Interested cypherpunks might want to have a look at: "A puzzle even the codebreakers have trouble solving: A clash of interests over the electronic encryption standard," in the most recent issue of Law and Policy in International Business, The International Law Journal of Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Sean M. Flynn does a fairly good job of outlining the policy issues, even if perhaps he managed to go a bit light on the NSA and miss some of his history re: the marketing of broken systems to the private sector and third world nations, and the mistrust the NSA seems to have earned as a result. I was also disturbed to see him fall into the government's "voluntary standard" trap but still, it's really nice to see a legal note with cites like: See e.g., Bruce Schneider, Applied Cryptography (1994) John Perry Barlow National Security Agency, Recruiting Brochure Unclassified Summary: Involvement of the NSA in the Development of [DES] Marc Rotenberg Whitfield Diffie Jim Bidzos mech@eff.org (I kid you not) Wired and A personal interview with D. Denning Worth the read, nice bit of research, if lacking in the "spirit" of things. --- My prefered and soon to be permanent e-mail address: unicorn@schloss.li "In fact, had Bancroft not existed, potestas scientiae in usu est Franklin might have had to invent him." in nihilum nil posse reverti 00B9289C28DC0E55 E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information