So, what are we going to do?
Very interesting threads going along in here. I'm a fairly new reader to the list. In fact, until I started reading WiReD, Cud, EFF, and this list, I didn't even know that I had to worry about privacy in cyberspace. RE: the folowing *************************************************************************** This is largely, however, off the topic. What is important, and a point on which I think we agree, is that the regulation of strong crypto, or in your definition, the interference in the marketplace, is unacceptable, unneeded and nothing more than a calculated attempt to maintain the status quo of usurpation of individual rights in favor of federal power and influence. Even the national security externality falls when one considers the uselessness of export regulation in the age of digital communication. *************************************************************************** It may be too late for the federal gov't to regulate cryptography. The genie is already out of the bottle. They might legislate it, even criminalize it, but private non-clipper crypto is here. I believe it is here to stay. At least, I'm not giving up _MY_ copy of PGP. As long as I've got a copy, my friends can get copies. Their friends can get copies from them. Just _HOW_ heavy-handed does the Justice Dept. plan to get? Will they come in at midnight, knocking down doors, shouting "we have a search warrant to locate illegal cryptography in your possession!" and run off with my equipment? _That_ could be quite embarrassing for crypto users like me, who are _not_ pornographers, drug dealers, or terrorrists to show up in court. What is the prosecuter going to tell the judge? "So far, we've decyphered his secret bar-b-que sauce recipie and his grandmothers instructions for making chocolate-chip cookies, but we expect to have the plaintext of his letter to his sister anytime now." What could I possibly tell the judge? "I just felt that my own data files were my own, and nobody else's, business. I just thought I was entitled to a little privacy." How would that read in the press? Could the government really afford to look that stupid? (Unless, of course, they really _are_.)
PMARKS@vax1.umkc.edu writes:
It may be too late for the federal gov't to regulate cryptography. The genie is already out of the bottle. They might legislate it, even criminalize it, but private non-clipper crypto is here. I believe it is here to stay. At least, I'm not giving up _MY_ copy of PGP. As long as I've got a copy, my friends can get copies. Their friends can get copies from them. Just _HOW_ heavy-handed does the Justice Dept. plan to get?
Will they come in at midnight, knocking down doors, shouting "we have a search warrant to locate illegal cryptography in your possession!" and run off with my equipment? _That_ could be quite embarrassing for crypto users like me, who are _not_ pornographers, drug dealers, or terrorrists to show up in court. What is the prosecuter going to tell the judge? "So far, we've decyphered his secret bar-b-que sauce recipie and his grandmothers instructions for making chocolate-chip cookies, but we expect to have the plaintext of his letter to his sister anytime now."
Well, not to stray from the topic either, but that's precisely what they're planning to do to gun owners. Once they start attacking citizens on any particular political correctness issue, all others are fair game. -- Dragon
<In mail PMARKS@VAX1.UMKC.EDU said:>
Will they come in at midnight, knocking down doors, shouting "we have a search warrant to locate illegal cryptography in your possession!" and run off with my equipment?
A friend of mine that repaired computers said he ran across an old disk drive that was used in WWII. The thing had a lever on the top that was to be pulled should anyone "burst in" unannounced. As a failsafe to protect our secrets the lever was the trigger of a mounted .38. Are we "good" American citizens going to have to write failsafe boot files that require a special combination of keypresses or it erases the hard disk? It would be a shame to have to protect our computers from the "thought police" of not Orwell's future, but our present! At least opressed countries have governments that break in and take your computer and family because they are lowlife dictators and admit it. Here the same lowlife dictator wannabes do it in the name of democracy and justice! (Not that I'd like living elsewhere.) Jim -- Tantalus Inc. Jim Sewell Amateur Radio: KD4CKQ P.O. Box 2310 Programmer Internet: jims@mpgn.com Key West, FL 33045 C-Unix-PC Compu$erve: 71061,1027 (305)293-8100 PGP via email on request. 1K-bit Fingerprint: 8E 14 68 90 37 87 EF B3 C4 CF CD 9A 3E F9 4A 73
<In mail Perry E. Metzger said:>
"Jim Sewell" says:
A friend of mine that repaired computers said he ran across an old disk drive that was used in WWII.
There were no disk drives in WWII. There were barely computers. Hell, there was barely magnetic audio storage -- on steel wire!
He said "the war", perhaps it was Korean? To paraphrase McCoy, "Dammit Jim, I'm a programmer, not a historian!" Jim -- Tantalus Inc. Jim Sewell Amateur Radio: KD4CKQ P.O. Box 2310 Programmer Internet: jims@mpgn.com Key West, FL 33045 C-Unix-PC Compu$erve: 71061,1027 (305)293-8100 PGP via email on request. 1K-bit Fingerprint: 8E 14 68 90 37 87 EF B3 C4 CF CD 9A 3E F9 4A 73
"Jim Sewell" writes:
A friend of mine that repaired computers said he ran across an old disk drive that was used in WWII. The thing had a lever on the top that was to be pulled should anyone "burst in" unannounced. As a failsafe to protect our secrets the lever was the trigger of a mounted .38.
Uhh... uhh... I think you may want to go back and ask this friend whether he was *sure* it was a disk drive from WWII. If so, we need to go back and re-work some history of computing details. Then again, there was the Philadelphia Experiment... -- | GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com> | | TAKE TWA TO CAIRO. ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX: | | (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |
participants (5)
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Dragon -
Jim Sewell -
m5@vail.tivoli.com -
Perry E. Metzger -
PMARKS@VAX1.UMKC.EDU