From: Marshall Clow <mclow@owl.csusm.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 16:15:37 +0800
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: White House crypto proposal -- too little, too late
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.961001145707.23810F-100000@well.com>
Message-ID: <v03007806ae7e2d1e3663@[207.67.246.99]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Declan wrote:
>I just got back from the White House, where Gore's office held a
>roundtable plugging the administration's long-awaited and already
>widely-derided Return of Clipper proposal.
>
>Gore announced that jurisdiction over crypto exports would move to the
>Commerce Dept; that the export embargo on 56-bit DES would be lifted
>in part for two years only; that to be approved for export firms must
>submit a detailed proposal describing how they will move towards key
>escrow; that the new regulations would go into effect on January 1.
>
Although I didn't change the title of this thread, I must disagree.

This is a brilliant move by the government.

They hold a (small) carrot out to industry:
	You can export marginally stronger crypto for 2 years, _if_ you develop a 'key recovery' system. 

At the end of the two years, they tell computer companies:
	Either you implement your system, or you stop exporting your products.
	If we don't like the system that you come up with, we won't approve it; and you can't export your (by then) existing products any more.


The computer industry has to pay the costs for developing this system, _and_, since they developed it, it is really hard for them to complain about the details of it.

Somebody in Washington has a lot on the ball.

And lots of people are falling for it:
    Apple, Atalla, DEC, Groupe Bull, HP, IBM, NCR, RSA, Sun, TIS, and UPS, to name a few.


-- Marshall

Marshall Clow     Aladdin Systems   <mailto:mclow@mailhost2.csusm.edu>

"We're not gonna take it/Never did and never will
We're not gonna take it/Gonna break it, gonna shake it,
let's forget it better still" -- The Who, "Tommy"