What do our Netscape folks have to say?

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 6:44 PM -0800 11/17/96, Lucky Green wrote:

>I have a hard time believing that Netscape caved. As I wrote in July, HP
>was working on selling our children's birthright to obtain an export
>license for their product. But Netscape participating in this just
>doesn't sound right.

Indeed, some comments from the usually-vocal Weinstein brothers would be
most welcome.

(I presume they "won't comment on rumors." After Monday's announcement, I
hope we'll hear from the various Netscape people who have commented in the
past.)

If Netscape is part of this sorry situation, it will mean that Jim Clarke's
expression of support for GAK a year ago was the _real_ story, with the "we
won't cave" noises just a pacifier.

By the way, Netscape once promised that their new corporate position was
this: that if the U.S. government insisted on a crippled version for
export, the domestic version would not be crippled at all.

I for one don't think that having the same smartcard, but with different
permissions or approval processes, constitutes having the U.S. version be
"uncrippled."

(Why? Because if Netscape and others widely deploy the H-P/Intel GAK
product, the government could decide any time they want to tighten
licensing for U.S. users, for felons, etc.)

--Tim May



"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."