At 07:49 PM 1/26/96 -0800, Rich Graves wrote:

On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, Thomas Grant Edwards wrote:

...

I think the big bait-and-switch is her description of the various companies falling over themselves to get to _VOLUNTARY_ key escrow to avoid losing data and protecting themselves against employee problems versus _MANDATORY_GOVERNMENT_ key escrow to ensure that individuals cannot hide information from the government.

Key escrow is good. Key escrow against your will is bad.

Yo.

I especially enjoyed this sentence: "Individuals would be allowed to develop their own encryption systems for personal or educational use without obtaining licenses, though they could not distribute them to others."

Why is it that whenever I read Denning's pronouncements I feel like I am reading something from a villainess in an Ayn Rand novel? Denning has become the epitome of the pure authoritarian government world view. Analysis of her viewpoints makes me more of an anarchist every time I read her rants. It is that smarmy "We know better than you do" with absolutely no rational argument as to why it is true. It is people like this that are generating such distrust in Government by promoting irrational statism. (Government by random fiat keeps a high employment for those who make their living off of political parody, paranoia of the government, the court system, lawyers and lawmakers, and anarchists everywhere.)

It's unclear whether it's OK to share books, algorithms, and source code; or if it is, what's the point?

Depends on your ability to challenge the status quo. A vague law with lots of harsh but undefined penalties is much more effective than something that is rigidly defined. With rigidly defined laws, you can find loopholes and ways to push the envelope. With vague rules, people will tend to err on the side of caution.

Outlaw cryptography, and only cryptographers and outlaws will have cryptography.

"Hey, we found this Tim May guy down at the school playground selling crypto to the kids! Let's throw the book at him!" Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ National Security uber alles!