From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
The problem (for GAK) of "rogue governments" is this: a government such as Libya or Panama, henceforth to be known as "Rogueitania," issues policy cards to all of its citizens, and to all those visiting Rogueitania, and perhaps through the mail to anyone who pays some fee.
I don't think this would happen. Some kind of secret information or hardware is going to be needed to create policy tokens. (Otherwise anybody could make one.) That means that HP, and therefore ultimately the U.S. government, is going to have to approve those governments which are allowed to issue such tokens. HP will have to provide them some special hardware or something to make them. The tokens will only be accepted if they have proper secrets inside them. I can't see the U.S. allowing Libya and similar countries to create policy tokens. The whole point of this exercise is to prevent these countries from being able to use strong crypto. So they will certainly not be on the approved list. Does this represent an attempt to establish a de facto U.S. hegemony over the world, where the U.S. government gets to decide which other governments have access to crypto? Not necessarily; other countries will still have the option to use computers made outside the U.S. The fact of international competition will still exist. If the HP initiative does become a widespread standard (which I think is unlikely at this point) then we will see the same sorts of flight towards non U.S. computers that we now see towards non U.S. crypto companies. Why should an Israeli company buy an American computer with a policy chip that is ultimately under the control of the U.S. government when they can get one locally made which has no such restrictions? And of course all this focus on hardware tokens ignores the fact that the alternative of software-only crypto will still be present, both for the domestic market and for the international market where the products don't come from the U.S. This will represent additional competition which the HP proposal must face. For these reasons I don't think the HP idea solves the export problem for U.S. hardware and software makers. And the response by opinion leaders has ranged from ho-hum to negative, despite the self-serving cheerleading by HP management. Companies which try to sell computers with these chips in them risk getting a "big brother inside" (to use Tim's very effective slogan) reputation. I think this initiative is going nowhere. Hal