Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!lll-lcc!well!rab
From: rab@well.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: UUCP traffic monitoring
Message-ID: <2868@well.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 21:08:51 EST
Article-I.D.: well.2868
Posted: Sat Apr  4 21:08:51 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 19:45:50 EST
References: <870401-9823@nsavax.uucp>
Reply-To: rab@well.UUCP (Bob Bickford)
Distribution: world
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 32

In a previous article C. Edward Brown writes:

>Some of you folks think that you can bog down our traffic monitoring equipment
>by adding 'keywords' to your messages.  Why don't you save your finger tips 
>and stop?  If you were really loading down our machines, we would simply buy 
>and install more of them.

>C. Edward Brown


  Assuming for the moment that this..... uh, person.. is for real, he
apparently doesn't know much about the net.  For one thing, since
most of us put those 'keywords' in our .signature file(s), there are no
fingertips to be saved.... It's all automatic.  For another thing, while
there may be a few people who hope to bog down the NSA's machines, for
most of us this is simply a way of protesting Yet Another Stupid Invasion
Of Privacy by our 'government'.
  The above article's .signature line looked like this:

>     If we went away and they took over, then you would really be sorry!

  Besides being a little silly, this is also just a bit arrogant: if the
NSA went away, we would almost certainly not collapse as a society as a
result of that.  In fact, I am more frightened of us collapsing as a
society because we allow monstrosities like the NSA to continue to exist
and to gain power over our lives.  If 'they' take over, it will be by
grasping the pre-existing chains that we have placed on ourselves.

-- 
Robert Bickford         {hplabs, ucbvax, lll-lcc, ptsfa}!well!rab
terrorist cryptography DES drugs cipher secret decode NSA CIA NRO IRS
coke crack pot LSD russian missile atom nuclear assassinate libyan RSA