From: "Ian Farquhar" <ianf@simple.sydney.sgi.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 16:25:48 PDT
To: koontzd@lrcs.loral.com (David Koontz)
Subject: Re: Digital Telephony Act
In-Reply-To: <199408091937.MAA13077@netcom14.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9408100921.ZM15652@simple.sydney.sgi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Aug 9, 12:37pm, Timothy C. May wrote:
> And don't forget "Teledesic," the 800-satellite (or something huge)
> project of Bill Gates and McCaw Cellular. Graham Toal discussed this
> recently in a post on software key escrow and Microsoft's possible
> involvement in SKE.

One of the things which has to be worrying the spooks right now is that
communications in general is swiftly becoming an international business, and
much less susceptible to parochial arm-twisting.  The days of the Black
Chamber when the cable companies bosses could be talked into releasing
telegrams
for the good of their country are receeding into the distance, and this
really must worry the TLA's we all have come to know and love.  None of this
is news for any of us.

I have often felt that bills like Digital Telephony have a much deeper
motive, in that although they seem a lot less than justifiable now, it may be
that the spooks are trying to beat the technology and have a surveillance
infrastructure in place simply so that it's existance can either frustrate
or influence the structure of international communications infrastructure.
It would he hard for any country to demand the inclusion of monitoring
facilities in a new system, but it is MUCH easier for them to point out that
the new system really should be able to provide the same "law enforcement"
facilities as the existing infrastructure does.

Just an idle thought.

								Ian.