🚀 go-pugleaf

mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
>strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>> Leaving aside the inflammatory language in "mathew"'s post (I still
>> can't figure out if that's his last name or what),
>It's my name.

And you're entitled to it. It is strange how David Sternlight sees 
inflammatory language in everyone's postings but his own.

>> Second, since he writes from the U.K., it's like counseling someone
>> else to take the law into their own hands with no personal
>> responsibility-- a kind of let's you and him fight.

>Since I believe the UK has laws prohibiting the sending of encrypted messages
>over telephone lines, every time I use PGP I am risking arrest.

PGP legality is a relevant issue to anyone wishing to secure the
privacy of their communications with Americans. And anyone with friends
or loved ones living in the US has a personal stake in what happens
there. Come to think of it, given that no one can forsee their future
movements or attachments, even folk without immediate US concerns are
fully entitled to comment. 

The net is a country to which many feel greater allegiance than they
feel to the country they pay taxes to. PGP and its cousins are tools
with which the net may defend its borders and maintain its integrity.
Folk like PKP who attempt to patent something as fundamental as the
very concept of public key encryption are impediments to the development
of the net and to free exchange of information. Given that PKP have done
nothing in exchange for this disservice, folk in this group have every right 
to regard them and their supporters with suspicion. Such suspicion is not
"paranoia", as David Sternlight enjoys calling it. It is common sense.

-- 
Internet: pete@extro.su.oz.au             UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!munnari!extro!pete
                       I am a big pond in a small fish.