NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/crypt/4589

Text File | 1992-11-11 | 5.5 KB | 108 lines

Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!convex!convex!gardner
From: [e-mail] (Steve Gardner)
Subject: Re: New Administration and Crypto Regulation
Sender: [e-mail] (news access account)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:08:08 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Nntp-Posting-Host: imagine.convex.com
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.
Lines: 92

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>You had better be vigilant, diligent, and skilled.  My sources tell me
>that the bureaucracy is determined to win this one.  They believe that
>the issue is bigger than any administration, but they expect both the
>Clinton administration and the new congress to be sympathetic.
    This is such a fool's errand though.  As has been pointed
    out, the technology is too pervasive.  How are you going to
    stop it?  Watch every byte of the gigabits of information
    shipped about this country?  Any reasonably intelligent
    technically trained person could, with a bit of time and
    dilligence, implement any number of crypto algorithms
    from scratch on a home computer.  What are you going to do?
    Control the sales of C compilers?  Control the sales of
    PCs?  Control the sales of high speed modems?  How are you
    going to stop it?  The government can try but it will have
    no more success than it does with the war on some drugs.  This will
    be one more reason for people to become disgusted with
    their leaders.  One more step toward the kind of dissolution
    that affected the "other superpower".  While Rome burns, the
    bureaucrats in Washington try to make laws about things they
    don't understand and can't control.


>Notice that Dr. Denning has far the easier case to argue.  All she has
>to do is keeping pointing out that she is on the side of "LE."
    As if a good argument could overturn the laws of nature!
    What is being argued here is not that congress WON'T
    regulate against private cryptograpy but that these regulations
    will be totally ineffective and impossible to enforce.
    In fact they will encourage hackers to make the technology
    even more widespread and available.  Any attempts to remove
    the basic tools (e.g. modems and personal computers) from the hands
    of "those that might abuse them" (i.e. the citizens of our nation)
    would stop the economy dead in its tracks.


>Nevermind that that is irrelevant.  Nevermind that her proposals will
>not help LE.  She is on the right side, the side of the angels.  Her
>arguments are both politically correct and on the side of the death
>penalty.  How can she loose?  Who cares?  A bunch of gun nuts and other
>libertarian flakes?  Who can even understand?  Nevermind that there is
>no problem, DDD has a solution.  The solution is both politically and
>technically correct.  It favors BOTH law enforcement and
>national security.  It is favored by the DoJ, the DoD, the NSA and the
>FBI.  What else does any congressman have to know?
    Why is the irrelevancy irrelevant?  The situation is already out of
    control and getting more so.  With the miniscule number (comparatively
    speaking) of faxes in China and the far more draconian
    methods that are politically possible in that environment
    the communists still had a hard time silencing the
    fax messages out.  How are our warped leaders going to
    put the toothpaste back in the tube in an environment that
    is far more hostile to their efforts.

>Perhaps I underestimate the American people; even my sixteen year old
>Goddaughter saw the mischief in this proposal without anyone pointing it
>out to her.  But one relies upon an uninstructed congress at one's peril.
    Congress relies on the federal bureaucracy at ITS peril.
    If they think that any of those warmed over cold warriors
    are capable of winning this war against the technical class
    they are sadly mistaken.  Prof Denning's arguments have shown us
    that they don't    even understand the magnitude of what they
    are being asked to do let alone how to do it.  Doing battle
    with a paranoid and fairly localized bureaucracy (the USSR)
    was a piece of cake compared to battling a very geographically
    spread out, amorphous, and intelligent group of people who
    have very deep knowledge of computers and communications.
    I'm betting on the technical class myself.  The vaste majority
    of the current leadership has no clue how to use computers.
    They don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this
    one.  How many congressmen or for that matter FBI agents
    have a knowledge of computers that surpasses that of the
    average tribesmen in the hills of Papua New Guinea?
    This would be amusing if it weren't such a sad commentary
    on the competency of our leadership to understand the nature
    of the world around them.


>When we succeeded in getting the language taken out of Senate 266, we
>thought that we had seen the last of it.  It has since shown up in at
>least three bills.  It will continue to be proposed over and over; it
>will not die.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
    It WOULD BE if the anti-freedom forces had a clue.
    What we are seeing here is a fundamental shift in who
    holds the power in society.  Technology has made this inevitable.
    Attempts by the technologically illiterate to hold on to
    power are not only futile, they are somewhat comical.




                        smg