You would rather they tested it over a populated area? It's the closest land area to Japan where they could test. Tests over the ocean might result in a loss of the vehicle, so they go to the Outback where they have lots of land with few people. Makes perfect sense.
I am well aware of what FPGAs or ASICs can do. But my contention is it WILL add to the costs. It might only be $2-$3 but it's still a cost that the hardware vendors would love to pass off on someone else.
I suspect the key(s) will be in on-board the FPGA or ASIC either as a gate sequence burned in or in the on-chip ROM of an ASIC. Or maybe part of it is on-chip and part in a PROM/Flash where it can be reprogrammed. There are lots of ways vendors will chose. However, there MUST be standardization somewhere if this is to be an "appliance" such that any DRM'd material can be taken out from however many layers of whatver type encryption/encoding is chosen and played correctly. Unless of course there is only one "master" DRM key and everyone is forced to that.
IMHO, the chip for decoding would be best done in the video card not the monitor as video cards are what forms the image from the bits so to me that is the obvious place to do the decoding. The monitor is still pretty dumb which means you can upgrade with a $250 Video card, not a $600 monitor.
Decoding the data could be done in software, if you want to take the CPU cycles. In fact unless someone finds a mfg to burn the FOSS DRM decode algorithm into an chip thats the way it MUST be done. I suppose you could put the DRM key on a Jump Drive or other USB device and move it from place to place like the old "dongles" that we used 15? years ago to manage license keys. Maybe someone would make an system that supports multiple DRM types in the decode hardware if there is demand.
I disagree. With the adoption of Linux in some form by many of the big players in the content CREATION area I suspect there will be software drivers available. They have to test the content that is created on something, and it's much easier to debug it on the host machine where it was created instead of moving it to a Windows box. Also, we are seeing Linux in things like set-top boxes and handhelds, so I think you will see FOSS versions that work with DRM before long. Just remember the bigger they are the harder they fall. MS won't be on top forever. In my view, DRM is doomed to failure in it's current form. Now encrypting the full media and requiring some hellacious long key to decode it might work but it would add to the cost of the Hardware to incorporate the technology to decrypt at 30 fps, full screen.
"Another aspect of this problem is that many talking heads take a poll BEFORE they begin stating their opinion. These people's jobs depend on some chunk of the population agreeing with them."
Yep, it's kind of a pre-poll to see if a real poll will get the right answer. I tend to strongly discount formal polls as they answers can be skewed by the way the questions are phrased, the selection of those polled, the statistical methods, and several other things. If you ask the question the right way you can get any answer you want:)
MY criteria for Ignorant is repeating what you hear on CNN/FOX/MSNBC/etc. versus taking the time do look at the FACTS and form an educated opinion. You may choose a logical argument or you may chose moral/religous arguments but CHOOSE for yourself not based on what someone with a vested interest tells you. That is a cop out, but it is very very common.
I'm FAR from being an elitist, but it is a FACT as seen in almost any controversial topic that the masses tend to beleive what they hear from the mass media (pro/con on the topic). Americans tend to not want to dig in and THINK about anything but would rather take the opinion that a "talking head" espouses.
I'm not asking anyone to DEFEND their intelligence, you act like my post was a troll. If people who show they had signs of intelligence then they would NOT have to defend the perception that they had none. That would lead to each side presenting intelligent, factual arguments instead of "baby killer" and "panacea" arguments which are 99% BS. But BS sells and facts walk these days, which is a damn shame.
I'm not against the Research using embryo's that would be discarded from IVF methods, but I don't think we should go down the slippery slope of "egg farms". IIRC, we need embryos which are fertilized eggs so an egg farm would have to be dosed up with IVF drugs (expensive) and harvested. And she would have to be very careful about sexual health and such to be able to keep her "job".
Well, if we could figure out a way for Stem Cell research to be vital to the National Defense, classify it Top Secret then we might get somewhere. Lot's of very controversial things get done in the "black world". The whole problem with Stem Cells was those darn scientists can't keep a secret;)
Since when have morals kept businesses out of an area where there is profit? My guess is that a LOT of US pharma companies are working in this area at their overseas facilities, or on thier own funds. If this stuff is going to be as good as they say you can bet the drug companies are deep in it with or without Federal Funds. The whole Federal Funds issue amounts to just a big smokescreen IMHO.
