From: geeman@best.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 15:10:41 +0800
To: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: McCain Talks Crypto
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19691231160000.006bf1e0@best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 01:23 AM 6/23/97 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:
I still think that there is a huge power behind the effort - and that is
based in
dollars.  The child-porn/national security issues just make it
understandable for the
CNN digest of reality, and the clueless among the Government. 

Appealing to those arguments with compelling counterarguments in the same
terms
will effect results, perhaps, but only if big dollar$ are behind it.

Money will change the course of events here, and I doubt anything else will.

>
>Sigh.  Make the laws and then work out the details -- I don't think so :-)
>
>However, if his real concern IS national security, then perhaps
>he can be reached - not only is our real national security based on
>the economy, but any vaguely competent foreign government or
>major terrorist organization has access to all the crypto they need:
>unlike fully assembled missiles and plutonium, which are hard to get and
>hard to smuggle across borders, crypto is easy to buy anywhere in the US,
>and the Enemies Of The State just have to take one copy out, by laptop,
>by floppy disk, by modem, or by satellite, and you've lost control.
>
>I assume he knows he's using the child pornography excuse as a 
>cynical play to the media - the obvious response is that 
>	McCain's Pro-Forgery Bill
>by making good crypto tools less available, and by making sure
>that people will choose to get their important digital certificates
>from multiple CAs and non-US-controlled CAs, or just go uncertified,
>will make it forgery more common and digital signatures less trusted.
>So <wave hands wildly here> your kids are more likely to have fake IDs
>like we did to drink when we were younger and <wave hands again>
>that'll lead to more pornography on the net, imported from foreign
>countries that have lower standards than our fine American communities,
and...
>
>
>#			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 or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)
>
>
>