-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/38/ns-18077.html Has an NSA "analyst" cum "Center" for "Democracy" and Technology "analyst" saying, yes, Virginia, Commercial Software has, indeed, NSA Backdoors In It. Lions and Tigers and Backdoors, Oh, My. Frankly, I expect that NSA would be remiss in their grope-age indeed if they *didn't* try to get a backdoor into anything it could, and, of course, I would expect that the um, spuke version of the Misian calculation problem itself would take care of those efforts; WTMI, fall of totalitarian hierarchy, routing around surveillance as damage, and all that. If not simple counter-sniffage, for that matter, as the average 31337 hacker-dude, if not cypherpunk, would see fairly clearly, and has been going on as long as said sniffage was possible. However, it amuses me more -- as long as I don't think too hard about it - -- that any such ostensible "privacy advocacy organization" would use the same old Randian Legislation-threat fund-raising-FUD game (or, maybe it's the same old Randian Legislation-promise fund-raising-FUD game, whatever), on something as demonstrably *testable* as the old NSA back-door-FUD gag. I mean, can't they be a little more *creative*, fer chrissakes? How stupid do they think the public really is? Oh. Right. I forgot... Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQEVAwUBOdESj8UCGwxmWcHhAQHSDQgAlA1/+asZTagnQ4vL44WJ9If+fTVwkPCC ydIhcJFUjXXUFFEonRFDny7Yx3OuvspFU2EApL/gN9RLQ/8grObgffen/Vc5G5bM uiOty9MqqrX5PJvmLp2M5gEHP6lXrb7EIaac+DTc+BcShpXzoh+PFWrEX7F7Nhvb o1hQnppFlQ0Ka5DqGcCnqQr5CWt/5em5paSwOnGj//GlvVVY/FRZUYIkRjJ6Cvnj UP4Liq5HkE22OZM5XbkfXC95+oKgCikKG4iudPEc6M9SoW4eJB0HEfoClRgBH8ms wG1BwpBxjmuVpXXQQPJ280Y5seeN8rFT3/yrZCJWMGDy8XNKEWl5Kg== =Uj0N -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@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'