uh, it's actually much worse than that.  the copy of 6.2 i downloaded,
from netscape, includes some nice spyware.  first of all, overtime you
start it up it contacts netscape for permission to run, so they can
remotely disable it if they decide they don't like you or that version. 
netscape actually sends your machine allot of data, way too much in my 
opinion to just be a "key".  much, much worse than that, it ignores the
dns server your isp provides, and uses one that claims to be associated
with sandia national labs, but if you go to that ip it's full of
advertising for spyware (and the ip isn't close to that for sandia, and
whois says it isn't sandia), and is most likely tracking your surfing
habits and selling the information to advertisers and others, and likely
spammers.  i've got a fire wall, and observed this activity, without the
firewall i wouldn't have know.  this is also why 6.2 is "slow" on some
dialup lines, using a remote dns server slows things down.

re: the service manual debacle, i think apples concerns are 
1: legal concern, since under insane us law if you zap yourself silly or
kill all the data on machines at work they could be sued, even if you
"stole" the manual. 
2: the usual insane corporate guarding of "secrets", which is absurd,
the service manuals have very little useful information (for
competitors) , mostly how to open the case etc., none of which is
"proprietary" in nature, and obviously any one could reverse engineer an
se/30 if there were actually an economic incentive, but there isn't. 
frankly, a logical, intelligent person would realize that even the
source code for the roms of such older machines could be made available
without hurting apple, it contains no "secrets" relevant to g4 machines,
or even the g3 machines.  

aggressive guarding of obsolete secrets is a gross waste of corporate
resources, and discourages the type of experimentation that leads to
exceptional engineers being available to companies like apple (i played
with all kinds of things as a kid).  it's corporate paranoia, just like
those sites that don't let you list directories, but at the same time
you can mirror the whole thing with interarchy (i've done this before to
collect manuals, manuals that are available to the public), this is
information that you can download anyway, it's just usually painful, but
it's not painful to let interarchy run while you sleep and then you have
the manuals and don't have to go through a poorly designed web site just
to get publicly available information.  even more stupid, i've ordered
cd's from semiconductor makers before, and was disgusted to see they
were nothing but a mirror of the website, complete with random names for
pdf files rather than human usable names, again forcing you to go
through silly html in a browser rather than just finding and opening the
pdf file your after, does anyone think turning a file name into
gibberish while leaving the contents alone would slow down corporate
espionage? (they index just fine on my machine...)  can you say STUPID? 
the stupid things people do to make themselves more secure that don't
are a constant irritation, and a constant proof of the incompetence of
many of the people who make the decisions, and the vendors that cater to
them, providing a false sense of security for the customer and a trivial
way for them to make more money, sounds like fraud to me.  

by the way, swabbing shoes for explosives just slows down lines, it
wouldn't stop a shoe bomber, as long as they were smart enough to clean
and repolish their shoe bombs, but it will catch people who've stepped
in doggy doo (most "doo" can infact be used as a "low" explosive,
ranchers have been using cow pies to blast boulders for years) or gotten
any number of common things on their shoes.  the fact of the matter is
that several common household products can be used to make explosives,
and many things used in small amounts in other products could be and
will leave "suspicious" residue on shoes.  it's a waste of money, it's
window dressing, the emperor has no clothes.  for that matter, most
plastic explosives wouldn't be detected if they were home made,
commercial plastic explosives (at least in the u.s.) are required to
have additives to make them still smell like explosives, most terrorist
make their own explosives and usually don't add things just to make them
still smell like explosives, un-oderized plastic explosives are very
hard to "sniff" out.  then again, if people aren't properly trained to
watch an x-ray screen do you really think they are properly trained to
detect explosives by chemical analysis?  i wish we'd spend money on the
things that really would help, rather than giving the public a placebo
that most see through anyway.  sorry for the o.t., but it illustrates
what poor thinking about security does, it waste money and provides
little or no more security to the "client", who is often easy to fool,
while inconveniencing the end customer (and a false sense of security is
very dangerous).  don't even get me started on the stupid luggage bomb
screening machines that cost obscene amounts and aren't very specific,
even with a well trained, well rested employee paid enough to care.(the
same people who don't see grotesquely obvious bombs on xray)

Ryan Coleman wrote:
> 
> Wow. I have 'sense.' :-)
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> I want to let everyone know that I just switched to *gasp* Netscape for
> my mail (v6.2) and it removes the last "--" qualifier. Usually reserved
> for signatures it does it for the ads at the bottom of the emails we all
---------------
-- 
A man may conduct himself well in both adversity and good fortune, but
if you want to test his character, give him power. �ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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