From: Alex Strasheim <cp@proust.suba.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 05:46:26 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NSA says strong crypto to China?
In-Reply-To: <199601071553.KAA18768@pipe3.nyc.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <199601072123.PAA00769@proust.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> Logically, it seems the best thing for the NSA to do (given the political
> character of the group) is to send strong-but-not-that-strong crypto out. 

I know I'm out of step with most of you on this point, and it could very
well be that I'm incredibly naive.  But I don't necessarily look at the
NSA as an enemy.  Right now we're on opposite sides of an important issue,
and I think they're doing a lot of damage.  But I tend to think that they
believe what they're doing is in the national interest.  They're trying 
to defend democracy -- our democracy, at least.

Right now we're in a position to impose the first ammendment on the entire
world.  Not through a political process or a military attack, but rather
with anarchy.  (Anarchy as Tim has described it.)

That's what this list is all about:  we're trying to impose certain civil
liberties on the world using a strategy that's based on anarchy theory. 
That theory tells us that if we can distribute tools and establish
standards we'll secure privacy and free speech rights regardless of what
governments do.  That's a very startling idea, and I believe it's sound. 
I believe that it's possible to impose the first ammendment on the entire
world by distributing crypto software.

So the question we ought to be putting to the NSA is this:  isn't it in
the best interest of the United States and the other capitalist Western
democracies to impose the first ammendment on the rest of the world? 

I don't see how anyone could argue that it isn't.

Look at who our adversaries are in the world today.  North Korea, Iraq,
etc.  Would any of those regiemes be able to survive if their citizens
were able to safely critique their governments publicly?  Is there any
country in the world we can't get along with that allows ideas to flow
freely? 

What are we giving up if we do this?  Does anyone believe that strong 
crypto is beyond the reach of anyone who really wants or needs it?  Will 
terrorists not have access to secure communications because our 
government won't let Netscape sell them an ssl web server?  It's an 
absurd argument.

I don't think the NSA is out to suppress our liberties.  They're trying to
protect the nation.  Their problem is that they're operating under an old,
obsolete paradigm.  They're fighting for something that's simply not
achievable:  crypto is out of the box, and no one's going to put it back. 
Once you accept that fact -- and it is a fact -- you have to start
formulating tactics based on reality as it exists now.

Right now the NSA is trying to push us into sacrificing our liberty and
privacy to an unwinnable cause.  If they succeed (and I don't think they
will), they will have done something terribly destructive in this country
and we will have missed an extraorinary opportunity to effect substantive
political change in the world at large.  They are wrong and they are
dangerous.  But it is a mistake to think of them as evil, as people who 
will tell any lie to get what they want.

I don't expect the NSA to adopt the cypherpunk world view.  But it's too
bad, because they'd do an awful lot of good all over the world if they
did.  Totalitarianism depends upon censorship and control over the mass
media.  If the NSA turned on a dime today, they could eliminate the 
possibility of totalitarianism within the year.  Cypherpunks write code 
-- think of what the NSA could do.