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Bidzos and the NSA
posted to talk.politics.crypto in response to Tim's article...
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I think the issue, at this point, is not so much whether the NSA goons
actually threatened his life, but that they have consistently attempted to
suppress crypto anyway they can. That the NSA has tried to intimidate
Bidzos is no secret. That the NSA considers PGP a threat to their domain
is also well known.
Given that the purpose of the ITAR restrictions appear to be to prevent
an international standard from forming, I think we need to refocus on the
issue of presenting strong crypto as "a right", inevitable, and ubiquitous.
CPSR and EFF are doing an admirable job of taking the fight to the beltway;
but outside the net, the grass roots support just isn't there. As has been
pointed out by PRZ et al., the primary reason to avoided hacks to PGP is
that doing so fragments what standards we have now. The release of the
MIT PGP was the first step in legitimizing cryptography. The next step is
to install interoperable crypto on EVERY box out there. While I don't
advocate bypassing your local sysadmin, try to get PGP installed on each
machine you touch. Use 2.6 (MIT in U.S., _ui_ elsewhere). Publish your
key. Tell your friends. Annoy your family. Irrate your boss ;-).
My wife suggested that my activities would have gotten me "black-listed"
40 years ago. I suggest that the NSA would like to do exactly that to
individuals like Bidzos and PRZ, but it is too late (and the net would make
it virtually impossible anyway). Besides, some things are worth fighting for.
Dave Otto -- [email protected] -- [email protected]
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" [the Great Oz]
finger [email protected] for PGP 2.6 key <0x3300e841>
fingerprint = 78 71 3A 5B FD 8A 9A F1 8F BC E8 6A C7 BD A4 DD
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