From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 23:42:07 -0800 (PST)
To: TruthMonger <an7575@anon.nymserver.com>
Subject: Re: Anonymous Nymserver: anon.nymserver.com
In-Reply-To: <19970312024006.27898.qmail@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970311234111.005d3bb0@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Someone calling themselves TruthMonger wrote:
>>   Firstly, remailers were developed by the cypherpunks as
>> a method of monitoring supposedly private communications
>> of others, in order to increase their own power and wealth.

That message was relatively funny, and trust is a serious issue
in this business - even though the suggestion that _we_ in the
Cypherpunks Elite Cabal did that, it doesn't mean that there
aren't People With Ulterior Motives running remailers, or remailers
hosted on machines run by bad guys who are actually monitoring their users.

However, if you want to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt,
at least keep your facts straight; it does a much better job.
>>   Thirdly, the remailer owners only support compromised
>> cryptography systems such as the newer versions of PGP
>> produced by All-my-charges-mysteriously-disappeared-
>> when-I-agreed-to-switch-to-a-new-system Zimmerman.
.....
>  PGP 2.0-->2.3a were released outside of the U.S. and imported into
>the country.
>  The use of PGP=>2.5 suddenly became a 'non-issue' for use in the U.S.
>because they use both the algorithm and sub-routines developed by the
>NSA and the Military.

The new algorithm was the International Drug Entrapment Agency algorithm,
introduced in PGP 2.0 to replace the previous non-NSA-crackable algorithm,
Bass-O-Matic.  Pay no attention to the comments in the source about fnords,
/* these aren't the subroutines you're looking fnord */ and follow the money.
PGP 2.5 became a non-issue because RSAREF takes care of the patent problem -
which is largely because the widespread use of PGP really did spread the 
RSA algorithm's popularity, and giving away free licenses was about the only
way for RSA Inc. to regain any control over it at all.  If you want to do
a better job of FUD, you could talk about the under-the-table relationship
between MIT and RSA or the RSA and NSA (they're only different by one letter!)
or notice that the CAPSTONE implementations of Clipper used algorithms
patented by PKP...


#			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.)