Re: ACM/IEEE Letter on Cryp

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 01:22 PM 4/6/96 -0800, Bill Frantz wrote:
>At  9:58 AM 4/6/96 -0800, jim bell wrote:
>>[on the Burns bill]

>>That sounds okay as far as it goes, but I can see a potential problem.  Your 
>>wording above is unclear, but if the Burns bill totally eliminates export 
>>controls that's great. However, we've frequently heard talk of "compromises" 
>>like the Leahy bill which seem to relate exportable encryption to that which 
>>is already available overseas.  There have been suspicions around there that 
>>this is intended to keep the American producers out of the market as long as 
>>possible, which is still a problem.  I don't think that's acceptable.
>
>I have no objection to the salami approach in this case.  The way the Burns
>proposal has been described, it seems all together better than the current
>situation.  We can fight the next battle after people realize that the four
>horseman are well and truly loose, and that the world hasn't ended.  When
>the Burns proposal has been written up into a bill and introduced, I expect
>I will be writing my congresscritters asking them to support it

Myself also, I suppose.  That's why I'm so concerned that it not contain any 
component that could be easily be re-written more to our liking.  The big 
attraction of the Burns bill, from a strategic standpoint, is that (by the 
elimination of export controls, assuming it does it) it removes the one 
major "must do" task onto which could be loaded other "features" that we 
can't stand, as the Leahy bill tried to do.  Once export controls are 
eliminated on crypto, it should become impossible to get enough support to 
pass a bill even mentioning key escrow, let alone mandating it. 

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com