Ophir Ronen has forwarded us the Dvorak article. I had planned to wait until midnight to reply, but, hey, it's past midnight _someplace_. Ophir titles his post "Our Tax dollars at work! (NOT a sick joke)," but the situation is actually much grimmer than what Dvorak wrote about:
From: Setheni Davidson (CompuCom)
Trust Congress? Not With This Unbelieveable Lair of Slop PC Computing, April 1994, page 88. By John C. Dvorak
The moniker -- Information Highway -- itself seems to be responsible for SB #040194. Introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, it's designed to prohibit anyone from using a public computer network (Information Highway) while the computer user is intoxicated. I know how silly this sounds, but Congress
....rest of Dvorak's April column elided.. Further provisions: - Speaking on telephones while intoxicated (.03% blood alchohol level) is also illegal, as the slurred speech interferes with normal voice recognition and tracking software the NSA runs. "Speak clearly into the microphone." - Writing software while on drugs, apparently a longstanding practice amongst some segments of the hacker community, is banned. As Professor Denning puts it: "Drugs and code don't mix. This is what got us into this whole crypto mess in the first place." - Encrypting while drunk is specifically forbidden. Apparently recent work in the Cryptologic Science Section of the Agency, and since confirmed by noted Russian quantum theorist Dmitri Jokovich, is that careless use of RSA and other NP-confusing algorithms could produce superluminal effect-before-cause cryptoquantum fluctuations. Based on the Choate Effect, these fluctuations could cause the collapse of the universal wave function! - To ensure that illegal knowledge is no longer carelessly distributed, and following the example set by our Canadian brothers (who have limited distribution of several newsgroups related to the Karla Homulka and Paul Teale matter), the following newsgroups are now declared contraband in the United States: sci.crypt talk.politics.crypto alt.clipper alt.fan.david-sternlight alt.fan.dorothy-denning alt.fan.clint-brooks alt.fan.john-dvorak Have a nice day. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."