Re: Cryto article in SJ Mercenary

[Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>]

> There's a full page equivalent article on encyption in today's San Jose
> Mercury News (12E-11E). The article concentrates on public key
> cryptography, and mixes some good stuff with some silly mistakes. The
> first page has about 4/5th of the article devoted to a big diagram showing
> how someone using public key encryption to cover a whole message, and sent
> it over the internet to someone in Argentina. All this without a mention
> of using symmetric cyphers, and without even mentioning ITAR. 

I don't think ITAR is very relevant here.  After all, there are dozens
of RSA implementations available from outside the US, and they are not
patent-restricted like in the US.  It is really much easier to use and
get RSA *outside* the US than inside.  (For some pointers, see
"http://www.cs.hut.fi/crypto/".)  Besides, as far as I understand, one
of the RSA inventors wasn't even a US citizen...

    Tatu