[ILUG] Rather OT... ISP's assets could be seized

[cybersean3000 at yahoo.com]

On 17 Oct 2001, at 5:22, John McCormac wrote:

> cybersean3000 at yahoo.com wrote:
> > 
> > Keep these things in mind:
> > 
> > * Microsoft has over 90% of the desktop market, yet the American
> > government has difficulty declaring it a monopoly.  IBM and Standard Oil
> > were declared monopolies and broken up with a much lower percentage of
> > market share.
> 
> The IBM Antitrust case was dropped when Regan was elected president of
> the US. Kinda deja vu there. Actually there is a very good book about
> the IBM case by one of the lawyers who worked on it. The interesting
> point is that Microsoft has not had the findings of fact (or most of
> them) struck out and still stands guilty. Because M$ are now seen as
> critical to the US economy, a breakup would be particularly dangerous so
> a not so damaging penalty may be imposed. This could be a massive fine
> which in the long run could have a far deeper effect.

OK, since the case against IBM was dropped in 1982, (half-way through 
Reagan's first term), Let's insert AT&T.  However, AT&T had a similar 
market-share figure as M$.
 
> > * American President Bill Clinton, and his disciples, stopped the
> > "Clipper Chip Montra" after Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gates played a round of
> > golf.  I am sure that the conversation went something like this "You
> > know, Mr. President, what you are trying to do with the Clipper Chip, we
> > have been able to do with software for years."  Is nobody concerned about
> > the "wake on lan" feature?

Bill Clinton and Al Gore's vision of the clipper chip was to have it 
installed in every telephone modem/computer in the US (world?).  It was 
more than encryption, it was a device to allow the government immediate 
access into any PC anywhere in Amerika (world?), whether or not the 
modem/computer were turned on.  As with any totalitarian proposal, it 
started out with something reasonable like "We absolutely need this so as 
to catch members of criminal organizations"

> This seems as accurate as the IBM breakup. :-) The cryptanalysis of the
> Clipper algorithms showed some interesting flaws. Perhaps it was all a
> very clever ruse to have people continue to use crypto that the alphabet
> soup groups were familiar with. (Weiner's DES Cracking engine was within
> the range of the resources of these agencies long before EFF managed to
> implement it.) The vast majority of people using the internet and or
> Windows do not use encryption. Clipper also had applications beyond
> computers. 
> 
> I don't particularly like Microsoft and their products but I think it
> would be better to hammer them with facts rather than inaccuracies. When
> you hit these scumbags with errors, it allows them to escape easily and
> it allows them to represent you as just one more Linux fanatic.
>  
> Regards...jmcc
> -- 
> ********************************************
> John McCormac            * Hack Watch News
> jmcc at hackwatch.com       * 22 Viewmount, 
> Voice:   +353-51-873640  * Waterford,
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> http://www.hackwatch.com/~kooltek
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> -- 
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