Something EVERYONE has missed is : IF we restrict the research in the USA by Executive Order or
IF we do allow it by Executive Order that is NOT going to stop the other biologists in other countries from doing the research. Right now S. Korea is the leader in the reasearch since they have no restrictions. Americans may find the ways of the other researchers morally repugnant but the simple fact is the rest of the world does not CARE what they think. And don't look to the UN to act on this matter and if they did no one listens to them anyway.
However, as long as you are extracting tissue from a fetus that is going to die anyway, not taking advantage of those cells would be equally morally and ethically indefensible.
That is about the best way I've seen of expressing the debate in way BOTH sides can claim victory.
BTW, there are a LOT of anti-abortion Democrats and Greenies and Libertarians, it is just that thier party does not consider it a basic "plank" of the party platform. There are also a good many pro-choice Republicans but they are not heard as their views are not considered a basic "plank" of the party platform.
Most Americans are ignorant about Stem Cells and only hear the Marketing Hype that they promise "cures" for everything from A to Z. Who would NOT be for something that does that?
Some one should be firing the S/W Manager and their corporate attorneys for getting into that mess without looking. ANY License for something you plan to redistribute bears close scrutiny from expert technical and legal resources. Even if it was a small company, for a few 100's of dollars they could have had a lawyer tell them what they were obligated to under the GPL.
That's backwards. 2MHz is a small error, a few KHz would be a huge error. Mhz is faster cycles than KHz. Otherwise you are right, the chip timing is driven differently than the "wall time" clock on your PC.
By all accounts Martha Stewart was very much like this guy, and she also got paid while in the slammer. It's the modern equal of going to the "Betty Ford clinic", it's not held against you and in some circles it's actually career enhancing!
IBM is trying to make itself into a services first company, all over the last 10 years has been selling off any commodity Hardware manufacturing. First Disk Drives, then PowerPC, now Laptops. Servers may be next, although who would buy them is unclear. Dell could probably find the money if they really wanted to buy IBM's Server line, but there would be product line overlap.. Mainframes IBM will always make but they are not made in the USA anyhow.
Try again..you CAN get Solaris pre-loaded on an HP box, just as much as you can Linux and HP-UX. Go to the HP web site and see for yourself. IBM does not support it on thier servers but they do with thier software packages such as Websphere, Lotus and DB2.
Solaris has a HUGE installed base within the IT business to work from. As these firms update servers and move to X86 based boxes they can continue to run Solaris and all the applications they developed for it. Liunx has a ways to go to reach Solaris market penetration in the *REAL* world, geeks at home don't count.
Hopefully you'll get modded down for being flat wrong.
You guys are missing the point here. SOMETHING drives IT costs which in turn will drive up overall business costs. Your costs in IT are driven by People, Processes and Technology. Now, apply Pareto's Rule, that says 80% of the costs are driven by 20% of the issues you have. Find out if that 20% is due to the technology (i.e. the OS or Applications), poorly trained people, bad management, bad processes (like no virus patching), or something else then FIX it. You can have a well designed, well run Windows environment that costs your firm less than a poorly designed and poorly run Linux environment. The issues are more complex than you think, their is the interaction of each of the three areas that must be considered to come up with TCO. TCO is *only* an estimate anyway, and it is only as good as the data collected for use in the computation. IMHO, you need an indpendant audit from an external source to come up with a good TCO estimate, otherwise you get bogus data from office politics and pressure to come up with a number that matches what th PHB thinks it is. The reason no one does it is that getting a TCO is not trivial, and it is most likely going to make the IT Management look bad which can never happen;)
1. Get to sale site VERY early.
2. Collect Low Number.
3. Sell Low Number to those with No number
4. PROFIT!!
5. Optional : Take profit and buy *new* computer
Several things you are forgetting.
1) The spammmer has declated Bankruptcy. MS is now juat another creditor. Legal judgements are right below labor in what has to be paid off with any funds the spammer has. My guess is the mega-bucks he paid himself (if he was smart he incorporated and MS gets the company money) are safe.
2)Won't the "agencies" MS gives the money to turn around and buy MS products? After all if they want to find and track spammers they next the right software . This is great publicity for MS, the couldn't buy the ads for $5M to get this much positive exposure!
3) $5M won't go far at the state level, with the overhead they have, the bloated staffing level and the salaries it might last a 2 years. And I doubt they would track down, arrest and prosecute anyone.
4) It's a nice tax break for MS, it allows them to write off the Gain from the settlement (if and when they get it) saving 36% in Corporate Taxes.
