home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!ogicse!news.u.washington.edu!uw-beaver!uw-coco!nwnexus!ken
- From: ken@halcyon.com (Ken Pizzini)
- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Subject: Re: Demons and Ogres
- Message-ID: <1992Nov17.094216.23085@nwnexus.WA.COM>
- Date: 17 Nov 92 09:42:16 GMT
- Article-I.D.: nwnexus.1992Nov17.094216.23085
- References: <921114182202.126812@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL> <1992Nov15.062751.2327@cactus.org> <1992Nov17.001009.26363@rchland.ibm.com>
- Sender: sso@nwnexus.WA.COM (System Security Officer)
- Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
- Lines: 35
-
- Sigh. I'm getting quite tired seeing Terry Ritter get ripped to
- shreds by people who aren't understanding his intent. Let's see
- if I can explain his position any better:
-
- We can assume that some day, probably in the not too distant
- future, there will be a Congressional Committee Hearing on
- the regulation of cryptography. Law enforcement officials
- will probably testify as to why they need to be able to
- decrypt everyone's encrypted traffic. Some nonsense hysteric
- such as "drug dealers..." will likely be raised. Our
- mission is to come up with arguments that will be understood
- by non-technical politians, and the general public, as to
- _why_ crytography should be free. Further, we should devise
- a scale of compromises, should they become necessary, to
- offer in the event that too-strong legislation becomes
- introduced.
-
- In the latter category, Terry was suggesting key-logs as
- an improvement over key-registration. He was not suggesting
- that this is the be-all solution, just that it is an
- improvement. By all means improve on it, but keep in mind
- that so far the following ideas have already been suggested
- (in order of increasing preference):
- key registration
- key logs
- unrestricted crypto
-
- Constructive contributions to this discussion would be to add
- to the above list, especially in the gap between logging and
- unrestricted, and to give arguments to J. Q. Public -- who
- thinks that RICO and civil forfeture laws are great ways of
- dealing with drug dealers -- convincing her/him that crypto
- should be unregulated/minimally regulated.
-
- --Ken Pizzini
-