From: mark@coombs.anu.edu.au (Mark)
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 17:24:57 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Questions about US/Canadian Laws about public encryption
In-Reply-To: <BysM6J.76z@minerva1.bull.it>
Message-ID: <mark.724036564@coombs>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


David Banisar <Banisar@washofc.cpsr.org> quotes:

>> (1) Is feeding public data or telephone networks with crypted data
>>     illegal or those who posted articles on the subject were just
>>     wishing it were made illegal ???

One might ask that they prove it is encrypted and not merely garbage your
pumping down the line to defeat traffic analysis attacks. I dont think it's
illegal so send garbage down a line assuming your paying for it and noone
is being defrauded by your use of the medium.

If you have good enough cryptography they cant prove it's encrypted. If they
managed to decode it to something that looks like text but isnt the original
cleartext then they are just grabbing at straws and not 'decrypting'.

If you choose to put the "standard" bytes in front and behind every block to
make it *look* like it's encrypted with a well known algorithm thats your
business.

To me proving it's encrypted amounts to decrypting it which is what your
trying to protect against. If they can prove the algorithm is weak then you
can just pay the fine and choose another method.

Mark
mark@coombs.anu.edu.au