Strong cryptography is needed for a secure information infrastructure. If American companies aren't allowed to build secure infrastrucure, then parts of the infrastrucure will move overseas, as insurance, liability, and deployment costs rise for a badly secured network. This issue will not cause the USA to become a third world nation, but it will contribute to large institutions moving their data processing out. Tim, you've talked a lot about how companies will move data centers out of the US to avoid 'expensive' laws; do you see the ITARs as being in a different catagory, than say, the laws on reporting a bankruptcy? Adam Tim May wrote: | At 9:19 PM 8/20/95, Adam Shostack wrote: | > No. Banning strong crypto will not help; those darn furriners | >are using it anyway. What it will mean is that the Information | >Infrastructure of the future will bypass the United States, as without | >strong cryptography, it is impossible to build a secure architechture. | > | > Should the United States wish to relagate itself to the status | >of a third world nation becuase of terrorists, druge dealers, child | >pornorgaphers and money launderers, that is indeed unfortunate. | | The U.S. is not likely to find itself relegated to third world status over | this issue. Rhetorically, I wish it were so, but it just ain't. This | issue--like the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, the race issue in the '60s, | the Vietnam war in the '60s and '70s, to name a few cases, _sounds_ really | serious. And it is, as those cases were, but predicting the imminent | collapse of American civilization is usually a lose. | | There is no way the technologlcal and manufacturing prowess of leading | American companies will be substantially crippled. -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume