From: "Peter Trei" <trei@process.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 07:56:38 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: SS Obergruppenfuhrer Zimmermann (NOT!)
Message-ID: <9601242309.AA08202@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Patiwat Panurach asks:
> On Tue, 23 Jan 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote:
> > On the whole, the cypherpunks have gotten very favorable press for a group
> > who's actions may render government policies irrelevant and possibly the
> > governments themselves.
 
> Would you call cypherpunks (as a group and as a philosophy) to be
> influential?  Do you think governments listen to us much?  Are they forced
> to listen to us?  Any stuff to support this?  Please give me your comments.

Yes, I would say the actions of the people active on this list have had
significant effectst. To give one example:

Last summer, 'we' broke 40-bit RC4. Within a week or two, the
US government started to discuss making 64-bit escrowed crypto
exportable (not acceptable, but it's a change).

In the private sector, the opinion in a lot of US firms was 'yeah,
40 bits may be weak, but marketing wants to have a single "secure
version" of the product, so we'll sell the 40 bit  version domestically
and abroad - after all, 40 bits is only theoretically weak - no one's ever
broken it."

After the highly publicized SSL crack, it suddenly became a *lot*
easier for engineers to argue for separate domestic versions with 
stronger encryption. I personally know of three firms where this
occured, and I'm sure there are more.


   

Peter Trei
Senior Software Engineer
Purveyor Development Team                                
Process Software Corporation
http://www.process.com
trei@process.com