Re: China -- the fragile glimmer of freedom

[Bruce Baugh <bruce@aracnet.com>]

At 11:46 AM 2/17/96 -0800, Timothy May wrote:

>Well, where are the posts from outraged Cypherpunks living in the People's
>Republic of China?

In many cases, exercising the prudence appropriate to people whose friends
have been run over by tanks in recent years.

In other cases, doing things in venues that happen not to cross this list.
In much of China the central government is already a dead letter, with
effective power being wielded at the municipial and provincial level.
Friends of my family who do business in China report that the major question
at this point is making sure that local military authorities don't decide to
confiscate all the assets of prospering businesses. Part of this is very
strong security for sensitive transactions.

I can't know for sure, obviously, but I'd be unsurprised to find as many
copies of PGP running in regions like Shanghai, Shenzen, and Guangzhou as
there are in the United States.

A lot of these folks don't have good net connectively, and won't for a long
time. Some of them have it but are leery of posting critical stuff that will
attract hostile attention. Others are, for all I know, protesting in
relevant soc.culture groups and such places. It's very easy to develop an
inflated sense of the importance of the forums one happens to belong to -
Cypherpunks isn't all that widely known, and even though it is, or at least
has been, an outstanding gathering of folks making crypto happen, there are
other vectors for these things.

>are in the so-called "Western world." We have a chance to deploy strong
>crypto, the residents of Nepal and Singapore do not.

As it happens, I _do_ know for a fact of at least one copy of PGP running in
Nepal, in the hands of a agricultural broker.

Tim, you're beyond your knowledge here.

-- 
Bruce Baugh
bruce@aracnet.com
http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce