From: Alan Olsen <alano@teleport.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 03:49:15 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: "Re: NSA says strong crypto to china??
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960107193222.009566d0@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:47 AM 1/7/96 -0800, Raph wrote:

>
>   My best guess is that we're seeing a distortion of this
>interchange. If I were a Chinese dissident, I wouldn't want to use
>GAK, for three reasons: using US-lackey encryption is certainly not
>going to get you into any _less_ trouble than using independent
>encryption, if you used GAK you'd be working as a US spy whether you
>wanted to be or not, and finally, who says the Chinese can't decrypt
>it, especially with the rapid growth of television.

I can also think of another good reason that no dissident in their right
mind would want to use US escrowed GAK.  How many times have individuals
been sold out for some "greater good".  I can just imagine some dissident
getting sold out as the result of some mega-trade deal or the like.  (And I
am sure that they can too...)

Why does this news report sound more like someone trying to sell GAK to the
US public and not "chinese dissidents?



>
>Raph
>
>P.S. To those who are suriprised that I'm still here - my flight got
>delayed, and I'm waiting it out on the Net, in true geek style.
>
>
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
        `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
              http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
"Governments are potholes on the Information Superhighway." - Not TCMay