From: Stephen Whitaker <whitaker@sover.net>
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 08:20:37 +0800
To: droelke@spirit.aud.alcatel.com (Daniel R. Oelke)
Subject: Re: toolkits?
Message-ID: <199511072351.SAA03354@maple.sover.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Thanks, Daniel, for a thoughtful response.

At 08:18 AM 11/7/95 CST, Daniel R. Oelke wrote:

>First off - avoid trying to legislate minute details of any encryption
>or signature scheme.  Bureaucrats trying to understand, much less control
>technical things is doomed to fail.  (take GOSIP as a prime example)
>

I didn't mean to suggest that government would be responsible to get it right.
It is possible to show them how it's done though.


>Second - push for legal acceptance of digital signatures and
>acceptance of privacy through encryption.  I believe Utah has taken a strong 
>step in this direction.  Most people, businesses, and courts won't accept
>digital contracts and the like until there is more of a sound
>set of laws behind them.  

This is good as it can be pitched as economic development. Any good models?
Where to find the UTAH language? Pitfalls to watch out for?

>Strong laws against government snooping or
>against anti-encryption or anti-anonymous laws are a good thing IMO.

This will probably be tough in the current environment. Again, any good
language available? Fortunately Vermont is small enough where anyone can get
a bill printed and introduced if it is properly drafted.

What did the recent US Supreme court decide in support of anonymity?

>
>Third - provide services to the citizenry.  For example - provide
>a public key server.  Or how about a digital time-stamping service.
>If the crap was kept out of these services, and they were free for
>anyone to use, then it would advance the idea of encouraging people to
>use crypto in their daily lives.
>

Now were getting specific. These are things that us ordinary folk can do
which show the 'leaders' how to follow. What software, hardware,
applications, support and sysadmin experience is required and where is it
available on what terms. What are the cash flow opportunities to support
such services?

>Warning - Although I think there are some good things that governments
>can do, it is also very important to watch out for "sabotage" by 
>the government.  Governments tend to like control too much and by
>trying to maintain control, reverse a useful service to one that
>is a dis-service to the people.  In general, if governments get
>out of the way, people will take care of problems themselves.
>

Agreed. That why after five or six years of trying to get the privacy laws
passed, and watching government drag anchor, I started fishin the
cypherpunks list for some pragmatic solutions to everyday situations.

I'd still like to be pointed to some toolkits/reference works which will
teach me how to access and use available information (or data) to map the
net performance, message paths, transmission delay times, sniffers active, etc.

-sw