At 08:23 PM 12/14/96 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:
At 7:09 pm -0500 12/14/96, Adam Shostack wrote:
My understanding is that they choose not to continue per^H^Hrosecuting Phil for putting the code up for FTP. Thus, this is a change. Or did Phil not put the code up for FTP?
Actually, it's my understanding that PRZ didn't do it personally. Someone else got the code from Phil and put it on the net. Phil had nothing to do with it. Except for writing PGP, of course. :-).
I suppose one of the myriad reasons it would have been difficult/impossible to prosecute Zimmermann is that, because the "crime" was approaching the end of the statute of limitations, the prospect existed that sometime during the trial, we could have had a "Perry Mason"-type ending, with somebody else standing up and claiming credit for the (then past the limit) act of uploading PGP. If the standard used for conviction was "beyond a reasonable doubt," it would be just about impossible to convict unless the gov't had some sort of person-specific evidence, rather than merely evidence that PGP got onto the web. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com