Re: McCain Talks Crypto

[Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>]

At 08:42 PM 6/21/97 -0700, Alan Olsen wrote:
>This guy needs to connect to a clue server soon before it is too late...

>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/4588.html           
>           McCain Talks Crypto          by Todd Lappin 
>
>           6:04pm  20.Jun.97.PDT Just got off the phone with Senator
>           John McCain. 
>...  Despite the fact that his bill cuts
>           the legs from under Pro-CODE - a bill by Montana
>           Republican Conrad Burns that would scrap the
>           export controls - McCain said he's eager to negotiate
>           on the issues. 
>
>           Here are the highlights of our 5-minute conversation
>           - during which a certain two-word term was repeated
>           again and again. Let's see if you can spot it. 
>
>           On the rationale behind S909:
>           "I've always said that national security is a primary
>           concern - and based on my own experience [nearly
>           six years as a Vietnam POW], I've had a lot of time to
>           consider how important that really is." 
>           "... I'm astonished that any industry would consider
>           their priorities to be so important that they override
>           national security concerns." 
>
>           On the rival Pro-CODE bill:
>           "I'm all for Pro-CODE - except for its impact on
>           national security. 
>
>           On the future:
>           "I promise you, now that we've adopted this
>           legislation, we will sit down and work this out with all
>           the parties involved. As I've said before, from a

Sigh.  Make the laws and then work out the details -- I don't think so :-)

However, if his real concern IS national security, then perhaps
he can be reached - not only is our real national security based on
the economy, but any vaguely competent foreign government or
major terrorist organization has access to all the crypto they need:
unlike fully assembled missiles and plutonium, which are hard to get and
hard to smuggle across borders, crypto is easy to buy anywhere in the US,
and the Enemies Of The State just have to take one copy out, by laptop,
by floppy disk, by modem, or by satellite, and you've lost control.

I assume he knows he's using the child pornography excuse as a 
cynical play to the media - the obvious response is that 
	McCain's Pro-Forgery Bill
by making good crypto tools less available, and by making sure
that people will choose to get their important digital certificates
from multiple CAs and non-US-controlled CAs, or just go uncertified,
will make it forgery more common and digital signatures less trusted.
So <wave hands wildly here> your kids are more likely to have fake IDs
like we did to drink when we were younger and <wave hands again>
that'll lead to more pornography on the net, imported from foreign
countries that have lower standards than our fine American communities, and...


#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
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