...

Yes, but concievably if (whoever would be incharge, FBI?) *could*, under law do this, even if they are wrong. It is a lot harder to prove that they intentionally harrassed *you* than it is for them to say that they were following leads and show evidence. Yes, this may

To go to trial, an indictment would be needed. How likely is this?

The likelyness is irrelevant to the point. Possibility is relevant. Probability is not.

Discussion of "in theory they could arrest you" points often neglects the realities of the legal system.

Does that really matter? . In REALITY, it will never be enforced. So what? The potential is still there, and in essence, that is ALL that matters! The discussion of "in theory...." doesn't neglect the realities of the legal system, rather it highlights the POTENTIAL for abuse. Even if the law is never enforced, could it not be used as an example to justify other laws that *may* be introduced? Does it not set a dangerous precedent? We are talking about dangerous empowerment here. Hmm. The arguement "well, we would never REALLY enforce it" just doesn't hold water with me, and makes me uncomfortable.

A large fraction of pawnshop items have questionable provenance, the items having been stolen at some time in the past. Could J. Random Buyer who walks in, sees an item he likes, buys it, and walks out with it be handcuffed and taken down the lockup for the crime of buying stolen property? Doubtful, in the real world. And defense would be ridicuously easy.

A defense would be easy, fine. But it would still cost $$$. Do you see what I am getting at? This is done ALL THE TIME (no, not at pawn brokers. I'm talking about taking advantage of either cost or time to get what you want).

A trivial increase in frequency, and still not allowing the hypothesized 30 KHz signal to be added. DATs often sample at 44 and 48 KHz, switchably. The CD standard is of course still what it is.

That's not the point. What we are talking about here is a covert channel. Whether it is at 30KHZ, 22KHz or right in the middle of the audible range. Mine was ONE proposal, a theory of sorts, thought up off of the top of my head as a possible way of doing this. You can also add a digital serial number right in the audible range, if you like. Static that is recorded along with analog sound is at certain frequency ranges, typically. When you have a disk that holds 640Mb or so the serial number's size is trivial in comparison. Sending the whole number at once will barely be audible even if in a good frequency range simply because of speed. If you send it in bits and pieces during the song, and furthermore record this data in the middle of the frequency range where static is located, you won't hear it anyway. However certain devices will be able to read the data w/o problem. Similarly, you have a CD, let's say Beethoven's 9th symphony. You have ~640 MB on the CD. If you want to sneak someone an encrypted message, say a top secret document and it is compressed down to 1K, then putting this into the audio signal as described above is fairly trivial. The other end doesn't even need to know bit counts. The document can be spreadout, reversed, whatever and just signaled w/ a flag (much like PPP and other protocols). All the other end needs to decode is a flag at a set frequency range, both of which can be constantly changed. interestingly, Alex F =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Alex F alexf@iss.net Marketing Specialist Internet Security Systems =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-