At 09:06 AM 1/23/96 -0500, Herb Sutter wrote:

Careful... what would YOU have done, with your customers demanding stronger crypto today and you unable to legally give it to them?

Again, folks, try to remember that this is NOT key escrow... international Notes customers are no worse off than before, and a darn sight better off against everyone besides Uncle Sam.

They could have shipped strong encryption and let the lawyers handle the Feds. That's what lawyers are for. A court loss would be unlikely. Even with a loss, having IBM serve a 54-month jail term would be no prob. It could do it standing on its head. They were probably more worried by possible retaliation in government purchasing. Those who crossed The Wall around 10:00 pm on November 10, 1989 proved that modern (weak) governments can be faced down by large movements of people. Companies will learn that end-users are less sanguine about being censored (by Compuserve) or opening one's business affairs to (any) governments than perhaps they used to be. Small competitors will benefit. DCF