Folks -- I object to the characterization of my remarks about crime prevention being made with sarcasm. The complete remark was "Crime prevention ought to be part of the FBI's mission, ... and it is -- ask them, and they acknowledge that." No sarcasm was intended; the basic point was, and is, that encryption has costs from the perspective of the authorized information collection efforts of law enforcement, and benefits from the perspective of preventing information crimes such as the compromise of proprietary business information. I am not on the cypherpunks list, so if you want me to respond, pls copy me at hlin@nas.edu. herb === Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 10:57:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Re: SAFE Forum

On Mon, 1 Jul 1996, Bill Frantz wrote:

"Crime prevention ought to be part of the FBI's mission. [Herbert Lin, National Research Council]

In case it's not clear, this was said with much sarcasm... i.e., today's FBI is too often engaged in other pursuits.. This in the context of explaining that ubiquitous strong crypto is the best defense against computer crime. -rich