Telco Blob

[John Young]

   Financial Times of October 3 has a humongous 40-page insert
   on international telecommunications -- markets, business,
   technology, and, to be sure, the tele-players lying,
   cheating, fearing the "computer hacking industry,"
   whimpering with delirious greed at the bountiful,
   multicultured consumer's mindless credulity of tekkie-
   gadgets. For the mil-beguiled Colin Powells there's even a
   colored global map of Big Blob telco strategic rapacity.

   A tiny cheering blip of machine-wash-n-readable T-stupidity
   on p. 34:

      Sutton dismisses worries out security -- despite a
      recent successful attempt to break the security on
      Internet financial transactions. An incident in August,
      when a researcher at the French National Institute of
      Computer Science and Control (INRIA) broke into the
      Internet security system, raised concerns about
      security.

      "A lot of security is about perception -- after all,
      every code can be broken. The INRIA incident only
      involved breaking a single code and needed massive
      computer resources to do it," says Mr Sutton.