From: gardner@convex.com (Steve Gardner)
Subject: Re: New Administration and Crypto Regulation
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:08:08 GMT
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.

In article <921110234334.934244@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL> WHMurray@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL 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