Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"

[Matt Miszewski <crypto@midex.com>]

On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> 
> Phill refers to the man who said "Gentlemen do not read each other's
> mail", (Henry L. Stimson) as a twit.
> 
> I highly disagree. In some ways I regard him as our patron saint
> (although the man was actually far from saintly and later as a member
> of the Roosevelt cabinet adopted an opposite policy of aggressive
> signals intelligence.)
> 
> Why is he our patron saint? He was a government official coming out
> against invasion of privacy. Isn't that what we are all after, in the
> end? The reason we deploy cryptography is to assure privacy for
> all. We often refer to those who listen in on conversations
> (regardless of who they are) as, in some sense, our
> opposition. Therefore, is not Stimson's remark in closing down
> Yardley's "Black Chamber" to be praised rather than attacked?

The crypto relevance of this post is tenuous at best :-).  Please keep 
your comments to relevant code or technical discussions of crypto.  This 
is *not* patronSaintPunks!  Come on!

For the humor impaired *this is a joke*.  Not flame bait.  Just trying to 
get Perry to lighten up a bit.


> 
> Perry
> 

Matt