5) The execs in Redmond are not idiots, they are not giving this away with no expectations of a payback in some form or another. Corporations are NOT like individuals who give out of emotion, religious beliefs, affiliations, etc.
You have a point. However, a lot or porn sites are owned by the same large outfit just under different names, so I see the ideas you mentioned as more akin to Advertising to get the customer to establish a Brand preference. The customer has already entered the Market, now you try to convince someone your "brand" is best/better by showing off all the features. It's certainly open to interpretation as M"what is Marketing" is not a black/white answer. I even had MBA Marketing profs who would say things another prof had taught us were "wrong headed". Some would say Advertising and Marketing are the same and some would say Advertising is a speciality area of Marketing. To me it doesn't matter that much as it all has to be integrated together in some way for the success to be realized.
You folks are all ignorant, there is NOT A RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION. There never has been, it has been a right that has been "implied" by the courts, and what one branch of Government gives the other can take away. Illegal searches w/o probable cause..been going on for years, ever heard of a "drivers license" checkpoint by the police? Or stopping people who fit the profile of an "escaped prisoner"? All of these have been held to be legal. It's obvious most of you anti-Bush and anti-anything-that-you-heard-from-CNN-that-was-bad -as-it-was-a-
GOP-idea folks really need to get some education that covers the full spectrum of the powers of the Gov't and how they came to be, and why. Otherwise you are talking w/o knowledge (which is very common here anyway). Due process is a myth when you are dealing with a LOT of the Gov't, say in the case of Regulations being imposed. Speedy trials don't exist. "Mirandizing" someone may not always be needed and other such items the courts (both liberal and conservative) have held are in the best interests of "public safety".
Having BEEN in NYC on 9/11 and having friends and relatives at the Pentagon by no means am I ever going to allow that to happen again.
The incident with the person you mentioned in London was due to poor police work and trigger happy cops. That shit happens everywhere since there are poor cops everywhere. We have 3-5 shootings a year in any US big city that are probably not legit but rarely do the cops get punished since the person "looked dangerous" or thier actions "were a potential threat". Quit fussing about the UK laws, it's a red herring, the laws are different there and the Patriot Act doesn't apply outside the USA.
The Patriot Act is really nothing new in the way things work, it's just that it was put into writing as a law. But laws can be overturned or repealed. If you don't like something go out and VOTE (how many of you did that?) for change and quit wasting time bitching about it on/. as that won't make any difference.
Good point, but P*orn needs ZERO Marketing. People seem to find that just fine on thier own:) If you look back on technolgies like VCRs, CDs,DVDs, and Web Sites you'll see P*rn leading the way as early adopters!
Not sure about the benefit part from being early adopters...I won't get into MBA Level S-curve theory on early adopters of Technology, that'll bore the crap out of most of/.
WTF? Nobody is at this time limiting your rights, your privacy or your liberty if you are a normal plain old citizen with no malicious intent. I don't got thru the day worrying about if the Gov't might know something about me they didn't know yesterday. If I want to keep something private, I sure don't send it via the Internet, snail mail still works good in that respect. The fact that the Patriot Act got pretty much unanimous reapproval in the House and Sentate says it not a bad deal on the whole. The Patriot Act is nothing to fear unless you got something to hide. I don't like Unkie Sam knowing things about me, I don't see why he needs to know, I don't fit the Terrorist Profile, but I really don't care as I'm not going to do something to bring himm down on me.
It's the actual networks the telco's own, which technically IS the Internet and technically IS not as some data (such as corporate data) travels on the networks mixed in with Internet data (i.e. a VPN over the Internet). It's really a gray area as to where the Internet stops and the carrier newtworks begin. A private, seperately routed network for say Wal-Mart using dedicated SBC/Wilco/Sprint/MCI lines would NOT be the Internet, but if they sent the data via the public side of a network then it is the Internet. Next thing ya know the Feds will want all the corporate encrypt/decrypt keys and all of our PGP keys so if the data the monitor from those they deem are suspicious they can unlock the data. Of course since they don't know in advance WHO will need to be monitored we have to err on the side of caution and EVERYONE has to give over thier keys. Even with the Patriot Act (which is well intentioned but very flawed in execution) I think this goes too far. I expect this one to be ruled on by the Supreme Court before too long. In the meantime, I guess we should all be very careful.
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You would rather they tested it over a populated area? It's the closest land area to Japan where they could test. Tests over the ocean might result in a loss of the vehicle, so they go to the Outback where they have lots of land with few people. Makes perfect sense.
