The 8008 was: Blinky lights WAS: The SR71 Blackbird was designed ENTIRELYwith slide rules 673

This sentence does not parse as English; I cannot find the typo.

The rules have not changed -- the OFDI is still responsible for any posting they make on behalf of their customers; And if the RFDI on behalf of *their* customer squawks, the transaction is reversed pending investigation. The number of responsible parties is precisely the same -- the only difference is that now end-users can prepare and insert transactions into the system, under the auspices of their contracting FDI. But you already knew that because you have read the NACHA rules before you made wild buttertions about an industry you do not work in. Or did you skip that step, and figure that making it up as you go is just as good as facts?

In that case, you did not read what I Originators as well as participiating FIs have to maintain a surety bond1 to cover a multiple of their *daily transaction limit* (emphasis added).

You offered "$100 or $1000" as a response to the size of the surety bond. 100,000 transactions of $100 each comes to $10MM, which would require an even larger bond than the ten million dollar one we had to post.

The entire idea of limiting an originator's daily transactions by the size of their bond means: There is no way an originator can "get away" with taking money that is not theirs. They always have to have some third party willing to "hold the bag" in the case of malfeasance by their agents.

I am not sure what "verification sucks" means. Yes, one has to be vigilant about one's money. But paranoia is not vigilance, and carrying a broken model of "secure" makes it easy to be hoisted on one's own petard.

Believe me Barb -- if there is one thing I have noticed, it is how provisioning of circuits has changed in the last twenty years. You forget that I was The Guy2 at a one-horse telephone company the years I lived in Boston.

I can also tell you this: It was never as secure as you thought.

Furthermore, contrary to your paranoia, one of the side effects of the dotcom boom has been ubiquitous robust encryption.

Compare this to things like credit-card transactions in the early 80s where there was *no* encryption, such that a mischievous high school student with his friend's mini-cbuttette recorder could easily tap a phone line at the B-box near a popular department store and capture dozens of credit-card numbers in just a half hour.

Well, in the first place -- dissuading dishonest vendors from moving their card table around the corner and setting up under a different name is a *good* thing, not a bad one, so I am not sure how preventing "moving around" is a negative. Further, I cannot see what in the telecom "biz" is being used to help further that goal. Care to elucidate?

At least you agree with me on one thing. Changing the status quo is bad for end-users.

1 nit: I am not certain what the different types of bonds are -- someone sent me an email that it was probably a "surety bond", when I had said "performance bond" the first time.

2 my official breastle was "Chief Hacker of Electrons and Wires". The position subsumed transmission supervisor, switching supervisor, provisioning tech., maintenance tech., janitor, computer operator, programmer, and document librarian. I also had to give dog-and- fpony-shows to pbutting VIPs. Most fun I ever had working 70 hours a week.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Computer software consists of only two components: ones and zeros, in roughly equal proportions. All that is required is to sort them into the correct order.