From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 95 13:37:46 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks Mailing List)
Subject: Re: NSA Realists v. Nuts (Was: Re: Crypto APIs)
In-Reply-To: <199510050757.DAA22982@ducie.cs.umass.edu>
Message-ID: <199510052037.QAA05653@frankenstein.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Futplex writes:
> Matt Blaze writes:
> # It seems best to encourage the realistic side of NSA as much as possible...
> 
> James Donald writes:
> > Why? Surely the realists are more dangerous than the nuts.
> 
> One way to look at it is this:
> 
> Could a Nutty NSA carry out its Nutty Agenda ?

I'd like to say the following: I don't think the NSA is inherently the
enemy at all. Signals intelligence and protecting the U.S. and its
citizens from signals intelligence is probably necessary. As a radical
libertarian, I'd like to see these activities carried out in the
private sector, but thats another story.

The real problem with the NSA is the same as the problem with the FBI
re: digital telephony. They've gotten used to a certain model of how
the world works and rather than adapt to new times where most people
have access to strong crypto, they have decided to use the laws to try
to retard the inevitable.

I'm sure some NSA types are listening, so let me say this: there is no
way on earth to stop the progress of a technology who's time has
come. I've heard an idiot from the FBI actually say in public, in
response to statements that the vast amount of open literature makes
it impossible to stop bright 14 year olds from writing good crypto
code, that "we aren't going to just accept this". Well, go off and
accept reality, folks. You can't stop strong cryptography from being
in the hands of the public. What you can do, however, is cost the
nation and the world billions if not trillions in damage. If crypto
had been in cellphone signaling equipment earlier billions in stolen
cellphone calls would have been saved -- ditto for credit card
systems. All you can succeed in doing is leeching the economy white
while trying to save a model that is doomed. You can't stop strong
crypto any more than the horseshoe makers could stop the automobile.

Learn to live with a new model for how you work now, and you will save
years of bitter and futile agony for everyone.

Perry