At 3:50 AM -0800 12/14/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>At 11:35 PM -0600 on 12/13/00, by way of [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
>> FOR ALL TO SEE
>> It's a spray which renders sealed envelopes transparent, making the
>> letters inside as easy to read as postcards. "It leaves an odour for 10
>> to 15 minutes," says the spray's inventor, but, apart from that, "no
>> evidence at all" that it's been used. While the manufacturer describes
>> "See-Through" as a "non-conductive, non-toxic, environmentally safe
>> liquid", human rights activists believe "it's an ethically questionable
>> product" which could tempt security forces to bend laws.
> > http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns226930
April 1st is many months off, so why this?
Tools for making envelopes transparent have been in use for many
decades, perhaps a century or more. Bamford and Kahn, IIRC, discuss
varius government agencies during WWII and later steaming
envelopes--the so-called "Flaps and Seals" folks. They may have
alluded to freon sprays and all the newer methods, but it was pretty
clear that Flaps and Seals was not limited to just "steaming."
I saw sprays used for making envelopes transparent sold in novelty
stores and catalogs back in the 70s.
--Tim May
--
Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: 1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
