RE: Junger et al.
I don't understand ... Did anyone demonstrate the "functionalness" of any arbitrary language via a scanner and a compiler? Why doesn't Gwin understand that the moment one successfully claims that a specific class of source code is not speech by the virtue of the fact that a compiler can transform it automatically into executable code which performs a function, then ANY speech of ANY sort is fundamentally vulnerable to being classified as functional as soon as a compiler can transform it into real machine code. So today, I can write the following: 1. Find a container. 2. Fill container with explosive substance. 3. Move container to target location. 4. Detonate container. As soon as I have a compiler and a target machine that can execute these instructions, suddenly this is not speech. However, before this compiler and machine combo exists, event the electronic form of this is speech! How could this be? Ern -----Original Message----- From: jkthomson [SMTP:jkthomson@bigfoot.com] Sent: Monday, July 06, 1998 7:12 PM To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Junger et al. Reuters 3:40pm 6.Jul.98.PDT WASHINGTON -- A district court has dismissed a law professor's challenge to US regulations strictly limiting the export of computer data-scrambling technology. Judge James Gwin ruled late Friday that the export limits, which prevented Case Western Reserve University Law School professor Peter Junger from posting the text of encryption programs on the Internet, did not violate the constitutional right to free speech. The Ohio court's ruling contradicts a California district court ruling last August that said source code -- the instructions a person writes telling the computer what actions to perform -- constitutes a form of speech subject to First Amendment protection. "Unlike instructions, a manual or a recipe, source code actually performs the function it describes," Gwin wrote. "While a recipe provides instructions to a cook, source code is a device, like embedded circuitry in a telephone, that actually does the function of encryption." Neither ruling gave speech protection to compiled code, a version of source code converted into an actual software program that could be run on a computer. The US government appealed the California decision and the issue may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. Civil libertarians and high-tech companies had hoped the court would overturn the export limits on encryption technology, which uses mathematical formulas to scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software "key." Once the realm of spies and generals, encryption has become an increasingly critical means of protecting electronic commerce and global communications over the Internet. But law enforcement agencies, fearing encryption will be used by terrorists and international criminals to hide their activities, have instituted strict controls to limit the export of strong scrambling products. Lawyers opposed to the export rules said the Ohio court misunderstood the difference between source code and compiled code. "The Ohio court clearly doesn't understand the communicative nature of software," said Shari Steele, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's true that software helps to perform functions, but it does so by telling computers what to do.... It certainly is speech deserving of the highest levels of First Amendment protection." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- james 'keith' thomson <jkthomson@bigfoot.com> www.bigfoot.com/~ceildh jkthomson:C181 991A 405C EAFB 2C46 79B5 B1DC DB78 8196 122D [06.07.98] ceildh :1D79 59AF ED75 5945 6003 8240 DA34 ACCA 9DE4 6BC9 [05.14.98] ICQ:746241 <keys> at pgp.mit.edu ...and former sysop of tnbnog BBS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Technology is introduced, utilized, depended upon, obsolete, standardized, and understood, in that order =======================================================================_
On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Ernest Hua wrote:
So today, I can write the following:
1. Find a container. 2. Fill container with explosive substance. 3. Move container to target location. 4. Detonate container.
As soon as I have a compiler and a target machine that can execute these instructions, suddenly this is not speech. However, before this compiler and machine combo exists, event the electronic form of this is speech!
How could this be?
Gwin has written a phrase which deserves more analysis, IMO -- free from political overtones if we want to be impartial. The phrase can be reworded as: "source code is a device, that actually does a function" The difference and importance here is between syntatic and semantics. Your 4-instruction source code above is not a device today -- it cannot perform any function. It has only syntatics, not the "how to". But, if there were a machine that could supply the proper semantics (ie, actually perform the functions 1-4) then your source code above would be a device. Further, your source code may not be a device today but be a device tomorrow. As another example, bringing together one pound of inert metal with another one pound of the same inert metal was not considered to be explosive -- until U235 was used for the inert metal and properly compressed. The difference is semantic, not syntatic. In that, Gwin is correct. Can the source code actually perform a function? Then, it is a device. Irrespective of the needed platform, in the same way that an electric shaver is a device irrespective of the local availablity of an appropriate power outlet. IMO, even though I consider Gwin to be correct to a very large extent, widespread use of crypto will not come from lifiting such bans ... but from real need -- which does not outweigh the hassle, today. The EFF has a wrong target there. Do you know how much Internet e-mail traffic is encrypted today? Can you believe less than 10%? Notwithstanding the rethoric exercises and limelight it may provide, talking about encryption export bans may not be as effective as desigining better and easier uses of strong crypto -- that can then really drive market, legislation and courts. Need to use is a better key than need to know, it seems. Cheers, Ed Gerck
Ern
-----Original Message----- From: jkthomson [SMTP:jkthomson@bigfoot.com] Sent: Monday, July 06, 1998 7:12 PM To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Junger et al.
Reuters
3:40pm 6.Jul.98.PDT WASHINGTON -- A district court has dismissed a law professor's challenge to US regulations strictly limiting the export of computer data-scrambling technology.
