There was an article in today's San Jose Mercury News that Dorothy Denning, the leading academic supporter of the Administration's anti-crypto stance, has backed off from that position. She's put out a paper along with William Baugh of SAIC (!) which among other things includes a survey of law enforcement officers on how much they've encountered crypto and how much difference it's made, and the answer has been that it hasn't made much difference -- of the few criminals who use crypto, some use wimpy algorithms, some are careless with their password handling, some get fingered by stool pigeons, and some mainly use their crypto for information not relevant to the case they're being investigated for. She's now taking a much less certain, more neutral position. Way to go, Dorothy! It's especially important because Dr. Denning was the main independent supporter of encryption limitations, and has a lot of reputation invested in it, so changing her position is a big step. The FBI has a vested interest - without Communists to chase around, Director Freeh is off chasing drug dealers in the name of "national security". And the industrial support for key escrow has primarily been from companies that get to export their products in return for adding it, though there have been a few firms like TIS that have developed it for its own sake. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)