From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 18:46:06 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: John Gilmore and the Great Internet Snake Drive
In-Reply-To: <19980727141055.63396@songbird.com>
Message-ID: <19980727184320.50687@songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Mon, Jul 27, 1998 at 09:20:10PM -0400, mgraffam@mhv.net wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> > It occurs to me that an interesting use for the eff des cracker would
> > be the following: since the government asserts that DES is safe, then
> > a DES encrypted archive of crypto code should be exportable.
> 
> No. Encrypting with DES, or any symmetric cipher
> does not destroy the information, which is what is controlled.
> Even losing the key does not destroy the information, as we all know:
> keys can be recovered it is just a matter of the work involved.

Apparently we are talking at cross purposes.

Currently, there are rather large ftp crypto archives that are
"protected" by a scheme using randomly generated directory names. 
This is considered acceptable by the export authorities.  The export
authorities would have a hard time, therefore, arguing that an archive
protected by encrypting the files with DES would not be sufficiently
protected.

It would be a stunt, of course.  Merely another stunt to illustrate 
the inconsistencies in the export laws.

[...]
> We don't need encrypted archives floating around.. we need to show that,
> like cars, crypto devices (programs or otherwise!) are useful even if
> they can be used by bad people for bad purposes.
> 
> Abstract things like exporting a hunk of random crap and arguing about
> it don't achieve this, and will never do so in the minds of laymen
> with no real interest in crypto.

I quite disagree.  Frequently a clever stunt does engage the layman 
-- at least the intelligent laymen.

-- 
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair			"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html