Rick Wilson writes in a message to Bill Cheek
 RW> PLEASE explain to me WHY THE HELL we NEED the internet??? 
I have a new theory.  The US government is in love with the Internet because 
they can get their hands on it and grab communications from people.  They are 
*not* in love with Fidonet because it is so amorphous and hard to get ahold 
of.
  
So I think that there is a definite "snoop factor" involved.
  
Remember the "clipper chip?"  This was their way of giving us a false sense 
of security - *they* could break that encryption any time they wanted.
  
Ya, I'm probably nuts, I came up with this theory too late one night.   
 But after the stories of the communications monitoring that we have all 
heard about, it begins to make sense.  (You know - about the interception of 
microwave, cellular, VHF, UHF and so on, communications and banks of 
computers looking for key words with voice recognition...)  What do you 
think?  Could I be right or have I been listening to too much Art Bell?  

And now we pipe most everything on Fidonet through the Internet.  I wonder 
what would happen if we started encrypting the mail packets with PGP before 
they were sent over the Internet.  It would prove my theory if there were 
some pressure put on Fido folks to stop it...  
 
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