Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!kddlab!trl!rdmei!ptimtc!olivea!apple!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!rain.andrew.cmu.edu!ddean From: ddean@rain.andrew.cmu.edu (Drew Dean) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Info on Lotus Marketplace Summary: Still some questions Keywords: Lotus Marketplace Home Message-ID: <11252@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 30 Nov 90 20:56:16 GMT References: Distribution: comp Organization: Carnegie Mellon University Lines: 30 Thanks, Alex, for an informative posting. I note though, that your posting refers mostly to the Business version of Lotus Marketplace. I don't think businesses are in quite the same situation as individuals though. Businesses are all regestired somewhere, and that's public info. Businesses presumably exist for the purpose of selling things, and are always looking to do this more effectively. If an unsolicited ad comes in that helps in this, it's generally a good thing. Also, unsolicited advertisements can be a great way to find out what your competitors are doing (like when they announce a product similar to what you're developing; this actually happened to me). And mail addressed to VP, XYZ, Inc. Somewhere USA doesn't provide much of a privacy invasion. Lotus Marketplace Home (or whatever it's called; I guess I need a TM in there too so Lotus's lawyers don't come banging down my door :-)) seems much more dangerous, though, and what most people seem to be upset about. Also, how secure is "highly encoded" ? Remember a few years ago the "unbreakable" copy protection schemes, which were usually broken either before the product was released or within 1 month if it was really hard ? Can the NSA invert DES ? [Not to be paranoid, but it's still an open question.] Can someone else invert DES ? Would encrypting a bunch of common names do any good, ala encrypting the dictionary to find Unix passwords ? Drew Dean Drew_Dean@rain.andrew.cmu.edu [CMU provides my net connection; they don't necessarily agree with me.] -- Drew Dean Drew_Dean@rain.andrew.cmu.edu [CMU provides my net connection; they don't necessarily agree with me.]