On Tue, 20 Aug 2013, Randy Brukardt wrote: >> Randy, please check your logic. The sentence in question was >> "unfocused surveillance which works only with known protocols". >> This is logically equivalent to >> "unfocused surveillance does not work if at least one protocol is >> unknown." > > I don't see this at all. There is nothing in the original sentence which > implies exclusivity. My reading of the original sentence is different from yours'. Especially when I take the original question about sftp into context. But we can agree to disagree on this point. BTW, the Dewar rule makes sense for the Ada standards -- or other standards as well -- but applying it to usenet postings is a stretch. ;-) > And I claim it is irrelevant. The use of the public internet is never very > secure and you can be certain that at least basic behavior is monitored. Whatever you mean by "basic behaviour": You *can* communicate securely over the internet, for some very reasonable notions of "secure". But firstly, there is no "absolute security", and secondly, you pay a price. Often, the price is inconvenience. In any case, your "we are all doomed" attitude is too pessimistic. > I don't much care about the world outside of the US, at least as far as > living goes. (It's impractical to move somewhere where I don't understand > the language, and all English-speaking countries are as bad or worse than > the US.) What about Ireland? Also, the Republic of Malta might be an option for you (yes, they actually speak English there), and, in a few years, Scotland could became independent as well. But hey, it is not so bad in the US! You have a secret court that secretly decides that it is secretly OK to secretly spy at you. So everything is secretly legal, isn't it? (Well, this has become off topic for c.l.a, but I just couldn't resist.) ------ I love the taste of Cryptanalysis in the morning! ------ --Stefan.Lucks (at) uni-weimar.de, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany--