On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 10:52:28AM +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 hartr@redhat.com wrote:
> > I cannot remember references (possibly Linkers can help here), but
> > there was coverage in the 60/70s (and possibly earlier and probably
> > later) that discussed how the UK in particular had used its banked
> > scientific knowledge to develop war winning technology in WW2.
>
> Are you perhaps refering to Alan Turing breaking the enigma machine,
> allowing the Allies to win the war on the Atlantic high seas? The
> outcome of WW2 would have been quite different if German encryption
> was not cracked by the Brits. Ironic: in times of peace, the DMCA
> makes such activities illegal.
and if it ever becomes necessary to do similar things again in another
war, there wont be anyone skilled enough to do it - because it
would effectively be illegal to develop the required skills...can't
manufacture or possess "devices" (i.e. algorithms), can't experiment,
can't do research, can't publish, can't get peer review, etc etc etc.
craig
-- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>Fabricati Diem, PVNC. -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:05 EST