Sprach John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>:
* And what did NSA offer, to convince many countries to directly contradict policies that they had arrived at during year-long public consultations with their own citizens?
Call me hopelessly paranoid, but I'm betting that none or nearly none of the governments in the world want unrestricted crypto. Hell, I'm betting that none of the governments in the world are particularly happy that crypto expertise exists outside of secretive government research projects and intelligence agencies. If they could go back to the secret government-only crypto environment from before and during WWII, they'd be ecstatic. Public crypto expertise makes it hard for governments to keep secrets from each other and their people, it makes it (relatively) easy for the public to keep secrets from their government, and in general makes governments REALLY nervous. Sure, they talked with their people and the people were clear that _they_ wanted unrestricted crypto. And so the governments (those few who actually pay attention to their public) made statements and passed laws in support of unrestricted crypto... but their arms were being twisted the whole time, and they were Displeased(tm). If my statements have any bearing in reality, then it wouldn't take very much lobbying at all on the NSA's part to convince the wassenaar countries to change the agreement to restrict or totally ban crypto. This lets the various governments go back to their people and claim that they don't have any choice: wassenaar forces them to restrict crypto... sorry. The fact that most (almost certainly all) countries don't act on treaties until (and if) they have passed implementing legislation is completely lost on the people. After all, a treaty is a treaty, right? It's like a contract between two people, except it's between countries, right? So they've agreed: why do we need laws to implement it? [I know those last three statements are false, but they accurately represent the attitudes of all the people with whom I've discussed the issue of treaty implementation.] More and more, I see that treaties are no longer tools to create agreement among governments, but are tools to allow governments to sidestep the political costs associated with acting against their own people's express desires. For a very long time now, it has _appeared_ that European and North American governments agree with each other far more readily than they agree with their own people. -- Jon Paul Nollmann ne' Darren Senn sinster@balltech.net Unsolicited commercial email will be archived at $1/byte/day. Dis.Org's propensity for casual violence is little different from that of any street gang. Carolyn Meinel