At 01:06 PM 1/26/96 -0600, Alex Strasheim wrote:

Digicash is probably the first significant crypto product to be exported to America. It's not very popular yet, but I think that most of us here agree that it is, in potential at least, as significant as Mosaic/Netscape. It's important to note that this extremely important product couldn't have been produced here, patents aside. Transaction systems need to be international, and our rules make America an unsuitable place from which to launch tranaction software.

Will the NSA be able to stand up against growing economic pressures? I don't know. But it does seem pretty clear that those pressures are building all the time, and that the problem of supressing crypto in 1996 is a much tougher one than it was in 1986.

In general, it's myopic and ill advised to focus on one factor -- economics, politcs, the national security establishment -- when trying to predict what will happen. I've probably been guilty of placing too much emphasis on money, and not enough on the NSA.

We do seem to be winning, though.

Agreed. However, we will all REALLY win when anonymous-payer/anonymous-payee digital cash appears and is in common usage. (or Digicash can be "munged" to make payee-anonymity possible, if not the norm.