Nicholas Petreley's "Down To the Wire" column is a short take on the insecurity of encryption schemes used by most commercial software. There shouldn't be much new here to cypherpunks (he discusses the vulnerabilities of WordPerfect, Word for Windows, Excel, and Compuserve's CIS.INI, and uses some out of date examples "to protect the integrity of current software": bad move, Nicholas), but it'd make a good introduction for people who aren't familiar with the issues. Petreley also announces that InfoWorld is planning a "network-cracking event", in which they plan to set up various network OS'es, make them as secure as they can, invite "a small number of accomplished hackers" to attack them, and publish the results. He says they're looking for participants... InfoWorld's web site is http://www.infoworld.com. Petreley can be reached at nicholas_petreley@infoworld.com. ==Dwight