"Children's Letters to Benificent Stalin"

[anonymous@extropia.wimsey.com]

 Uu> URBANA -- A University of Illinois student has been arrested for
 Uu> threatening the life of President Clinton, U.S. Attorney Frances Hulin
 Uu> announced today.
 Uu> Christopher James Reincke, 18, of Townsend Hall, Urbana,
 Uu> allegedly sent an electronic mail message to the White House on Dec. 4
 Uu> threatening Clinton, Hulin stated in a press release.

About all this proves is that whitehouse.gov reads their e-mail after
all, bless their little cotton socks, but one has to use a bit of heavy
rhetoric to get any attention.

As has been mentioned in another forum, there are Federal laws that
require immediate and vigorous investigation of any threat made on the
life of the president, serious or not.  I am curious as to the
practicability of using this (not personally, mind you) as a "barium
test" of encryption and remailer security.

"Barium" is the old British intelligence term for inserting a dummy
message inside normal "secure" communications channels as a check.  The
content of this message would be so explosive that if the opposition had
compromised the communications system, a certain, observable reaction
would be forthcoming.

To my knowledge, no serious barium testing has been done of either the
remailers or PGP, among other "secure" privacy measures.  The Sacramento
child-molestation case seems to indicate that if PGP was compromised by
law enforcement assets (to FBI level in that particular case) this fact
would not be revealed for a purpose as politically-insignificant as
breaking up a child molestation ring.