Something that frustrates me in fighting about crypto issues is the amazing quantities of ignorance available on the subject. I wish people knew more. Yes, if they understood how a meet-in-the-middle attack works that would be nice, but I would settle with something far simpler: It would be really nice if people had practical experiance *using* cryptography in a friendly, innocent, and non-threatening way. Familiarity breeds comfort. How to do this? What about a multi-player game which requires cryptography to implement the play? One possiblity would be a cryptographic implementation of playing cards. This has very obvious and easy to understand graphical implementations. So simple a small child can easily understand the product--which means possibly even the ITAR police would get the concept. This "digital deck of cards" would be flexible enough to allow the playing of most card games with the addition of the same manual book-keeping as is needed with physical cards. For assistance in keeping score, bidding--or God forbid--betting, there would be a journaled, low-bandwidth communication channel which would be--very important here--in the clear. The digital cards would be cryptographically strong. Players would appreciate that cheating could be accomplished by cracking the codes, and yet no one seems to be able to cheat. (Note, cheating through collusion in a game like bridge would still be possible.) The cards would not be suitable for distributing porn, bomb making secrets, or drugs, yet would drive the ITAR police *crazy*. What if a deck of the these cards were to be illegally exported from the country?!?!? Try telling all those Regular Citizens who are getting on the net and discover they can play cards that the cards are dangerous munitions. What a wonderful way to make the ITAR police look completely silly. Oh, and to be sure they *do* get upset, make the cards just open enough that they *do* constitute something more general-purpose. (Make calls to PGP, or let others make calls to the crypto functions in the digital cards--something like that.) Comments? Suggestions for a game other than cards that would be better or more suitable? Is anyone already working on a Card Playing Protocol? -kb, the Kent who tries to cause trouble -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg@world.std.com kentborg@aol.com Proud to claim 32:00 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!