoming an international business, and much less susceptible to parochial arm-twisting. The days of the Black Chamber when the cable companies bosses could be talked into releasing telegrams for the good of their country are receeding into the distance, and this really must worry the TLA's we all have come to know and love. None of this is news for any of us. I have often felt that bills like Digital Telephony have a much deeper motive, in that although they seem a lot less than justifiable now, it may be that the spooks are trying to beat the technology and have a surveillance infrastructure in place simply so that it's existance can either frustrate or influence the structure of international communications infrastructure. It would he hard for any country to demand the inclusion of monitoring facilities in a new system, but it is MUCH easier for them to point out that the new system really should be able to provide the same "law enforcement" facilities as the existing infrastructure does. Just an idle thought. Ian.