Hey, didn't he used to be...?

[Marshall Clow <mclow@owl.csusm.edu>]

At <http://www.us.net/~steptoe/welcome.htm>, there is a link to a paper by
Stuart A. Baker, formerly (if I remember correctly) NSA's Chief Counsel.

     EMERGING JAPANESE ENCRYPTION POLICY
     by
     Stewart A. Baker


Acouple of choice paragraphs:

Japan's encryption policymaking is in its early stages, but there are
strong signs that encryption is increasingly seen as a key technology for
improving Japan's penetration of the Global Information Infrastructure. A
highly selective (and possibly biased) sampling of informed Japanese
opinion on cryptography suggests a growing determination to treat
cryptography as a national Japanese economic priority.

- and -

For a variety of reasons, commercial interests are predominant in Japanese
government thinking about encryption. Time after time during my interviews,
I was reminded that Japan was an island nation that has not had to defend
itself for fifty years and so has not had to confront the national security
concerns associated with encryption. And Japanese police face severe
political and constitutional constraints on wiretapping, so the prospect of
losing this criminal investigative tool seems not to be as troubling to the
Japanese government as to the United States and many European nations.


There's lots more here, and I haven't read it all.


-- Marshall

Marshall Clow     Aladdin Systems   <mailto:mclow@mailhost2.csusm.edu>

"Eternal vigilance is the price of PostScript"
-- MacUser Jan 96 DTP and Graphics column