Black Unicorn writes: $ Who's to tell me I have to have ABS or the "safety starter" if I don't $ want the thing? $ Who's to tell me that I need a backdoor in my crypto? $ Where do you draw the line? Outlaw sugar perhaps? It would save $ consumers millions in dental bills. Uh-oh. I *really* don't have the time to get drawn into this one, but I'll offer a brief response. Choosing the place to draw the line is indeed the crux of the matter IMHO. I try to draw it at the point where one person's misuse of technology starts to hurt another person (which often begs the question, I know !). Considering some of your examples: Offhand it seems no-one but the driver could have a direct problem from using a car w/o the "safety starter", so I'd say that shouldn't be imposed. I don't drive stick, so I may well be missing a crucial technical point here. OTOH I can see that ABS could stop a lot of slow/non-alert people from slamming their cars into me & mine; I trust the technology more than the people who would be replacing it. I'm happy that it's a fairly standard feature, although this seems to be more a result of market demand than regulation. Your mention of outlawing sugar calls to mind some debates about smoking bans. Here IMHO the line is clear. When you eat sugar next to me, you're not doing me any harm unless I'm forced to pay your dental bills. In sharp contrast, I consider smoking in company to be assault with a deadly weapon. My choice of self-defense in this case is legislation preventing anyone from smoking in my airspace. I have no problem with people smoking in private where the smoke's never going to harm me. Of course, the explosive success of bullshit litigation (strongly aided IMHO by our lowest-common-denominator jury selection system) has played a major role in inducing companies & the govt. to go overboard protecting people from their own idiocy. I just want to be protected from other people's idiocy :) I won't touch on the question of required backdoor installation.... -L. McCarthy Send me mail using "Subject: remailer-help" for an autoreply about Underdog