Re: Espionage-enabled Lotus notes.

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

At 12:16 PM 1/18/96 -0500, "Richard Martin" <rmartin@aw.sgi.com> wrote:
>The Lotus `solution' seems to be the action of an American company
>shipping a product which effectively says to foreign users, "We don't
>care about you as a market."

To play Sternlight's Advocate for the moment, I'll have to disagree 
with you here.  40-bit encryption really is a joke, for any business data
worth protecting (and Lotus Notes is primarily a business product.)
64-bit RC4 encryption, while less than ideal, is still usable
for most applications; it's certainly stronger than DES by a couple
orders of magnitude, which is probably enough for now.
Yes, the Yanquis can wiretap you, but it's better than having
_everybody_ wiretap you.  (And besides, you're probably going to
use the 128-bit smuggled version anyway.)  This at least provides
a product you can use with _some_ credibility, assuming it
interoperates with the US version, which I think the 40-bit version did.

>That this is the so-called "export"
>version is ironic. The keys are escrowed with the U.S. government,
>and no one else. The French government should rightly cry foul, for
>this is (a) encryption where they don't have the keys and (b) encryption
>where another government *does*.

The French can still ban it, or require you to register your keys,
just as they can with the 40-bit version.  Or ban products with
menu items in English, if they think that's too encrypted for them. :-)
C'est la guerre.
#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281
#
# "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching
# the government, not the other way around....