From: Brian A. LaMacchia <bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 95 09:57:03 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Famous Zen koan: what is the sound of two shoes dropping?
Message-ID: <9509121656.AA18132@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


You may recall that Dorothy Denning had a pro-Clipper article in
_Technology Review_ back in July.  The October issue of TR contains
not only some critical letters to the editor, but also a reply from
Denning.  How things have changed over the last 18 months...

					--bal

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 95 12:23:00 -0400
Return-Path: <hal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
From: Hal Abelson <hal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Famous Zen koan: what is the sound of two shoes dropping?

What is the sound of two shoes dropping?

**Part 1:  March 10, 1994

(From the debate between Dorothy Denning and John Perry Barlow,
moderated by Philip Elmer-DeWitt)

Barlow: EFF is not asking the Government to drop Clipper, though we
would vastly prefer they did. We're merely asking that no steps be
taken to require it either by law or practice...as, for example, would
be the case if you had to use a Clipper chip to file your tax return.

DeWitt: Dr. Denning, do you think this is the "first step in a
process to outlaw crypto"?

Denning: No I do not.

***Part 2: October 10, 1995

(From Dorothy Denning's response to letters to the editor in
_Technology Review_)

Denning:  But critics make an important point when they argue that
criminals will not use Clipper or other forms of key escrow
encryption.  As long as there are no laws in the United States
controlling the sale and distribution of encryption products, the
U.S. market will be flooded with products that have no provisions for
government access.  This eventual threat to public safety and social
order could be avoided by establishing a licensing program for
encryption products that reasonably satisfy the government's
decryption requirements and do not interoperate with unlicensed
systems.  While the manufacture and distribution of unlicensed
encryption products would be illegal, no particular system would be
mandatory and any licensed product could be used without restriction.
Although such a licensing program would not prevent criminals from
using unlicensed products, their availability would be limited to
underground channels.

------- End of forwarded message -------

P.S. Denning's TR article is available at:

http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/articles/july95/Denning.html