List: cryptography
Subject: US Urges Ban of Internet Crypto
From: John Young <jya () pipeline ! com>
Date: 1999-07-28 1:17:08
The Austrian journal Telepolis today published a letter from
Janet Reno to the German Justice Minister urging a ban
of crypto products on the Internet. We've made a translation
of the report which includes Reno's letter:
http://jya.com/reno-ban.htm
Here's an excerpt of Reno's letter:
"Much work remains to be done. In particular, I believe we must
soon address the risks posed by electronic distribution of
encryption software. Although the Wassenaar Nations have
now reached agreement to control the distribution of mass
market encryption software of certain cryptographic strength,
some Wassenaar Nations continue not to control encryption
software that is distributed over the Internet, either because
the software is in the "public domain" or because those
Nations do not control distribution of intangible items. While
I recognize that this issue is controversial, unless we address
this situation, use of the Internet to distribute encryption products
will render Wassenaar's controls immaterial."
List: cryptography
Subject: Re: US Urges Ban of Internet Crypto
From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii () openpgp ! net>
Date: 1999-07-28 16:45:35
In <199907280125.VAA08724@smtp6.mindspring.com>, on 07/27/99
at 09:17 PM, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> said:
>use of the Internet to distribute encryption products
>will render Wassenaar's controls immaterial."
The bitch is getting a clue. :)
--
---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net
Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0
Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html
Talk About PGP on IRC EFNet Channel: #pgp Nick: whgiii
Hi Jeff!! :)
List: cryptography
Subject: US Urges Ban of Internet Crypto
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl () lrz ! uni-muenchen ! de>
Date: 1999-07-28 18:07:08
John Young writes:
> Nations do not control distribution of intangible items. While
> I recognize that this issue is controversial, unless we address
> this situation, use of the Internet to distribute encryption products
> will render Wassenaar's controls immaterial."
I just love this sentence. So, let's create unenforcible legislation,
and then try to pave over all the world in the attempt to make reality
comply. Name's Janet Reno, huh?
What's worse, the gullible Germans will probably heel.
List: cryptography
Subject: Re: US Urges Ban of Internet Crypto
From: Andreas Bogk <andreas () andreas ! org>
Date: 1999-07-28 18:56:26
Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> writes:
> > Nations do not control distribution of intangible items. While
> > I recognize that this issue is controversial, unless we address
> > this situation, use of the Internet to distribute encryption products
> > will render Wassenaar's controls immaterial."
>
> I just love this sentence. So, let's create unenforcible legislation,
> and then try to pave over all the world in the attempt to make reality
> comply. Name's Janet Reno, huh?
>
> What's worse, the gullible Germans will probably heel.
They will not. Especially the ministry of economy is well aware that
the US spies on the german industry, that strong crypto is the only
protection against it, and that an open-source development model for
security infrastructure is the only one providing a high enough
confidence in the security of a product (and providing a
Wassenaar-loophole though the public domain exemption on it's way,
which they also are very aware of).
Andreas
--
"We show that all proposed quantum bit commitment schemes are insecure because
the sender, Alice, can almost always cheat successfully by using an
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen type of attack and delaying her measurement until she
opens her commitment." ( http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9603004 )
List: cryptography
Subject: Re: US Urges Ban of Internet Crypto
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad ! com>
Date: 1999-07-29 0:52:04
> >use of the Internet to distribute encryption products
> >will render Wassenaar's controls immaterial."
>
> The bitch is getting a clue. :)
No, that's not it.
* Wassenaar was never intended to control civilian crypto.
* Wassenaar never did control civilian crypto.
* Therefore nothing "rendered wassenaar's controls immaterial",
since they didn't exist in the first place. (see footnote*)
* However, the US is attempting to deliberately and cynically
use that weapons control regime to control citizens worldwide
who are exercising their civil rights.
* Which lends further credence to the idea that 'the bitch' is
a traitor to her own country's Constitution as well as a
significant threat to the human rights of everyone on earth.
If Ms. Reno had a clue, she'd fire Louis Freeh, publish PGP and
CryptoMozilla on the DoJ web site, prevent crimes instead of fighting
crimes, and advocate civil rights instead of destroying civil rights.
Every other country that has seriously studied the crypto issue has
come to this conclusion, unless it already treated its citizens like
dirt, or its heart was in a storage locker owned by the US Government.
Why do other countries' governments work so much better on this issue
than our own goverment? Does it have anything to do with a massive
secret agency, unaccountable to the public, whose ox is being gored?
Can you spell "corruption", kiddies?
John
* footnote: Actually, Wassenaar used to control military crypto gear.
To the extent that commercial, civilian crypto software is now a
functional replacement for controlled military crypto gear,
despite the fact that it has never been designed for military use,
perhaps Wassenaar's controls *have* been rendered immaterial. But the
cure is not to deny civilians the freedom to invent and communicate,
the cure is to adapt one's self to the new world, as we have adapted
to thousands of other technology-based changes including today's
capability for widespread interception.