Re: Enlightened commentary on Netizen.

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 08:41 PM 2/6/97 -0800, Anil Das wrote:
>First, Rebecca Vesely has a special report, the main thrust
>of which is that three firms being allowed to export 56 bit
>encryption indicates flexibility on the part of the
>government.
>http://www.netizen.com/netizen/97/05/special2a.html
>To top it off, here are two gems from the followup discussion.
>http://www.netizen.com/cgi-bin/interact/replies_all?msg.37387
>
>2. 56 ONLY A SLIGHTLY SMALLER JOKE
>    Ric Allan (ricrok) on Wed, 5 Feb 97 11:53 PST
>
>    If it takes a college student four hours to break
>    a 40bit code it should take him/her about six 
>    hours to do the same to 56bits. Then what excuses 
>    are the government and its butt-kissing companies 
>    going to give us for not allowing *real* coding?

Ironically, we (the good guys) are going to be the beneficiaries of an 
ignorant public, for a change!  We all know that difficulty is not linear 
with bit-size, but hearing that "40 bits is crackable in four hours!"  will 
be interpreted by non-technical people as a strong level of suspicion 
directed at DES as well.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com