At 11:36 AM 11/30/95, Timothy C. May wrote:
It's possible that Jim Clark--whose quotations I have not yet seen denied by Netscape--is merely naive on matters of mandated key escrow. It's possible that he hasn't given it much thought.
I watched him in acquisition mode once upon a time and I rather doubt this: I imagine that he's giving this considerable thought (he has the time while counting stacks of shares on his bed every night ;), watching this space and letting the "petty officers" navigate through this reef for now. His statements so far indicate nothing more to me than that he's just playing his cards very close for now so as not to alienate anyone: this is what a captain should be expected to do when the waters are potentially this "dangerous." Why would/should he chop the Feds off at the knees until he knows exactly which way _their_ smoke blows? They're still trying to figure out what the hell we're up to, and if we can manage to stay ahead of their lumbering giants (Freeh, et alia), it'll pretty much stay that way for a long time. Anyway, no policy statements coming from Netscape NOW can be a reliable indicator of where they're going to be -- even in a year -- on crypto policy or on the internal development. All we're seeing for the forseeable future is trial balloons and other strategic positioning. I bet Jim's read the Book of Five Rings...
It's also possible that he sincerely is supportive of plans for Big Brother to have an "escrowed" copy of our conversations, diaries, travel plans, etc.
Jim may "appear" a tad "hawkish," but he's no dope. Look, a 70% share, even with momentum behind it, can slim down mighty fast with bad choices and lots of fast dogs at his heels and he knows it. Let me put it this way: "the higher they sell, the faster they drop." Tim, you're absolutely right that speaking out NOW (and directly at him) is the surest way for him and others to have data on which to base their future decisions. If there are other solutions for modules Netscape intends to provide (like...NS2.0's Mail module + GAK vs a c-neutral Eudora with an optional MOSS translation plug-in), then he'll lose market share proportional to how much we scream about it in public (I'm doing daily vocal exercises, just in case ;). If he makes enough bad choices, like throwing his full weight behind GAK and other atrocities, he'll end up like DigiCash *would* if they kept/keep the bank protocol hidden. I just refuse to believe he hates his work that much. At the worst, I see a special "gaak" version for the Feds, but I sure as hell wouldn't buy it (and I bought my copy of Netscape). It would be nice to hear from him here directly, though. One can only tolerate so much pussyfooting around before one becomes snippy. dave ________________________________________________________________ "I prefer a _real_ whorehouse to The Theatre." --Dorothy Parker