Disgusted with the censorous antics of Declan the Lying Forger, some of us may be forgetting there are still some good journalists out there. Today's newsday has an excellent article by Gail Dutton, reporting from the AAAS's Conference ion Anoynmous Communications on the Internet. She managed to identify all the important issues in a ways that a layperson can understand, without oversimplifying; presented different points of view, including her own without editorializing and/or pushing her opinions as facts. I'm not saying that Declan should learn from her, because Declan is clearly too stupid to learn; but other aspiring journalists should get hold of this piece and use it as a paradigm for their own writing. I urge JYA the Copyright Violator to get hold of Newsday and to add Gail Dutton's article to his collection of Copyright Violations. Also: a guy named Joe Celko writes an SQL column for the freebie DBMS magazine, which I sometimes read. Here's a short except from his january column: Crypto and Databases More and more raw databases are being sent out on CD-ROMs because the price per unit to publish them and the cost of equipment to read them is so low per byte. For example, you can get some fo the Miller Freeman magazines on CD-ROM, and one Miller Freeman magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal (www.ddj.mfi.com), has been very successful with software and textbook collections on CD-ROM. if you missed an issue when you went to the dentist's office, national Geographic and Misdscape are releasing 1078 years of national geogra[hic on 30 CD-TROMs for $300 for educational institutions - every page of every issue. As of this writing, I do not have a price for individual buyers. For mroe informaiton contact Mindscae at www.mindscapeschool.com or 800-231-3088. On the same subject, a U.K. company, PAN Technology Ltd (www.pantechnology.com), has launched CopyLok, a method of copy protecting CDs. CopyLok prevents copying on CD recordable devices and on expensive Laser Beam Recorders that produce replicators, glass masters, and stampers for injection molding. In allows any information to be loaded on the hard disk of a computer, but will only allow that software to run if the original CD is in the drive. It stops friend-to-friend copying, illegal shop replication, and mass replication and also prevents Internet distribution. The product looks good and will be popular with PC software and computer game companies, which have to dal with software piracy rates in China and Vietnam of 96 percent and 99 percent, respectively. CopyLok is the reslt of three years of research, and is the first and only anticopying technology to have received Philips approval and a Philips' patent Application. it doesn't contravene any of the Philips worldwide standards for CD-ROM recording, such as the Yellow or Blue Book. The downside of all this is that part of the protection scheme uses strong cryptography to recognize the CD. The Clinton administration is still opposed to strong crypto, so U.S. companies could be put in a situation whee they have to publish their CD databases overseas to get protection. Once more, we disarm the victims and punish the innocent. Hmm. Other than the observation that copy protection sucks (I broke it back when it was used with 360K floppies and I'll break it on CDs if it's worth my while), we observe that if the COpyLok software uses crypto to authenticate the CD, not to encrypt the data, then it could be exported with no paperwork. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps