Re: 'Nother MIT talk on crypto...

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

> Right - here are some quotes from Micali's paper in the Crypto 92
> proceedings.

> "Abstract.  We show how to construct public-key cryptosystems that
> are _fair_, that is, strike a good balance, in a democratic country,
> between the needs of the Government and those of the Citizens.
> [...]

In a democratic country, the needs of the government should be
identical to the needs of the citizenry.  One of the basic political
ideas upon which our society is founded is that government serves the
people and not the other way around.

We've seen Micali's point raised again and again.

The NSA spokesman quoted on this list some time ago, whose name I have
forgotten, made this point as well.  He also claimed that "government
money" had been used to pay for most recent cryptographic advances.
This is likely untrue, but it does raise an important philosophical
point: The government has no money of its own, it spends the money of
the citizenry.  The argument that the citizenry should be denied the
benefits of their expenditures is a weak one.

These points are likely to be obvious to most readers of this list,
but I haven't seen them raised.  I think that every time an NSA
official or White House spokesman or anyone else questions the
important political principle of "government of the people, by the
people, and for the people" we should point this out as often as we
can.  We must delegitimize NSA and their friends and show them for the
rascals they truly are.

Peter