From: Alex Strasheim <cp@proust.suba.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 1996 22:04:34 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NSA says strong crypto to china??
In-Reply-To: <199601070941.BAA12858@ammodump.mcom.com>
Message-ID: <199601071037.EAA00310@proust.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> > What one government regards as harmful material is an instrument of freedom
> > and democracy to another.  Officials at the US National Security Agency have
> > suggested that Internet encryption technology - a sophisticated method of
> > encoding information - be deliberately exported to Chinese dissidents to
> > help them in their fight against their government - even though its export
> > is otherwise banned under US arms control regulations.

If this is true, it's great news.  It would mean that the NSA is adopting
both cypherpunk analysis and tactics.  Who would have thought?  An NSA 
remade in Tim May's image.

>   Does anyone know of real documentation of this "suggestion" from the NSA?
> It quite telling, though no surprise to any of us I'm sure, that they would
> think that strong crypto should be a tool of freedom in china, but not in
> this country.

The NSA is a big organization with a lot of people in it.  It could be 
that the people in charge of thinking about Chineese dissidents are far 
removed from the people who think about domestic crypto.

I'm skeptical about this story, but it would be a sensible policy for us
to pursue.  But not just with dissidents, and not just in China.  We ought
to try to create an environment in which people who want to do business
need to have access to strong crypto in order to interoperate with the
rest of the world.  Pump high quality free tools out to the world, and
push for solid standards for encrypted communications.  And make sure 
those Chineese and Iraqi dissidents always have a safe way to post 
anonymously.

We're already living in a world in which it's necessary to give people
computers if you want them to be competitive economically.  Let's try to
make giving people computers the functional equivilant of abandoning any
hope of making censorship work.

I doubt they're interested in doing this, but I don't understand why.  
It's a sensible policy.  Can you imagine what would happen to freedom and 
privacy around the world if the NSA went cypherpunk?  In the space of a 
month they could eliminate the possibility of totalitarianism world 
wide.