Another story in today's FINANCIAL TIMES http://www.FT.com describes a "clash" between USCommerce Sec'y Daley and German economic minister Rexrodt on strong crypto. Because the speakers' choices of words are interesting, I quote from the FT article by Ralph Atkins: On coding technology, however, Mr Daley insisted, "there are certain legitimate areas where governments have to be involved". Encryption should be used to protect credit card numbers or detailed contracts from being read. But, he went on: "We must also make sure national security is safeguarded by applying those rules sensibly, so that potential terrorists or other sophisticated criminals cannot hide their work." Mr Rexrodt hinted the European ministers regarded US policy on exporting encryption technology as discriminatory. He backed "strong" encryption procedures, which he said were "offering users the only protection that they have, the only certainty, that their data is not going to be divulged or misused on open networks". Mr Rexrodt was backed by Mr Ron Sommer, chairman of Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecommunications group, who said: "Anyone who uses the point of public security as an argument in this [encryption] issue has not realised or acknowledged that any such legal requirements stand in the way of the further spread of electronic commerce." Questions for the reader: What's a "potential" terrorist? (Is the occasional apparent c'punx paranoia justified?) How is the US export policy discriminatory? Why is DT coming out on this issue? Who are their strategic partners for ecommerce among US telecomms? (I'll have to ask around about that ...) cheers ......................................... Donald Weightman dweightman@radix.net