Local news botches RSA story

[James A. Tunnicliffe]

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On the local San Fransisco Bay Area news early this morning (I think it
was KRON, the local NBC affiliate -- I'm new around here), there was a
story about RSA Inc. licensing encryption technology to the People's
Republic of China -- about a $200 million deal, if I understood
correctly.  Given that RSA is a local company, care to guess how the
story was presented?  "Local hi-tech company makes inroads in global
market?"  "Restrictive government regulations make life tough for U.S.
software companies?"  No, the lead-in and thrust of the story was
"Export of advanced technology will hamper U.S. spy efforts"!  They had
some heavily edited bits from Jim Bidzos, who at least got to make
mention of the "genie being out of the bottle", and the fact that if
they can't buy it from us, they'll get it from someone else, but the
clueless newsies really butchered this one.  RSA was made out to look
like they were selling out their country to make a buck, over the
protests of the government (in fact, the deal obviously received
government approval).

I don't know the details of the deal (I couldn't find anything on
RSA's web page), but it sounded like the software was (as
expected) export-crippled, though Bidzos made some comment about
it being "upgradable".  Anyone have any more details on this?

I expect the report will air again -- maybe some Bay Area cpunks
can catch it and provide some more feedback.  There may even be an
opportunity to educate the local media, though I don't hold out a
lot of hope...

 - Tunny
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James A. Tunnicliffe   | WWWeb: http://www.inference.com/~tunny
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