If the government should happen to be serious about wanting to prevent some possible info war scenarios, one might expect a number of things to be seen. * I'd expect that there would be at least some statements about the unwisdom of standardizing on MS operating systems or unix versions which have little or no security, building an infrastructure with security holes one can drive a truck through. * I'd also expect that the anti-crypto campaign to be at least scaled WAY down, so as to encourage more open use of crypto components in security solutions. (Crypto won't help if your OS comes with a backdoor that allows anyone on the Internet to get r/w access to your disks...this has been reported to me in all Microsoft OSs they currently have, though with NT it's under certain common but not completely ubiquitous circumstances. The others are wide WIDE open. Other bugs doubtless exist. * I'd expect some comments on the automatic running of downloaded images and how to secure them. Java? Reported at Princeton to be totally unsecurable....no models exist. I believe you can run the thing securely, but by having some security in its environment., I'd expect a lot more about what is needed, and where it can be found, encouraging development of such features. If on the other hand this is a ploy to justify violating people's privacy and in fact is not concerned with improving our posture, I would expect more Clipper chips, etc., and nothing seriously beneficial. (I consider that freedom of speech & the press means that I can choose not only what to say, but how to say it. If I use a language (crypto) that is hard for some not spoken to to understand, I regard this as an essential part of the freedom. Last I looked, this is still written. (BTW, if you think that the Supreme Court is supposed to be the arbiter of constitutionality, your reading of Marbury vs. Madison is seriously flawed. Congress and the President (& other federal employees) take an oath of office and are supposed to be deciding that what they do is Constitutional before doing it. Alas that they generally don't take this seriously...) We'll see what actually happens. I'd like to hope for the real effort to avoid problems. I fear we will get the bogus one, suitable for control freaks but not useful ultimately in dealing with the threats. Glenn Everhart
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EVERHARTīŧ Arisia.GCE.Com