🚀 go-pugleaf

 In <hugh.721982357@gargoyle.uchicago.edu>
 hugh@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Hugh Miller) writes:


>  I.    Freely accessible practically secure cryptography (FAPSC) is an
>        area in which the interests of private corporations and the
>        interests (some would say rights) of private individuals to be
>        secure in their persons and papers converge.

 I believe this is clearly false.  What corporations (e.g., banks)
 have typically screamed about is the right to continue to use DES.
 A few months ago, corporations were screaming about possibly being
 required to provide remote monitoring access to their private
 telephone switches.  None that I know of is fighting, say, for
 the right of their employees to use cryptography for personal
 communications or data storage.


>        Making FAPSC illegal for the general populace
>        will severely impact the security of internal corporate
>        communications.  (Individual corporations are, I think, unlikely
>        to win exemptions to such legislation unless they do contract
>        work with the government, and then only on those specific
>        contracts.)

 I see no reason to think that corporations would not be granted
 easy-to-get licenses if they use particular types of equipment.

 In fact, a March 1987 article in Data Communications magazine
 described NSA's Commercial Comsec Endorsement Program (CEEP) and
 Project Overtake encryption equipment in two classes:  Types I
 and II.  Type I would be available only to government agencies and
 contractors, but a Type II "module" would be a replacement for DES
 equipment, and would be built into a computer or communications
 device and sold by a vendor.

 This program was not a success (they "ran it up the flagpole" and
 nobody saluted), but, clearly, NSA *is* prepared to support the
 concept of data encryption for business.  Not unexpectedly, there
 was no proposal to provide low-cost consumer encryption, a topic
 which has been at the heart of the argument here for the past week.


>Such a general ukase on FAPSC would thus hurt
>        American business in a competitive world market.  This kind of
>        argument is already being made by many corporations, and loudly.

 Business use and personal use are two different things.  I think
 it quite likely that the government would like to license the
 first, and minimize the second.  Consequently, arguments based on
 American business competitiveness may be totally irrelevant to the
 continued use of strong cryptography by individuals.

 ---
 Terry Ritter   ritter@cactus.org