From: Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 14:41:46 PDT
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Third World Man
In-Reply-To: <ac5d49b804021004ff37@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199508212141.RAA03543@bwh.harvard.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	Strong cryptography is needed for a secure information
infrastructure.  If American companies aren't allowed to build secure
infrastrucure, then parts of the infrastrucure will move overseas, as
insurance, liability, and deployment costs rise for a badly secured
network.

	This issue will not cause the USA to become a third world
nation, but it will contribute to large institutions moving their data
processing out.  Tim, you've talked a lot about how companies will
move data centers out of the US to avoid 'expensive' laws; do you see
the ITARs as being in a different catagory, than say, the laws on
reporting a bankruptcy?

Adam

Tim May wrote:

| At 9:19 PM 8/20/95, Adam Shostack wrote:
| >        No.  Banning strong crypto will not help; those darn furriners
| >are using it anyway.  What it will mean is that the Information
| >Infrastructure of the future will bypass the United States, as without
| >strong cryptography, it is impossible to build a secure architechture.
| >
| >        Should the United States wish to relagate itself to the status
| >of a third world nation becuase of terrorists, druge dealers, child
| >pornorgaphers and money launderers, that is indeed unfortunate.
| 
| The U.S. is not likely to find itself relegated to third world status over
| this issue. Rhetorically, I wish it were so, but it just ain't. This
| issue--like the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, the race issue in the '60s,
| the Vietnam war in the '60s and '70s, to name a few cases, _sounds_ really
| serious. And it is, as those cases were, but predicting the imminent
| collapse of American civilization is usually a lose.
| 
| There is no way the technologlcal and manufacturing prowess of leading
| American companies will be substantially crippled.

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume