On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Peter Gutmann wrote:
One thing which came to me recently when I was trying to figure out what sort of gun the US held to the rest of the world's head to get them to agree to this: Could the Wassenaar outcome have been a sign of Echelon in action?
Much more I believe it could have been the promise of US to allow the W countries to use the Echelon system sometimes. Something like in case your country needs access to the system, it might be possible to order this service from US Echelon Co. Of course US either would allow it in cases like international terrorism threats, not for spying on European political organs, technological and development and research organisations US probably is using it for today. And it could be just a promise by US. Why this thing might have worked would be because the level education and understanding of US and European representatives at these issues (Echelon, communications wiretapping) could be very different, so the non-US politicians might have not understood what they were really voting on. And of course the government of every country in the world is always happy if it can spy on anyone. Sad that they do not understand that the crypto software today is a little bit too advanced and freely available that who wants can still use it. Jyri Kaljundi jk@stallion.ee AS Stallion Ltd http://www.stallion.ee/