I am well aware of what FPGAs or ASICs can do. But my contention is it WILL add to the costs. It might only be $2-$3 but it's still a cost that the hardware vendors would love to pass off on someone else. I suspect the key(s) will be in on-board the FPGA or ASIC either as a gate sequence burned in or in the on-chip ROM of an ASIC. Or maybe part of it is on-chip and part in a PROM/Flash where it can be reprogrammed. There are lots of ways vendors will chose. However, there MUST be standardization somewhere if this is to be an "appliance" such that any DRM'd material can be taken out from however many layers of whatver type encryption/encoding is chosen and played correctly. Unless of course there is only one "master" DRM key and everyone is forced to that. IMHO, the chip for decoding would be best done in the video card not the monitor as video cards are what forms the image from the bits so to me that is the obvious place to do the decoding. The monitor is still pretty dumb which means you can upgrade with a $250 Video card, not a $600 monitor. Decoding the data could be done in software, if you want to take the CPU cycles. In fact unless someone finds a mfg to burn the FOSS DRM decode algorithm into an chip thats the way it MUST be done. I suppose you could put the DRM key on a Jump Drive or other USB device and move it from place to place like the old "dongles" that we used 15? years ago to manage license keys. Maybe someone would make an system that supports multiple DRM types in the decode hardware if there is demand.
I disagree. With the adoption of Linux in some form by many of the big players in the content CREATION area I suspect there will be software drivers available. They have to test the content that is created on something, and it's much easier to debug it on the host machine where it was created instead of moving it to a Windows box. Also, we are seeing Linux in things like set-top boxes and handhelds, so I think you will see FOSS versions that work with DRM before long. Just remember the bigger they are the harder they fall. MS won't be on top forever. In my view, DRM is doomed to failure in it's current form. Now encrypting the full media and requiring some hellacious long key to decode it might work but it would add to the cost of the Hardware to incorporate the technology to decrypt at 30 fps, full screen.
"Another aspect of this problem is that many talking heads take a poll BEFORE they begin stating their opinion. These people's jobs depend on some chunk of the population agreeing with them." Yep, it's kind of a pre-poll to see if a real poll will get the right answer. I tend to strongly discount formal polls as they answers can be skewed by the way the questions are phrased, the selection of those polled, the statistical methods, and several other things. If you ask the question the right way you can get any answer you want :)
MY criteria for Ignorant is repeating what you hear on CNN/FOX/MSNBC/etc. versus taking the time do look at the FACTS and form an educated opinion. You may choose a logical argument or you may chose moral/religous arguments but CHOOSE for yourself not based on what someone with a vested interest tells you. That is a cop out, but it is very very common. I'm FAR from being an elitist, but it is a FACT as seen in almost any controversial topic that the masses tend to beleive what they hear from the mass media (pro/con on the topic). Americans tend to not want to dig in and THINK about anything but would rather take the opinion that a "talking head" espouses. I'm not asking anyone to DEFEND their intelligence, you act like my post was a troll. If people who show they had signs of intelligence then they would NOT have to defend the perception that they had none. That would lead to each side presenting intelligent, factual arguments instead of "baby killer" and "panacea" arguments which are 99% BS. But BS sells and facts walk these days, which is a damn shame.
I'm not against the Research using embryo's that would be discarded from IVF methods, but I don't think we should go down the slippery slope of "egg farms". IIRC, we need embryos which are fertilized eggs so an egg farm would have to be dosed up with IVF drugs (expensive) and harvested. And she would have to be very careful about sexual health and such to be able to keep her "job".
Well, if we could figure out a way for Stem Cell research to be vital to the National Defense, classify it Top Secret then we might get somewhere. Lot's of very controversial things get done in the "black world". The whole problem with Stem Cells was those darn scientists can't keep a secret ;)
Since when have morals kept businesses out of an area where there is profit? My guess is that a LOT of US pharma companies are working in this area at their overseas facilities, or on thier own funds. If this stuff is going to be as good as they say you can bet the drug companies are deep in it with or without Federal Funds. The whole Federal Funds issue amounts to just a big smokescreen IMHO.
Something EVERYONE has missed is : IF we restrict the research in the USA by Executive Order or IF we do allow it by Executive Order that is NOT going to stop the other biologists in other countries from doing the research. Right now S. Korea is the leader in the reasearch since they have no restrictions. Americans may find the ways of the other researchers morally repugnant but the simple fact is the rest of the world does not CARE what they think. And don't look to the UN to act on this matter and if they did no one listens to them anyway.
However, as long as you are extracting tissue from a fetus that is going to die anyway, not taking advantage of those cells would be equally morally and ethically indefensible. That is about the best way I've seen of expressing the debate in way BOTH sides can claim victory. BTW, there are a LOT of anti-abortion Democrats and Greenies and Libertarians, it is just that thier party does not consider it a basic "plank" of the party platform. There are also a good many pro-choice Republicans but they are not heard as their views are not considered a basic "plank" of the party platform.
Most Americans are ignorant about Stem Cells and only hear the Marketing Hype that they promise "cures" for everything from A to Z. Who would NOT be for something that does that?
Some one should be firing the S/W Manager and their corporate attorneys for getting into that mess without looking. ANY License for something you plan to redistribute bears close scrutiny from expert technical and legal resources. Even if it was a small company, for a few 100's of dollars they could have had a lawyer tell them what they were obligated to under the GPL.
That's backwards. 2MHz is a small error, a few KHz would be a huge error. Mhz is faster cycles than KHz. Otherwise you are right, the chip timing is driven differently than the "wall time" clock on your PC.
By all accounts Martha Stewart was very much like this guy, and she also got paid while in the slammer. It's the modern equal of going to the "Betty Ford clinic", it's not held against you and in some circles it's actually career enhancing!
IBM is trying to make itself into a services first company, all over the last 10 years has been selling off any commodity Hardware manufacturing. First Disk Drives, then PowerPC, now Laptops. Servers may be next, although who would buy them is unclear. Dell could probably find the money if they really wanted to buy IBM's Server line, but there would be product line overlap.. Mainframes IBM will always make but they are not made in the USA anyhow.
http://h10018.www1.hp.com/wwsolutions/solaris/inde x-all.html
Is a matrix of OSes to HP Servers. It took a while to find it.
Try again..you CAN get Solaris pre-loaded on an HP box, just as much as you can Linux and HP-UX. Go to the HP web site and see for yourself. IBM does not support it on thier servers but they do with thier software packages such as Websphere, Lotus and DB2. Solaris has a HUGE installed base within the IT business to work from. As these firms update servers and move to X86 based boxes they can continue to run Solaris and all the applications they developed for it. Liunx has a ways to go to reach Solaris market penetration in the *REAL* world, geeks at home don't count. Hopefully you'll get modded down for being flat wrong.
You guys are missing the point here. SOMETHING drives IT costs which in turn will drive up overall business costs. Your costs in IT are driven by People, Processes and Technology. Now, apply Pareto's Rule, that says 80% of the costs are driven by 20% of the issues you have. Find out if that 20% is due to the technology (i.e. the OS or Applications), poorly trained people, bad management, bad processes (like no virus patching), or something else then FIX it. You can have a well designed, well run Windows environment that costs your firm less than a poorly designed and poorly run Linux environment. The issues are more complex than you think, their is the interaction of each of the three areas that must be considered to come up with TCO. TCO is *only* an estimate anyway, and it is only as good as the data collected for use in the computation. IMHO, you need an indpendant audit from an external source to come up with a good TCO estimate, otherwise you get bogus data from office politics and pressure to come up with a number that matches what th PHB thinks it is. The reason no one does it is that getting a TCO is not trivial, and it is most likely going to make the IT Management look bad which can never happen ;)
1. Get to sale site VERY early. 2. Collect Low Number. 3. Sell Low Number to those with No number 4. PROFIT!! 5. Optional : Take profit and buy *new* computer
REAL cops catch criminals and could not care less about the word processing software. They use a PENCIL!
Several things you are forgetting. 1) The spammmer has declated Bankruptcy. MS is now juat another creditor. Legal judgements are right below labor in what has to be paid off with any funds the spammer has. My guess is the mega-bucks he paid himself (if he was smart he incorporated and MS gets the company money) are safe. 2)Won't the "agencies" MS gives the money to turn around and buy MS products? After all if they want to find and track spammers they next the right software . This is great publicity for MS, the couldn't buy the ads for $5M to get this much positive exposure! 3) $5M won't go far at the state level, with the overhead they have, the bloated staffing level and the salaries it might last a 2 years. And I doubt they would track down, arrest and prosecute anyone. 4) It's a nice tax break for MS, it allows them to write off the Gain from the settlement (if and when they get it) saving 36% in Corporate Taxes. 5) The execs in Redmond are not idiots, they are not giving this away with no expectations of a payback in some form or another. Corporations are NOT like individuals who give out of emotion, religious beliefs, affiliations, etc.
You have a point. However, a lot or porn sites are owned by the same large outfit just under different names, so I see the ideas you mentioned as more akin to Advertising to get the customer to establish a Brand preference. The customer has already entered the Market, now you try to convince someone your "brand" is best/better by showing off all the features. It's certainly open to interpretation as M"what is Marketing" is not a black/white answer. I even had MBA Marketing profs who would say things another prof had taught us were "wrong headed". Some would say Advertising and Marketing are the same and some would say Advertising is a speciality area of Marketing. To me it doesn't matter that much as it all has to be integrated together in some way for the success to be realized.
You folks are all ignorant, there is NOT A RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION. There never has been, it has been a right that has been "implied" by the courts, and what one branch of Government gives the other can take away. Illegal searches w/o probable cause..been going on for years, ever heard of a "drivers license" checkpoint by the police? Or stopping people who fit the profile of an "escaped prisoner"? All of these have been held to be legal. It's obvious most of you anti-Bush and anti-anything-that-you-heard-from-CNN-that-was-bad -as-it-was-a-
GOP-idea folks really need to get some education that covers the full spectrum of the powers of the Gov't and how they came to be, and why. Otherwise you are talking w/o knowledge (which is very common here anyway). Due process is a myth when you are dealing with a LOT of the Gov't, say in the case of Regulations being imposed. Speedy trials don't exist. "Mirandizing" someone may not always be needed and other such items the courts (both liberal and conservative) have held are in the best interests of "public safety".
Having BEEN in NYC on 9/11 and having friends and relatives at the Pentagon by no means am I ever going to allow that to happen again.
The incident with the person you mentioned in London was due to poor police work and trigger happy cops. That shit happens everywhere since there are poor cops everywhere. We have 3-5 shootings a year in any US big city that are probably not legit but rarely do the cops get punished since the person "looked dangerous" or thier actions "were a potential threat". Quit fussing about the UK laws, it's a red herring, the laws are different there and the Patriot Act doesn't apply outside the USA.
The Patriot Act is really nothing new in the way things work, it's just that it was put into writing as a law. But laws can be overturned or repealed. If you don't like something go out and VOTE (how many of you did that?) for change and quit wasting time bitching about it on /. as that won't make any difference.
Good point, but P*orn needs ZERO Marketing. People seem to find that just fine on thier own :) If you look back on technolgies like VCRs, CDs,DVDs, and Web Sites you'll see P*rn leading the way as early adopters!
Not sure about the benefit part from being early adopters...I won't get into MBA Level S-curve theory on early adopters of Technology, that'll bore the crap out of most of /.
WTF? Nobody is at this time limiting your rights, your privacy or your liberty if you are a normal plain old citizen with no malicious intent. I don't got thru the day worrying about if the Gov't might know something about me they didn't know yesterday. If I want to keep something private, I sure don't send it via the Internet, snail mail still works good in that respect. The fact that the Patriot Act got pretty much unanimous reapproval in the House and Sentate says it not a bad deal on the whole. The Patriot Act is nothing to fear unless you got something to hide. I don't like Unkie Sam knowing things about me, I don't see why he needs to know, I don't fit the Terrorist Profile, but I really don't care as I'm not going to do something to bring himm down on me.
It's the actual networks the telco's own, which technically IS the Internet and technically IS not as some data (such as corporate data) travels on the networks mixed in with Internet data (i.e. a VPN over the Internet). It's really a gray area as to where the Internet stops and the carrier newtworks begin. A private, seperately routed network for say Wal-Mart using dedicated SBC/Wilco/Sprint/MCI lines would NOT be the Internet, but if they sent the data via the public side of a network then it is the Internet. Next thing ya know the Feds will want all the corporate encrypt/decrypt keys and all of our PGP keys so if the data the monitor from those they deem are suspicious they can unlock the data. Of course since they don't know in advance WHO will need to be monitored we have to err on the side of caution and EVERYONE has to give over thier keys. Even with the Patriot Act (which is well intentioned but very flawed in execution) I think this goes too far. I expect this one to be ruled on by the Supreme Court before too long. In the meantime, I guess we should all be very careful.