cactus@bibliob.slip.netcom.com (L. Todd Masco):
Data crime - 'cracking', 'phreaking' etc usually reflect a total lack of responsibility on the part of _administrators_. "Officer, I left my wallet on the kerb 10 minutes ago, and now it's gone!"
This sounds like typical kiddie-cracker garbage. It's more like, "Officer, I didn't know that master locks could be picked with the greatest of ease: arrest that man who picked it and took my wallet." [encryption is more complex than master locks etc]
I suppose it's obvious that I was not talking about the present, but future information society, a world where digital signatures and encryption are as familiar as combination locks and safes are today. I think it would be reasonable to assume a fair degree of knowledge on security on the part of system administrators - if by that time it's not widely known that plaintext or simple protection (un-shadowed passwords etc) can, like master locks, be 'picked with ease,' then all our efforts towards greater awareness of privacy and security would have failed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA