Re: Crisis Overload (re Electronic Racketeering)

["Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu>]

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Timothy C. May wrote:

> I think it's time to abandon all lobbying efforts...they don't appear to be
> working, and the government is proliferating new laws faster than we can
> fight them.
> 
> The only hope is to more rapidly deploy crypto, to reach the "point of no
> return." Optimistically, we may already be there (the views expressed by
> many of us). Pessimistically, the application of RICO laws and civil
> forfeiture could put any of us who advocate crypto use and evasion of the
> new laws into a precarious position.

Unfortunately, a system of social engineering needs to be adopted to get 
massive use of cryptography started.  This means, and I advocated this 
from the day I entered this forum, that programs such as PGP need to be 
redesigned so that the a user friendly . . . so user friendly that any 
Joe Moron can figure out not only how to use them, but also how it helps 
them and how it is "good" for them.  This means that we need simplified 
key management easy enough for the point-and-click masses to utilize.  
This means that common mailing programs, From Elm and Pine to AOLs and 
Computer$erve's mailers need to have TRANSPARENT signing of mail messages 
and near-transparent encryption of messages.  This means that we need to 
stop lobbying the governemtn (they dont' listen) and start lobbying Big 
Business, like IBM, MicroSoft, Apple, etc, to start including encryption 
hooks in their software.  And if PGP is a problem, International PGP 
might be an option.  And if there are problems with patent infringements 
and that kind of crap, then we (the concerned people of the global 
network) need to develop a free encrytion scheme that can do everything 
PGP can do and still be legal.

Unfortuately, all I can do is stand on the sidelines and cheer, because I 
am not a programmer; I'm a user and a teacher.

We've seen the enemy, that the are the 535 senators and representatives 
in D.C., and the staff in the White House.  It's time to shore up our 
allies and enter the battle witht he best weapons we have; information 
and popular use.

> In fact, it's what many of us saw implicit in Clipper.

Yup.  We all saw it with clipper.  We were all called paranoid.

Guess so...

____        Robert A. Hayden      <=> Cthulhu Matata
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