Re: NSA says Joe Sixpack won't buy crypto

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

>> understand marketing or human psychology. Clipper, the closest the
>> agency has come to creeping out of the darkness of their coffin,
>> was a total fiasco. the self-destructing director of NSA whats-his-name
>> who as running for that FBI position or whatever is another example of how 
>> the inbred spook society has difficulty dealing with anything outside
>> their artificial reality.
>
>I think you are dead wrong.  The NSA has mastered the market psychology.
>Who has defined all of the most popular standards? DES, DSS, ElGamal, SHS...
>the NSA has had a hand in them all.  DES is by far the most popular cipher,
>popular enough that it will takes years and years to switch to something new.

no, I think the NSA is very adept at infiltrating and twisting existing
cryptographic market processes to suit their own ends. DES is a good example
of this. it was created by IBM largely, and then "manipulated" by the
NSA. this is well known and understood. the NSA does not work with standards
or markets so much as *interfere* with them. how can you deny this basic
premise embraced by virtually everyone on this list?

>As for the clipper "fiasco,"  I would argue that it was an excellent marketing
>move.  The NSA is aware that there is only a very very small percentage of 
>society the thinks about crypto, with the internet and what have you it is now
>possible for this minority to be heard, the NSA proposes clipper, and so we all
>bitch about it because it's only secure against non-government attacks.  Now
>the public hears this and resists clipper.  There isn't another product that is
>winning support that clipper could have had.  You step back and look at it, and
>the public is exactly where they were 5 years ago, no crypto.  

clearly, the first attempt was to get the public to embrace clipper. lacking
that, they have thwarted natural market progression. I agree they have
done this. but it's like making a pool shot accidentally and saying,
"I meant to do that". the NSA is *not* an agency that has a single clue
about *real* markets. they do have a brilliant ability to leverage their
political coercion skills to the absolute maximum to *manipulate* and
*interfere* and *piss on* newly growing markets. 

the NSA has screwed
up public crypto in uncountable ways. you cannot deny this!! they secretly
visit people doing state-of-the-art research and intimidate them into
silence or going other directions. they visited Mosaic designers to tell
them that the things they were installing in the software were not 
acceptable legally. of course, any other legal arm of the government
would simply sue once the software appeared, but not try to manipulate
the design prior to its release. this is the tactics of an *espionage*
and *intelligence* agency. surprise!!

to say that the NSA understands markets is like saying that thieves
understand how to pick pockets. yeah, that's true, but that's not
quite how I would have put it.

>Clipper was a no lose situation for them, if it is adopted only they can read
>all transactions made with it, if it isn't adopted, everybody can read all 
>transactions, they didn't lose anything. 

huge amounts of cash and credibility have been WASTED on it. the NSA has
lost enormous credibility because of this fiasco. furthermore, the way
they tried to hide behind presidential directives is absolutely repugnant
to anyone who has a belief in the separation of powers within our 
government.

>They have some top minds working for them, 

I know, it's a pity they don't get more respectable and socially
fulfilling jobs at companies, where they can be publicly rewarded
and recognized for their brilliance.

>it's been proven that they have beenk
>a few steps ahead of the public for a long time; it's foolish to think they 
>don't understand the psychology of the market. 

they *do* understand the market, only to the extent that they are trying
to successfully SABOTAGE what would regularly be it's natural growth.
they have been ahead in *theoretical* knowledge, but it was precisely
my *point* that this nebulous eggheadism has demonstrably exploded
when placed in public scrutiny.

do you realize the sheer ability of Microsoft to build software that
succeeds in *markets*? Microsoft doesn't care much about Netscape
because, as one microsoft engineer remarked, "well, it's strange
to talk about market share when you are giving away software for free".
well, the NSA is the absolute *opposite* of Microsoft. they don't
have a *clue* about true market forces. they do however understand
ways in which the government interferes with markets, and they seize
on every one of those mechanisms as their lifeblood for control
and "shadow/invisible oppression".

>Just as the public starts to 
>desire something like public key crypto, they can publish a standard on it
>and it is likely to be adopted.

the NSA is quickly losing relevance. the public *does* desire public
key crypto, and a defacto standard *has* been created, it's called PGP.
if the NSA proposes something in public key areas, it is likely to 
be pissed on by the public as much as Clipper, in many ways because
of the failure of Clipper. clipper in a big sense *was* the NSA's first
step toward public key encryption, and it was widely trounced on.

face it dude, the NSA has shown far less competence in the public arena
than *any* apologist such as yourself can ever demonstrate.