From: Jeff Simmons <jsimmons@goblin.punk.net>
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 95 20:51:06 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NSA says Joe Sixpack won't buy crypto
In-Reply-To: <199509050153.SAA23364@netcom17.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199509050348.UAA19868@goblin.punk.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> 
> 
> >> understand marketing or human psychology. Clipper, the closest the
> >> agency has come to creeping out of the darkness of their coffin,
> >> was a total fiasco. the self-destructing director of NSA whats-his-name
> >> who as running for that FBI position or whatever is another example of how 
> >> the inbred spook society has difficulty dealing with anything outside
> >> their artificial reality.
> >
> >I think you are dead wrong.  The NSA has mastered the market psychology.
> >Who has defined all of the most popular standards? DES, DSS, ElGamal, SHS...
> >the NSA has had a hand in them all.  DES is by far the most popular cipher,
> >popular enough that it will takes years and years to switch to something new.
> 
> no, I think the NSA is very adept at infiltrating and twisting existing
> cryptographic market processes to suit their own ends. DES is a good example
> of this. it was created by IBM largely, and then "manipulated" by the
> NSA. this is well known and understood. the NSA does not work with standards
> or markets so much as *interfere* with them. how can you deny this basic
> premise embraced by virtually everyone on this list?
> 
The NSA doesn't really bother me all that much, because all they've managed
up to now is to slow things down (by about 3 hrs. in the case of PGPhone).
But what happens when someone who HAS mastered market psychology gets into
the game?

Here's a prediction:  within one year, we will see the advent of Micro$oft's
"Not So Bad Privacy".  It'll be a secret algorithm with either GAK done by
Micro$oft itself, or a flat-out trap door.  ANY communications with a 
Windoze box or network will have to use it, or loose the market.  About the
same time, Justice will suddenly 'loose interest' in its various 
investigations of M$.  Micro$oft will probably give it away for free as part
of the Windows 95.702 upgrade. 

At this point, the NSA's 'speed bump' becomes Micro$oft's 'brick wall'.  And
while some of us will continue to use PGP and other strong crypto, the average
American will have kissed off ALL of her privacy to the tune of "... you make
a grown man cry."

-- 
Jeff Simmons                           jsimmons@goblin.punk.net