a valuable spy...

[Patrick Tufts <zippy@berry.cs.brandeis.edu>]

From the cypherpunks mailing list, I got the following short message:

   From: uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt)
   Date: Sat, 22 May 93 14:02:51 -0400

   Ego + Espionage = Death

Taking other well-known identities:

Silence = Death

Energy = Mass x Speed-o-Light^2 

and the assumption that the energy of one's ego cannot exceed one's
maximum potential energy (which has great explanatory powers re. the
Limbaugh Effect).

I get:

	Silence = Ego + Espionage
		<= MC^2 + Espionage

solving for Espionage,

	Espionage >= Silence - MC^2

which raises some interesting points:

	1. Espionage can be measured in existing SI units, thus
	2. Espionage is a creation of the French

Item 2 is supported by the following etymology

    espionage (es pi o nage; es p <y3> <en> <x2> <en> n <adi> azh <y1>, -
    nij, es <y 1> p <y3> <en> <x2> <en> n <adi> azh ) n.  
    1 n.
            the practice of spying on others.
    2 n.
            the systematic use of spies by a government to discover
            the military and political secrets of other nations.
    Etymology:
            <x4> F espionnage, MF espionage, equiv. to espionn(^B er)(to)
            spy(deriv. of espion spy <x4> It spione <x4> Gmc; akin to
            G sp <adi> ahen to look out) <u6> - age - AGE

Further anecdotal support - the French use an unbreakable code in most
of their communications.  A clear affront in the face of the
government's Clipper Chip proposal that all encrypted messages must be
based on a key escrow system.

Of course, the French could go far to mollifying U.S. intelligence
interests by supplying either their Platinum-Irridium Espionage
standard, or adopting a U.S. approved cipher system.  For the latter,
I think the US would be happy to approve "rot13" for export.

--Pat "McElwaine, without the caps"