"Distribute a key, go to prison." How does the New World Order limit the use of strong crypto without "key recovery" when so many copies of older, pre-ban crypto are already out there? Simple, by declaring that public keys themselves are crypto material, as the Brits did in their Trusted Third Parties draft proposal, and hence declaring that distribution of keys after the effective date of the legislation constitutes a violation. Give someone your key, either by placing it on keyservers or even by mailing it to them, and one has just "distributed" crypto. This will make the public key infrastructure essentially useless, as the public key servers go down, as corporations yank any directories they may have, and (possibly) as individuals stop putting PGP or S/MIME fingerprints or pointers in their messages. How possible is this? Recall that the British proposal formally classified key material, the keys themselves, as cryptographic products. The language of the current unSAFE and Procto-CODE draconian bills, still changing of course as committees rewrite them to be more Big Brotherish, is vague on what constitutes crypto. If language is inserted making keys part of the bills, or if "interpretations" by Defense, Commerce, etc. make this determination, then there goes the infrastructure, even for already-distributed keys. Sure, underground use will continue. And those with PGP, and keys, may well have a reasonable defense in court, arguing that the program *and* the keys they used were already in their possession prior to the effective date of the legislation. But the effect would be chilling to almost any normal use of these programs. This is my latest nightmare scenario. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."