🚀 go-pugleaf

>>> On 17 Jan 93 16:42:38 GMT, paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) said:

Campbell> Moreover we all were taught this encryption stuff in
Campbell> undergraduate courses anyway - assuming that people in other
Campbell> countries can't read or understand this stuff is pretty
Campbell> condesending - but then that's the NSA (who I guess assume
Campbell> that the Russians will never think to read the texts :-)

Well, you might have already imagined this, but: the russians have some
of the very best mathematicians around, and they probably are as good as
anything the NSA can get, or even better. Moreover, given the lack of
the immense computer power the NSA has, russian mathematicians have
developed extra ingenuity.

The NSA is concerned about cheap, stupid powers like the yugoslavs or
the iraquis of this world; people who are used to buying weaponry off
the shelf, and then even have some difficulty operating it properly.

The NSA reasoning is that these are 'end-user' powers can get easily
their hands on high quality ready made end-user security tools, then the
NSA has a much harder time monitoring them; if they have to develop
their own tools, the chance of them bungling their design is very much
higher, as is the chance that they will instead be laxer.

Since the NSA detail is surveillance of those powers, they don't give a
damn if restricting the availability of end user quality security tools
also means that private users in the USA or in friendly countries (some
of which, like the UK, have their own impressive record of security
research) get victimized too.
--
Piercarlo Grandi <pcg@aber.ac.uk> c/o Dept of CS
University of Wales, Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK