From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 07:16:17 +0800
To: John Pettitt <jpp@software.net>
Subject: Re: ex encrypted script
Message-ID: <m0tTFol-00090DC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:57 PM 12/21/95 -0800, you wrote:

>
>There is encrypt and then there is render useless to the reader.
>
>A tale I hear is that when HP had to deliver operating system source to
>the french government they stripped all comments and changed all variable
>and subroutine names to 32 byte strings of I 1 0 (zero) and O (uppercase O).
>It still compiled but was 100% useless to human readers.
>John Pettitt
>email:         jpettitt@well.sf.ca.us (home)
>               jpp@software.net       (work)    


This is EXACTLY the kind of creative uncooperativeness that I was thinking
of, on a different subject, when I proposed that Netscape do anything it
could think of (legally) to sabotage, undermine, subvert, escape, and
otherwise stifle any attempt by the US government to restrict crypto in
general, or its export in particular.  

The fact is, we are all CREATIVE people, and presumably given any particular
set of rules (laws) , it should be possible for us to "comply" with "the
law" in such a way as to be as obstructively obnoxious as possible.