I promise myself to go back to lurking mode after this. On Sun, 14 Apr 1996, Mike McNally wrote:
The choice of words was exceedlingly poor if that's what he really meant. Though I agree that it's unlikely any LEA will give up capabilities it's grown to imagine is has a "right" to have, I haven't stopped objecting.
None of us have stopped objecting, except that now we have methods of preventing it on our own. One must remember that while the basic uses of crypto are not only reasonable and even essential in some cases, the full application leads to some very objectionable extremes (regulatory arbitrage, full anon digicash, easier drug sales, gutting of income taxes...). Now being one of those people who enthusiastically supports those extremes, I have to ask myself, how will we get there with the least interference? Now for one thing I wouldn't go around repeating the indignant "unconstitutional US government" threads on oh let's say talk.politics.libertarian (or .crypto) to the faces of legislators and the media. One doesn't get the ITAR repealled by telling congress that child porn and mafia conversations will become impossible to police and that the first amendment lets us shout "fire" in a theatre (though I think it does). I would leave all the carping and "four horsemen"ing to Louis Freeh. That makes him sound unreasonable. "Sounding" reasonable may be the best way for our crowd to keep legal the tools that will help us do "unreasonable" (though not from our perspective) things. So as long as Shabbir & co insert statements supportive of crypto deregulation, I really don't care what the rest of their speeches say, the rest is only packaging. (Though one must determine what's the packaging and what's the content.) (And if I were in his shoes, I probably wouldn't be saying anything different. I may be an anarchist, but I call myself a free-marketeer. Same thing but not the same-sounding thing, get it? Politics is unfortunately very backwards. As long as the civil lib'ers tow enough of our party line and get the job done, I'm happy with 'em.) I leave the judgement call up to you, Mike.