RE: Microsoft and MACs

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

P.A. Petricone wrote:

>Another that comes to mind is NIC manufacturer demographics. The origin of
>manufacture is the only piece of information in the MAC number that
>actually identifies something with any assurance other than it's address.
>It would be an interesting data base for say, 3Com. I would endorse this
>use as it may signal the end of dreaded survey forms from trade
>subscriptions.

But that doesn't explain why you would want to embed the number in documents.



>Sorry to all those who's maximized profitability depends on closed source.
> Strikes me that there are other methods to validate legitimate copies
>besides closed source, which is not effective anyway. Closed source, and
>for that matter, poor documentation or incomplete specs, could be
>eliminated industry wide with no damage to IP, leaving the only reason for
>their existence; to hide functions, not protect their rightful use.

In the case of embedding IDs in documents, I would think that an open file
format would have done the trick.



--
Eric Bennett ( http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/ )
Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Cornell University
377 Olin Chemistry Lab

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-  Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery