At 01:56 97/08/03 -0600, Toto wrote:
It is clearly up to Joichi Ito to decide how he can best work toward cypherpunk goals under his system of government, but he would do well to listen to those on the list who have seen more than a few crusaders sink into the swill when they make the mistake of talking to the piggies too close to the trough. A good sign that you have not yet been co-opted is if you still take that "extra" briefcase to the meetings, just in case. {"I've got to run out to my car for a moment with my briefcase, but I will be leaving my _other_ briefcase here." <tick-tock-tick-tock>}
TruthMonger
Point well taken. I understand that it is easy to get misdirected when you are "dancing with the devil"... Currently, as one of the primary supporters of privacy and free access to cryptography in Japan, I have much more to lose and very little to gain from being "co-opted." by "the bad guys" (who aren't looking out for the interests of the people). In addition, although the Japanese Self Defense Force may be militaristic (they are the military so they probably are pretty militaristic), Japan does not have the equivalent of the NSA. It really is in Japanese national security interests to consider minimizing risk by distributing it since they obviously do not have the ability to control it in the way that the US does. Anyone who has been following the statements by the Japanese at the OECD should note that Japan has alway lagged behind in supporting government control of crypto. In addition (although this article is very seldom sited in actual cases) the Japanese constitution provides for privacy of communications for citizens. Also, most of the crypto technology is held in private companies. Really, what I am try to do is two things: 1) Make sure that Japan makes the right decision about crypto policy so that they do no stifle commercial development of crypto or put at risk national and individual security/privacy by implementing a weak system because of political pressure or domestic surveilance requirements. 2) Make sure that Japan does not repeat the US "Hacker Crackdown" and more recent Australian crackdowns which I think can cause a rift between hackers and society. Right now I think the risk of weak security from the point of view of IWar and just plain network failure is much more important than cracking down on hackers/crackers. I'm trying to head off such "crackdown" movements by trying to put threats and risks into perspective at the National Security level and take the focus away from the activities of hackers who I think can help improve security and lower risks in the long term. As for Tim's message... I keep worrying (when I am in Japan) that I'm too radical, so it's nice to hear from someone who is really hardcore to put a wimp like me in my place. ;-P I guess I still believe in trying to redirect the process of government before "dropping out"... I'm not making it any easier for the "bad guys" giving them my opinion and I can alway "drop out" when I think no one's listening anymore... Anyway, I'm going to stop writing now before all of the government people reading this list decide to put me in their kill file. Then no one will be listening to me. ;-P - Joi P.S. I wrote an article in the Daily Yomiuri about a year ago that outlines where I am coming from. Please take a look if you are interested. The Daily Yomiuri is a national Japanese newspaper. <http://www.garage.co.jp/~jito/article.html> -- Finger jito@nsm.eccosys.com or jito@garage.co.jp for PGP Key Fingerprint for RSA PGP Key ID 0x0EE23A2D 0D3A 7AAA 3DA8 E7B3 3AF1 C6FA B7ED D834 Fingerprint for DSS/Diffie-Hellman PGP Key ID 0x2D9461F1 58F3 CA9A EFB8 EB9D DF18 6B16 E48D AF2A 2D94 61F1 Home Page: http://domino.garage.co.jp/jito/joihome.nsf To subscribe to my personal mailing list send mailto:friends-subscribe@ito.com