At 5:53 AM 11/8/1996, Douglas B. Renner wrote:

[snip]

...

The key here is that in these cases the practice has become widely accepted. By widely accepted, I mean that very significant numbers of people believe that there is nothing all that wrong with the practice. Those who disagree do not feel it is worth the trouble to put a stop to it. [snip]

While this might be the case, I don't believe it is "key".

Also, I'm not sure why you used this as a counterpoint. Are you saying that there are not a significant number of people who think there is nothing wrong with sending truly private messages? I would disagree with such an assertion based on my own converastions with crypto-ignorant aquaintances. Most people either trust the gov't implicitly or haven't thought about it or (erroneously) consider it irrelevant - but deep down they definitely value their privacy.

They also definitely value their safety. Sure, right now there are lots of people who think strong cryptography is a good idea. If the Four Horsemen scenario is correct, that will change very quickly. The reason I used this as a counterpoint is that the premise of my discussion is that it would be possible - maybe even easy - to suppress the use of non-GAKed cryptography were it unpopular. A commonly shared belief among GAKers and Cypherpunks is that strong cryptography is a magic bullet. It isn't. If it's not obviously a disaster, strong cryptography will be widely used. But if it is a disaster and requires GAK, that's a policy option we will always have. Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com