From: deepthroat@alpha.c2.org (Deep Throat)
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 01:51:40 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: China
Message-ID: <199602160237.SAA00778@eternity.c2.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Even if the Chinese make this work for a few years and the
US does the same, it doesn't matter in the long run.  People can run
short lived remailers out of accounts that don't belong to them.  They
can buy service over an encrypted link from a seller outside of China.
They can use steganography.

Given this, how can a Chinese or other represive government crack
down?  They can't turn off all the computers.  They can try to allow
access to only 'aproved' sites.  They can arrest people.  But will the
war on encryption be as easily won as the war on drugs?  Drugs are
physical things; they emit odors, require bulky transport, guards,
etc.  Binary code doesn't emit a smell.  You can't train a dog to find
PGP.  Yes they can crack down, but all that will do is make the
information economy move underground and offshore.

In time, those states that declare war on encryption will become
police states.  Police states can kill a lot of people, but they tend
not to last more than a few generations.


Jon Lasser wrote:

| Not if it's just a proof-of-concept for US implementation of the same.
| 
| The US version might be ostensibly only "anti-indecency" or 
| "anti-cryptography," but I'm betting that if the Chinese are successful, 
| many other nations follow.
| 
| It's the naval blockade to JPB's Independant Cyberspace.  And I think JPB 
| is... a little overoptimistic this time... but I still don't like the 
| blockade.