Judge James Gwin ruled late Friday that the export limits, which prevented Case Western Reserve University Law School professor Peter Junger from posting the text of encryption programs on the Internet, did not violate the constitutional right to free speech.
The Ohio court's ruling contradicts a California district court ruling last August that said source code -- the instructions a person writes telling the computer what actions to perform -- constitutes a form of speech subject to First Amendment protection.
"Unlike instructions, a manual or a recipe, source code actually performs the function it describes," Gwin wrote. "While a recipe provides instructions to a cook, source code is a device, like embedded circuitry in a telephone, that actually does the function of encryption."
Neither ruling gave speech protection to compiled code, a version of source code converted into an actual software program that could be run on a computer.
The US government appealed the California decision and the issue may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
Civil libertarians and high-tech companies had hoped the court would overturn the export limits on encryption technology, which uses mathematical formulas to scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software "key."
Once the realm of spies and generals, encryption has become an increasingly critical means of protecting electronic commerce and global communications over the Internet.
But law enforcement agencies, fearing encryption will be used by terrorists and international criminals to hide their activities, have instituted strict controls to limit the export of strong scrambling products.
Lawyers opposed to the export rules said the Ohio court misunderstood the difference between source code and compiled code.
"The Ohio court clearly doesn't understand the communicative nature of software," said Shari Steele, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's true that software helps to perform functions, but it does so by telling computers what to do.... It certainly is speech deserving of the highest levels of First Amendment protection."
----------------------------------------------------------------------- james 'keith' thomson <jkthomson@bigfoot.com> www.bigfoot.com/~ceildh jkthomson:C181 991A 405C EAFB 2C46 79B5 B1DC DB78 8196 122D [06.07.98] ceildh :1D79 59AF ED75 5945 6003 8240 DA34 ACCA 9DE4 6BC9 [05.14.98] ICQ:746241 <keys> at pgp.mit.edu ...and former sysop of tnbnog BBS
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Technology is introduced, utilized, depended upon, obsolete, standardized, and understood, in that order
=======================================================================_
______________________________________________________________________ Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck egerck@novaware.cps.softex.br http://novaware.cps.softex.br --- Meta-Certificate Group member, http://www.mcg.org.br ---
On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Ernest Hua wrote:
Did anyone demonstrate the "functionalness" of any arbitrary language via a scanner and a compiler?
Indeed.. what we need is for someone to testify to the court about natural and computer language, and maybe some relevent material from information theory. Pseudo-code from any computer programming textbook would be helpful in making this point too. What about English in a voice recognition system? In this case, English can actually perform functions too, just as C does. Michael J. Graffam (mgraffam@mhv.net) http://www.mhv.net/~mgraffam -- Philosophy, Religion, Computers, Crypto, etc "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. . .Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding!" - Immanuel Kant "What is Enlightenment?"
On Tue, 7 Jul 1998 mgraffam@mhv.net wrote:
Indeed.. what we need is for someone to testify to the court about natural and computer language, and maybe some relevent material from information theory.
What we need, IMO, is a well-placed stunt or two. On sci.crypt a while ago I mentioned that if perl-RSA got any smaller, one could make it the *subtitle* of one's next book: "Blah blah blah: what ``/usr/bin/perl blah blah blah ...'' means." The result would be a book, with book-like 1st amendment protections, but which would turn ONLINE library card catalogs into online repositories for strong crypto. Need RSA? Look up the book, cut and paste into a shell. Ta Daaaa! You're an evil terrorist. The point of this is to drive home the fact that while source code is something that *does* (i.e., a device), it's also something that *says*. It's information, even if executable information, and cannot be dispatched as easily as a gun or a bomb. Should the government attempt to declare a book title a munition, it'll fer sure end up in CNN fringe.
Pseudo-code from any computer programming textbook would be helpful in making this point too.
You'd need to prove it easily runnable. What's the tech status of OCR via, say, a minicam? If you could just hold a page of _Applied Crypto_ up to your computer and have it gleen C source (much easier than gleening English), It'll demonstrate the fuzziness of these things (again, IMO) in much starker terms than would just using a scanner. Another project would be to collect all our number theory and abstract algebra books, and type in verbatim the sections on RSA. These usually contain instructions somewhere between pseudocode and conversational English. If someone could for a Masters thesis develop a program capable of reading that stuff... -Caj
At 03:11 AM 7/7/98 -0400, mgraffam@mhv.net wrote:
On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Ernest Hua wrote:
Did anyone demonstrate the "functionalness" of any arbitrary language via a scanner and a compiler? Indeed.. what we need is for someone to testify to the court about natural and computer language, and maybe some relevent material from information theory.
Pseudo-code from any computer programming textbook would be helpful in making this point too.
What about English in a voice recognition system? In this case, English can actually perform functions too, just as C does.
A particularly relevent language is the Algorithmic Language, Algol, which was designed for mathematicians to describe algorithms to each other, though it was also designed in a way to support compilers, such as ALGOL-60. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (5)
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Bill Stewart -
Ed Gerck -
Ernest Hua -
mgraffam＠mhv.net -
Xcott Craver