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To: Phil Jacobson who wrote (26385)	3/31/1999 6:30:00 PM
From: David O'Berry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

My worry is that one good thing the privacy invasion may accomplish will lead to a general acceptance of this type of thing. This id should scare the absolute pants off of any normal citizen. Hackers will find ways around it now that they are warned but ordinary citizens will be branded like cattle. The most amazing part about the number is that it changes with MAC address changes dynamically and can be pulled instead of requiring it to be pushed. On another topic: PJ, the key is a cool tool but the USB thing is such a pain on pre-WIN98 or other operating systems. I like the concept but I like Dallas Semi's iButton even better. I mentioned this a week or so ago but did not put names on the the product or company. The iButton has been out for some time but the striking thing about it is the cost. $.90 to $9.00 per button and $15 per reader makes it very interesting. Let me know what you guys think. David

To: Phil Jacobson who wrote (26385)	3/31/1999 8:01:00 PM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 42771

Melissa Scores BIG for Microsoft...... >>Then today I heard someone figured out the alias of the person who created it by tracing the bug back to the same person who created a bunch of documents on hacker sites. How? By using that document user ID code we are talking about on this thread last week! I don't remember the hacker's alias but they're sure that the same guy created Melissa. The information has been sent to the FBI and they are investigating. It only took a week for an example of the MSFT privacy problem to be exploited by the FBI to work a case that's now publicized nationwide. Unbelievable.>> Ok the race is on. Score: Government/Corporate interests.....................1 Individual privacy............................................0 As in the physical world, the bad guys define the lowest reaches of rules and laws - all in the name of protecting the public interest, etc. But this thing has much deeper roots. In the 80's the DEA and other local drug enforcement depts received new powers to confiscate private property to pay for the war against drugs. Again, the bad guys open new doors of opportunity for government bodies to walk through all in the name of protecting the common good. With technology, common good people can do a heck of a lot more than government can ever dream of doing. But I see these little, basic freedoms being challenged in whirl of judgement against this or that virtual red zone. Melissa is such a red zone. No one wants to take the first step so govt. steps in and the MSFT GUID # watermark is suddenly cast in an entirely different light. So now we have a new form of copdom on the rise - the rise of the virtual agent/cop who is out to make virtual domains safe from ourselves. A few more Melissa's and the US Government will be permanently camped out in Redmond. Does Gates have any info about the missing FBI files., Rose Law firm billing records or the Canadian/Ark. Prison system tainted blood disaster???. Gate's has the entire world over a barrell with those watermarks. An Arkansan couldn't have fixed this any better. Destroy the evidence?? NOT!

To: Phil Jacobson who wrote (26385)	3/31/1999 8:16:00 PM
From: Cytokine1	Respond to of 42771

<<the [melissa virus] hacker's alias >> could be VicodinES according to today's Investor's Business Daily, page 2 item. Martin

To: Phil Jacobson who wrote (26385)	4/1/1999 12:16:00 AM
From: Paul Fiondella	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

And even more unbelievable is what is happening to us We are the innocent victims. The FBI doesn't know who it is looking for, so it looks for everyone. Without digitalme the innocents, the people who are not afraid to have their digital identity exist so long as it is protected by an identity vault, are treated like the criminals. With digitalme, you and I are in the digitalme vault. Anyone who needs to know that we exist can verify that fact by checking our identity at the vault. No hacker would submit himself to an identity vault check in order to roam around the net because that hacker could be immediately identified through the vault. That is the beauty of the approach. The MIcrosoft approach of embedding watermarks and traces into people's files will not work. They will never find the guy that way because he is hiding behind faked accounts, faked ids etc. In fact the true irony of the situation is that the MSFT id derived from the physical id of the network card device and placed into Word and Office files was put there to prevent people from downloading updates to Microsoft products if they were not registered users. Here is an obvious example of the security of that system being breached. The hacker forged an id acceptable to MSFT and raided their system for his updates. Thus no physical id whether it is CPU based or network card based can trace a breach to a hacker. THe only thing that makes sense, and I hope someone at Novell can explain it to the government, is to separate the sheep from the wolves. Put the sheep in the digitalme vault and leave the wolves out in the woods --- fair game for the hunters. ============== Given all that I have posted on the internet about digitalme, I'm probably accumulating an FBI file thanks to MSFT's attack on privacy.