From: smb@research.att.com
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 04:09:12 PST
To: Brian H Vastag-1 <vast0001@gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Disinformation
Message-ID: <9402231209.AA06064@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	 How will the development of the Clipper hamper the info-supe-hi?
	 And what is the info-super-hiway anyway, eh?

I'll leave out the buzzwords -- but Clipper will definitely hamper the
deployment of good networks.  Encryption is a vital tool for network
management and authentication, even apart from privacy considerations.
But Clipper is of necessity hardware-only, which means that most
current platforms will never support it, and few future ones will
actually have it, whether they're capable of it or not.  And on many
important boxes -- routers, for example -- just leaving room for
Clipper on the boards will be expensive.

We have the following dilemma:  DES isn't exportable, Clipper isn't
suitable, and lots of foreign governments won't allow it in anyway, I
suspect.  How is one supposed to do authentication on a global
Internet?


		--Steve Bellovin