At 3:01 AM -0700 9/7/98, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
Robert Hettinga wrote:
Sameer Parekh, the president of the Web server company C2 Net, said: "I think it's essential if you want business that you're doing your development overseas. It's pretty clear to anyone internationally that anything exportable [from the United States] is a joke."
Let's wait and see whether AES will be genuinely exportable.
If it's as strong as it is supposed to be, e.g, much stronger than 3DES for example, then OF COURSE it will not be exportable. However, the neat thing about such a standard, with the algorithm carefully described and published, is that many can implement it. There should be no particular need to "export" implmentations out of the U.S. when so many European and Asian and Carribbean folks will be implementing it and embedding it in other applications. (I don't follow AES stuff, so I may be missing some details, such as how licensing (barf) will work. Maybe, like IDEA, implementors will be supposed to seek a license. If so, then maybe implementors will have to go to whomever controls the process, such as NIST, and request a license. Probably NIST will deny a license to Hezbollah Cryptography Company. And so it goes.) I can't get too excited about AES. Plenty of ciphers out there. Which cipher handles the high-speed stuff inside an app like PGP is not of great concern to me. Especially since the speed of ciphers is less important for the kind of political messages which interest me. (I'm not belittling work on AES. It's both important for various network uses, and interesting in its own right. Just not to me.) --Tim May "The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants...." ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments.