For methods of jiggering physical clocks, one might eventually reach the stage of attempting to have physically unjiggable clocks. [Well, theoretically unjiggable, just as our hideously huge composites are thought unfactorable by computability arguments.] Example: I have a piece of information which I wish to remain secret until a well- defined date in the future. I encrypt it then lob a package containing the information into a well-defined and predictable trajectory which will cause it to intersect the earth's trajector at that time [or shortly thereafter]. I would [guess, hope, no, I haven't sat here and calculated] that there should exist possible systems where beyond an initial period of about a week, there would be no earthly technology capable of catching up with the packet. Alright, so it's hideously expensive. But you could put a lot of information into one packet. Apollo Assured Archiving could have fixed rates per megabyte, with regular [monthly?] launches into reliable orbits. At which point the joy becomes making sure there aren't packet-catching bases on the far side of Mercury... [with the mind control lasers, of course] frodo -- Richard Martin Alias|Wavefront - Toronto Office [Co-op Software Developer, Games Team] rmartin@aw.sgi.com/g4frodo@cdf.toronto.edu http://www.io.org/~samwise Trinity College UofT ChemPhysCompSci 9T7+PEY=9T8 Shad Valley Waterloo 1992