Message-Id: <v01510102ab5ecd95ffb0@DialupEudora> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

"All crypto is economics," and this is what made seals and sealing wax so useful for so long. Saying "seals were duplicatable from the start" does not mean this feat was easy, even if technically possible.

In fact, the fine details produced by a good seal are hard to exactly emulate with a copy. Even on a two-dimensional surface. And with the advent of three-dimensional surfaces, which sealing wax made possible, the fine detail of a good seal was in fact very hard to forge.

But not impossible. According to Kahn, the Austrian Black Chamber was quite adept at forging seals in the late 1600's / early 1700's. They were able to take sealed correspondence in at 7 a.m., unseal it, copy the message, re-seal it, and have it back in the postal stream by early afternoon. There was only one recorded case of them re-sealing a message with the wrong seal, and that was because the seals were so similar. All this is from memory, since I don't have my copy of _The Codebreakers_ here at work, so I may be off in some details. Ken = Ken Kirksey And the Clinton administration launched an attack on = = kkirksey@world.std.com people in Texas because those people were religious = = Mac Guru & Developer nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by = = religious nuts with guns. - P.J. O'Rourke = -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAwUBLzkeVusZNYlu+zuBAQG5HgP+LuE0aOG6UxgZp/IrZCm2y9ESi9AT13v+ ePMulQHUXUv8cc4m0RTjD35+cmKSKADrP6L1oC6BCia+5d3Rhidh2KcqaoQZQLvc rSuXbPgUpM7VJBOELtxc68CLJTpyaHBHvORJ//xH+/kN/++2f110+hZMwvgynrRd Pj54hvqthKA= =Jhff -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----