more ominous shudders from the bowels of NSA

[""L. Detweiler"" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

[ComputerWorld]

>"We tried to come up with a technique that would not require
>legislation," said Clint Brooks, advisor to the director of the
>National Security Agency, which developed and now strongly
>supports the key-escrow approach.

Another ominous, foreboding quote.

>Federal officials responsible for shaping information security
>policy said last week that legislation mandating use of the
>government's recently proposed encryption technology -- and
>banning the use of older but popular techniques -- is neither
>wise nor legal.

This article, nor any other alluding to `bans on cryptographic
methods', is not sufficiently disturbing or alarmist.  An such law
would be blatantly, egregiously, grotesquely unconstitutional under
protections of free speech.  All hell would break lose if any such
attempt reared its hideously monstrous face--imagine the Clipper `flap'
multiplied by a gigabyte.  Please, regarding cryptography, don't say
that `the genie is out of the bottle' or `the laws would be
unenforceable' -- these are tantamount to saying, `go ahead, we DARE
you to try!'  I fear more and more the reply will soon be, `try THIS!'