From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 01:42:20 -0800 (PST)
To: Peter Hendrickson <ph@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?
Message-ID: <847531595.526906.0@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> It appears to be widely believed that cryptoanarchy is irreversible.
> Everybody believes that the race to deploy or forbid strong cryptography
> will define the outcome for a long time.

This is certainly my position...

 
> I can't think of a reason why this should be so.

> If the wide use of strong cryptography results in widely unpopular
> activities such as sarin attacks and political assassinations, it
> would not be all that hard to forbid it, even after deployment.

I don`t think so. The point is that cryptoanarchic ideals and strong 
cryptography will be too widely deployed to remove them from 
circulation. Also I believe that the sheer amount of traffic over the 
internet will make it virtually impossible to find encrypted messages 
even if strong encryption is outlawed. And last but not least the 
system of anonymous remailers and the ease with which return 
addresses can be forged means people using strong cryptography 
couldn`t be traced anyway.  


  Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"