From: frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz)
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 04:32:12 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Crippled Notes export encryption
Message-ID: <199601241920.LAA09269@netcom6.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:28 1/24/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
>I agree. The reason for enforcing ITAR is to keep good crypto of the
>*domestic* market. If ITAR no longer accomplishes that, new laws will be
>passed.

I think this is likely to be an oversimplification.  While there are
probably a number of people in e.g. FBI, DEA, DOJ who want to restrict
domestic crypto, I suspect there are also a number of people in e.g. NSA
who are sincerly interested in using SIGINT to protect the US from foreign
threats and want strong domestic crypto as part of that protection.

As always, public policy is a compromise between competing interests
(INSIDE the beltway).  However, the current policy is a holdover from the
days when strong crypto was a closely held trade secret.  Since this
assumption is no longer true, the policy becomes more and more
disfunctional every day.


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Bill Frantz                   Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
(408)356-8506                 16345 Englewood Ave.
frantz@netcom.com             Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA