From: Mixmaster <mixmaster@remail.obscura.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:40:33 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: FW: Business Week on encryption controls
Message-ID: <199803022130.NAA26747@sirius.infonex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



-----Original Message-----
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Date: Monday, March 02, 1998 10:47
Subject: Business Week on encryption controls


>From
>
>http://www.businessweek.com/premium/10/b3568070.htm
>
>THE GREAT ENCRYPTION DEBATE
>
>>Is all this firepower necessary? Many veterans of the decade-long
>>encryption battle believe Freeh's plan is too extreme to even take
>>seriously. ''Proposals like this are a tremendous stalking horse, but
>>are dead on arrival,'' says Kawika Daguio, encryption-policy expert at
>>the American Bankers Assn.
>
>Many cypherpunks seem to believe it is only a matter of time before
>crypto is made illegal in the U.S.  But sophisticated observers think
>otherwise.
>
>Frankly, the resolution is obvious: crypto-in-a-crime will be controlled.
>If you use crypto in planning a crime, and you're convicted of the
>crime (or conspiracy), then some years will be added to the sentencing
>guidelines.  Some cypherpunks will proclaim this the end of individual
>freedom in our time.
>
>>Also, a compromise may be at hand. Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and
>>J. Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) are currently working on a bill, sources say,
>>that would release exports from controls when similar encryption products
>>are already available overseas. They could also add a ban on domestic
>>controls. ''It appears McCain and Kerrey are searching for some way
>>out of what appears to be legislative gridlock,'' says Commerce Under
>>Secretary William A. Reinsch, who oversees the Administration's policy.
>
>Again, the results are clear to those with vision.  Export controls
>will be lifted, no domestic controls will be imposed on general use of
>encryption.  The only new limits will be in the sentencing guidelines,
>which already consider dozens of factors in a complex formula.
>Whether crypto was used will be a small change there, and won't effect
>anyone's life.
>
>Remember, you read it here first.
>

This guy is living his elitist life looking through rose colored glasses, with blinders on, in a vacuum, with his head buried in sand, with his neck snugly supported by his sphincter muscles.

"vision"?.... "sophisticated"?.... what is this?  If people disagree or are more cynical about what the government may or may not do concerning cryptography we are less sophisticated and/or lack vision?  What an idiot!!  Wake up and smell the bullshit you and others like you are shoveling.  McCain is a serious control freak (former AZ resident who has seen him in action) and will never, regardless of his vomitous, pendulous rhetoric, support a domestic "free encryption" standard without government controls, there will always be a catch.

The glass is not even half empty, it's shattered.