Re: Golden Key Campaign

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 11:53 PM 4/23/96, Hal wrote:

>effort.  Note that RSA's logo is a key, and we see the RSA key at the
>bottom of our Netscape screens all the time.  I don't remember if it's
>golden.
...
>I have not actually seen the new logo because I don't have a graphical
>browser here, but I hope it is not too similar to RSA's key.  I hate to
...

The "Golden Key" appears to be a photograph of an old-style "skeleton key"
(hope this is not symbolic of what happens to users...). The key sits on
top of an envelope in the image I saw.

The "RSA Key(s)" is/are modern keys, a la Schlage or similar lock keys.
They normally are shown in a kind of gold/yellow/bronze, from memory of RSA
literature and a Web page I just looked at to double-check.

I don't know if the use of a key is to endorse RSADSI directly, or
subliminally. But there are not a lot of symbols which are evocative. The
"Cypherpunks rose" hasn't exactly become the new symbol of whatever it is
we believe in, and other symbols are no better.

I note that that the NSA also uses a key in its logo.

(On the larger issue of the campaign itself....I'm not much of a joiner,
and PR campaigns fatigue me. I'm with Whoopi Goldberg on the Blue Ribbons,
the Red Ribbons, the Yellow Ribbons, the Green Ribbons, the Gold Key, the
Silver Key, the Chartreuse Diskette, and the Maltese Falcon.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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