RE: Junger et al.

[Ed Gerck <egerck@laser.cps.softex.br>]

On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Ernest Hua wrote:

>So today, I can write the following:
>
>1.	Find a container.
>2.	Fill container with explosive substance.
>3.	Move container to target location.
>4.	Detonate container.
>
>As soon as I have a compiler and a target machine that can execute these
>instructions, suddenly this is not speech.  However, before this
>compiler and machine combo exists, event the electronic form of this is
>speech!
>
>How could this be?

Gwin has written a phrase which deserves more analysis, IMO -- free
from political overtones if we want to be impartial. The phrase can
be reworded as:

  "source code is a device, that actually does a function"

The difference and importance here is between syntatic and semantics. 

Your 4-instruction source code above is not a device today -- it
cannot perform any function. It has only syntatics, not the "how to". 
But, if there were a machine that could supply the proper semantics
(ie, actually perform the functions 1-4) then your source code above
would be a device.  Further, your source code may not be a device
today but be a device tomorrow.

As another example, bringing together one pound of inert metal with
another one pound of the same inert metal was not considered to be
explosive -- until U235 was used for the inert metal and properly
compressed. The difference is semantic, not syntatic. 

In that, Gwin is correct. Can the source code actually perform a
function?  Then, it is a device. Irrespective of the needed platform,
in the same way that an electric shaver is a device irrespective of
the local availablity of an appropriate power outlet.

IMO, even though I consider Gwin to be correct to a very large
extent, widespread use of crypto will not come from lifiting such
bans ... but from real need -- which does not outweigh the hassle,
today. The EFF has a wrong target there. 

Do you know how much Internet e-mail traffic is encrypted today?  Can
you believe less than 10%? Notwithstanding the rethoric exercises and
limelight it may provide, talking about encryption export bans may
not be as effective as desigining better and easier uses of strong
crypto -- that can then really drive market, legislation and courts. 

Need to use is a better key than need to know, it seems.

Cheers,

Ed Gerck

>
>Ern
>
>	-----Original Message-----
>	From:	jkthomson [SMTP:jkthomson@bigfoot.com]
>	Sent:	Monday, July 06, 1998 7:12 PM
>	To:	cypherpunks@toad.com
>	Subject:	Junger et al.
>
>
>
>	Reuters
>
>	3:40pm  6.Jul.98.PDT WASHINGTON -- A district court has
>dismissed a law
>	professor's challenge to US regulations strictly limiting the
>export of
>	computer data-scrambling technology.
>
>	Judge James Gwin ruled late Friday that the export limits, which
>prevented
>	Case Western Reserve University Law School professor Peter
>Junger from
>	posting the text of encryption programs on the Internet, did not
>violate
>	the constitutional right to free speech.
>
>	The Ohio court's ruling contradicts a California district court
>ruling last
>	August that said source code -- the instructions a person writes
>telling
>	the computer what actions to perform -- constitutes a form of
>speech
>	subject to First Amendment protection.
>
>	"Unlike instructions, a manual or a recipe, source code actually
>performs
>	the function it describes," Gwin wrote. "While a recipe provides
>	instructions to a cook, source code is a device, like embedded
>circuitry in
>	a telephone, that actually does the function of encryption."
>
>	Neither ruling gave speech protection to compiled code, a
>version of source
>	code converted into an actual software program that could be run
>on a
>	computer.
>
>	The US government appealed the California decision and the issue
>may
>	ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
>
>	Civil libertarians and high-tech companies had hoped the court
>would
>	overturn the export limits on encryption technology, which uses
>	mathematical formulas to scramble information and render it
>unreadable
>	without a password or software "key."
>
>	Once the realm of spies and generals, encryption has become an
>increasingly
>	critical means of protecting electronic commerce and global
>communications
>	over the Internet.
>
>	But law enforcement agencies, fearing encryption will be used by
>terrorists
>	and international criminals to hide their activities, have
>instituted
>	strict controls to limit the export of strong scrambling
>products.
>
>	Lawyers opposed to the export rules said the Ohio court
>misunderstood the
>	difference between source code and compiled code.
>
>	"The Ohio court clearly doesn't understand the communicative
>nature of
>	software," said Shari Steele, an attorney with the Electronic
>Frontier
>	Foundation. "It's true that software helps to perform functions,
>but it
>	does so by telling computers what to do.... It certainly is
>speech
>	deserving of the highest levels of First Amendment protection."
>
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>	 james 'keith' thomson <jkthomson@bigfoot.com>
>www.bigfoot.com/~ceildh
>	 jkthomson:C181 991A 405C EAFB 2C46 79B5 B1DC DB78 8196 122D
>[06.07.98]
>	 ceildh   :1D79 59AF ED75 5945 6003 8240 DA34 ACCA 9DE4 6BC9
>[05.14.98]
>	 ICQ:746241 <keys> at pgp.mit.edu     ...and former sysop of
>tnbnog BBS
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>	Technology is introduced, utilized, depended upon, obsolete, 
>	standardized, and understood, in that order
>
>=======================================================================_
>

______________________________________________________________________
Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck                     egerck@novaware.cps.softex.br
http://novaware.cps.softex.br
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