From: uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt)
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 93 21:36:28 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Reaction time and Crypto
Message-ID: <9304180436.AA49530@acs.bu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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I must complement the group on the speed and vigor with which they have
 
pursued the Clinton proposal.
 
It is my hope that we can somehow make it apparent to the public that they
are losing, not winning here.
 
It seems to me that the following technologies are going to be of increasing
import despite the outcome of the Clinton proposal.
 
1.  Raw headerless output from packages like PGP.  It seems obvious that
if crypto is regulated, it must be easier to disguise the type of crypto
one is using, or indeed if one is using crypto.
 
2.  Methodology for the disguising of cyphertext in more innocous data.
 
3.  The proliferation and consistant use of Crypto for even everyday
communications.
 
1>  The harder it is to find, the less potential there is for regulation.
2>  The harder it is to look for, the less potential there is for regulation.
3>  The harder it is to abolish, the less potential there is for regulation.
 
More than the specific plan here, I am stunned by the emerging MOVEMENT that
seems to be at work here.
 
I can only ask, what's next?
 
I don't think any proposal to regulate crypto will focus on the users, but
rather the development and distrubution of said crypto.  This is what
frightens me the most.  The precedent for regulation of private software
and hardware applications is painfully visable on the horizion.
 
Someone said before:  Be afraid, be very afraid.


uni (Dark)