At 09:54 AM 12/10/2001 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/10/national/10CUST.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=print WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - Federal agents are planning to fan out across the country this week in an effort to recruit American businesses in the war on terror, urging companies to notify the government of suspicious customers. [...] The terrorists' shopping list, the Customs Service says, includes missiles, grenades, grenade launchers and other munitions; aircraft parts; computer encryption devices; and components of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, as well as items that might be used to manufacture or deliver such weapons. [...] ..... certain signs of suspicious activity, including these: ... 6A buyer has little or no understanding of the product he or she is requesting or the commercial activity in which he or she is supposedly engaged. ... 6A buyer has no interest in the customer service offered with a product or rejects the manufacturer's offer to train employees in proper use of the product.

Suspicious? Those are simply *routine* in the telecom and computer businesses :-) You'd think that they'd find it suspicious of customers *did* read all the manuals, closely, in great detail. It's less common now after the dot-com crash than during the heat of tulip-bulb mania, but if customers really understood technology there'd be less need for data sales people to bring along systems engineers to wave their hands and tell them what to think, or for companies to hire lots of customer support people to explain how to reset the coffee-cup holders on PCs, or for trade rags and internet sites to keep hyping new trends. Meanwhile, the technologies and economics are constantly changing in the business, so even if a customer or vendor understood what they were doing three months ago, that doesn't mean they still understand it today. Now, I don't sell missiles or grenade launchers, but computer encryption devices are part of my stock in trade - they're letting customers move from dedicated private lines and semi-shared frame relay and ATM networks to shared Internet connections and still get the privacy and security they got from the more expensive networks, and tools for cracking computer security devices are also routine commercial product, just like pressure gauges for checking car tires or chemical emissions detectors for car exhaust.