Actually, Hamre said that US companies have no Gawd-Given Right to _export_ strong crypto. See: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/14098.html
Oh, it's sick anyhow... A couple excerpts from jya's transcript: On the EFF DES cracker: Now, I need to explain first of all, that the government is currently permitting the export of 56 bit encryption algorithms. Now, I know that there's some huffing and puffing about whether that's strong encryption or not. But again, I say let's put this in context. There was a flap here the other day when, ta-da, somebody invented a computer that could break 56 bit encryption in 30 hours or 40 hours or whatever the time was, right. You took 40 hours to decrypt a two-second message. And it was good only for that one message. You've got to start all over again on the next two-second message. Tell me that that isn't strong encryption. [Secretary Hamre, that isn't strong encryption. Weak enough that cracking DES keys for two grand each -- reasonable price considering some of the applications using DES -- can be a viable business for the shady hacker type, in fact. Pays for your parts in ten months, pocket most everything else until the machine breaks.] On export controls: "...I'd also ask American business not to make a campaign out of just trying to bust through export controls as though somehow there was a God-given, inherent right to send the strongest encryption to anybody in the world, no matter who they are. I don't agree with that. I will never agree with that." ["I will never agree with that" -- I'd say we're talking to an open-minded individual who's really trying to work things out, eh?]
Which, despite all the damage control and spin waves that followed the initial report in WiRed, does not mean that the NSA and DoD believe that anyone has been granted some privilege to speak in confidence that they, being reverent and religious fellows, should and must respect.
Much ado about nothing, here!
The first (perhaps literally erroneous) WiRed News report -- that senior DoD officials do not believe that any two people anywhere in the world have a perfect and unassailable right to speak in confidence and secrecy -- was spot on accurate and true.
----- "Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent, for good and ill... yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea, which by its nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats and others who deem only themselves worthy of such Privilege." _ A Thinking man's Creed for Crypto _vbm.
* Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild +
* 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548
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