From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 01:53:28 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
In-Reply-To: <199701291411.JAA01361@raptor.research.att.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970130014152.0064ff48@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:45 AM 1/29/97 -0500, Dan Geer wrote:
>Steve is absolutely right on the money, particularly about the likely
>happiness on the government side.

I pretty much agree.  On the other hand, Ian did a nice job on the
radio (NPR, probably was All Things Considered) of pushing the
"look, if a college student can break 40 bits in a couple of hours,
it's really stupid for the government to limit us like this";
a couple of other people also contributed spin, and it came out
pretty strongly against export restrictions.

I think we do need to get some sort of push going for 3DES as a
replacement for DES - it's strong enough, even though DES is showing
its age, and it's an obvious transition from the current technology.
It's slower and clunkier than IDEA or RC4/128, but still not bad.

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#     (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)