At 6:06 AM 2/7/96, t byfield wrote:

Surely you jest. It's one of the weirdest hodgpodges of inane free association I've ever read. The authors are a couple of regular Jack D. Rippers. Highlights:

It's about par for these "management" conferences. A deep, thoughtful analysis is just not likely (and I don't mean this as a complete insult: his paper is mostly just to touch on what these issues are, not to do an academic study). Strassman is a regular columnist for "Computerworld" and a member of various advisory councils (including a conspiracy-feeding thing called the "EC World Council"). He was a bigshot in the DOD, works for the "Information Warfare" folks (the much-hyped new area generating so many conferences), and has all sorts of ties to the mil-info complex. An Alta Vista search on the string "Paul A. Strassmann" is revealing.

...

One of the most prominent anonymous re-mailers is <anon.penet.fi> is in Finland. It is frequently used by the Russian (ex-KGB) criminal element.

Maybe he got this from all of the stuff that is sometimes attached automatically to remailed messages: KGB, Sarin, Corona, Area 51, IRA, and those cute slogans like "the shipment will be out of the Port of Oakland at...," etc. :-} But more seriously, any mil-info complex effort to demonize remailers must of course invoke one of the Horsemen. At this time, "Russian Mafia terrorists" is the putative focus of joint U.S.-Russian intelligence activities, and was even the plot of the latest James Bond movie. (Rumor has it that 007 will be doing battle with MEDUSA, the cyberspace descendant of SMERSH, in this case meaning "death to tentacles.") --Tim May Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."