Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:26:56 -0400 (EDT) | From | Todd Graham Lewis <> | Subject | i2o observation (off-topic, of course) |
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Something to keep in mind as we all engage in the marvellously giddy, off-topic global orgy of secret specs "accidentally" put on an anon ftp site:
In the future, as more moronic private consortia like i2o spring up and try to proprietize hardware standards, etc., there might be certain sympathetic manufacturers or engineers who will slip standards documents our way. Be aware that there is software out there which tags documents with embedded labels; each postscript copy of a given spec might have a serial number somewhere in it. Not explicit serial numbers, either, but modulations in white space which are entirely invisible. Adobe has done work on these systems, as, I think, has Xerox. And of course there exists commercially-available software to do this. If you want to see an example of this in action, just take a look at clarinet's news feeds and run some articles through perl, converting each white-space character to some visible character.
If you, a good-natured Linux hacker, mysteriously have some sort of potentially secret documentation show up in your mailbox someday, please be careful before sending copies of said documentation to everyone and their grandmother. Convert the pdf to ascii, and then run it through a rigorous regexp regularizing all white space. Be aware also that in a Clancy novel, he describes a(n imaginary) system which actually changes the word layout in innocuous ways to achieve the same effect. Best is to get two disparate copies, ensure their uniformity, and failing that, write the corresponding software yourself, or forward the docs with admonitions of secrecy to someone who can. All it will take is a few very public firings to put the fear of Gates into those sympathetic engineers who might otherwise assist us in our glorious struggle to reach free-software nirvana.
Is the i2o thread over yet?
-- Todd Graham Lewis Manager of Web Engineering MindSpring Enterprises (800) 719-4664, x2804 Linux! tlewis@mindspring.net
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