From: Mixmaster <mixmaster@remail.obscura.com>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 04:29:34 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: HP Crypto Hardware
Message-ID: <199803011211.EAA24273@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


With regard to:

> Hewlett-Packard Granted License For Encryption System 
> 
> The Commerce Department has granted Hewlett-Packard an 
> export license for its VerSecure encryption architecture...
> The catch is that the products must take their orders 
> from a central computer...will dictate how...products 
> will behave in each country. 

No fucking way!

> The company hopes that the solution would break the 
> deadlock between the Clinton Administration...and the 
> computer industry...

"The company hopes that its solution of a gun that will
shoot forward in jurisdictions that allow possession of
firearms and backward in jurisdictions that prohibit same
will break the deadlock between overweening, self-inflated,
scum-sucking, dog-fucking, shit-brained totalitarians and
those seeking nothing more than to be LEFT THE FUCK ALONE."

Whores! Two-dollar whores! 25-cent whores! HP can stick its
encryption card and everything else it makes straight up
its mercenary ass. HP just created a powerful incentive for
a lot of very capable and creative people to see to it that
HP products don't exactly shine in the marketplace, if you
get my drift.

> The new solution effectively disconnects the problem 
> of distributing encryption technology from the process 
> of determining the policy for government access to 
> information. 

Wonderful! That's like selling nerve gas that calls 
Washington to ask permission before it deploys. Stupid,
stupid, STUPID fucking assholes!

> The heart is a new class of trusted hardware cards and 
> chips that take their orders from a central company
> known as a Security Domain Authority or SDA. In countries
> like France that require people to keep a record of keys 
> for unlocking data, the SDA would only allow the computers 
> to encrypt information if it complied with the laws. 

The communists were right on one point. Capitalists will 
sell them the rope that will be used to hang them. And 
hang their children.  Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

> In countries with no laws about encryption usage like 
> the United States, Germany and Great Britain, the SDA 
> would allow users to encrypt in whatever manner they 
> choose. 

Yeah, _today_.  And what about _tomorrow_, you astronomical
fuckwits? What about when the USG decides that with this
neat mechanism in place they will just advise Slavery
Central that citizen-units in the US may no longer encrypt
things "in whatever manner they choose?"

Names. We need names publicized. Who thought of this 
monstrous product? Who approved it? Who developed it? Who 
signed off on it, saying, "Yeah, this will really make 
our stockholders proud! Who gives a shit if their kids and grandchildren live under the iron fist of a U.S. 
technocratic dictatorship? We're gonna score a few points 
here, make a little extra bonus this year, lock it in with 
a couple of patents... Who cares if we all end up with 
brainchip implants?"

> Hewlett-Packard sees the solution as a win for the 
> industry, which will be able to build one set of 
> hardware and software that can be shipped throughout 
> the world. The SDA's will set the local rules because 
> the computers will not encrypt information without 
> first getting permission from the SDA.

This is too abominable for words. It's the ultimate
sell-out. I know now that there is no hope, not even
a spark of the flame of freedom to illuminate the gloom
into which we are headed. What's the use of being a
well-behaved citizen-unit when this kind of utter shit
is afoot or underfoot? It's war. It's always been war,
we just haven't understood that it was war. The other
side has understood it from the start.

> Doug McGowan, one of the director of Hewlett-Packard's 
> efforts, said in a telephone interview, "Never before 
> has a general purpose cryptography tool been exportable 
> from the United States, with or without key recovery. 
> We're opening a huge market for American industry to 
> enable commerce on a worldwide basis." 

!!! Some justification, eh Doug? Hey Doug! When they ask
for cerebral implants that explode on command, will you
offer a similar product that checks with Citizen Control
Central before detonating, to make sure the target is in
a country that authorizes it? "Hey, no problem!" says
Doug. "Our new CerebSecure will only explode heads in
countries like Iran, Iraq, Cuba, and North Korea when
people attempt to make unauthorized purchases with its
electronic purse feature. In countries with no laws 
about political or religious transactions like the 
United States, Germany^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H and Great 
Britain, the SDA would allow users to purchase in 
whatever manner they choose."

> The price for this flexibility is the need for 
> specialized hardware that treats the SDA as its 
> master. In an ordinary computer, the owner can 
> control all aspects of what the computer does. 
> This extra hardware will raise the price of machines 
> and is bound to be more expensive than software which 
> can be distributed at minimal cost. 

Yeah, this is just the kind of thing that Americans, even
with their severly dulled sense of freedom, will run 
right out to buy! Sure. First we can expect to see the
feds mandate this for all government purchases, then at
some point mandate the chipset for all computers, then
outlaw encryption that doesn't use the chipset. And I
don't even own a crystal ball anymore!

> Feisal Mosleh [said], "...It...gives us a lot of 
> strength in terms of tamper resistance."

OK, I give up. Where is the tamper resistance for the 
Constitution? Is anybody working on that? HEL-lo????

<deathly still silence>

FuckWithMeMongerII