Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
If existing crypto is fully legal to use, then it could be years and years before the Freeh-Reno-SAFE outlawing has any significant effect.
Indeed. How about existing software with decades of previous existence that has hooks where crypto can be plugged in with fairly trivial effort?
Is there any reasonable interpretation of any of the SAFE or Pro-CODE bills that could make it illegal to use preexisting crypto programs ...
If not, then our strategy should be to get the simpler, text-centric, crypto programs massively and widely deployed. Spend the year or so we have before D-Day getting crypto onto every CD-ROM being distributed, every public domain site, etc.
We (the XEmacs developers, but I write only for myself as XEmacs maintainer) already distribute mailcrypt (Emacs lisp code to integrate PGP with mailers and newsreaders implemented in Emacs lisp). It has been possible to integrate encrypted editing with encryption of the user's choice transparently for some time.
Better, perhaps, to leave the crypto at the "text edit" level, the ASCII level, where it can be dropped in cleanly to whatever program is current. (Also an old strategy, one with many advantages.)
I agree. An Emacs-like architecture makes implementing something like this pretty straight-forward.