Re: Cyberspatial governments?

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

>	If you talk about the actions of specific agencies, such as
>the FCC, DEA, NSA, etc, you will see that much of their motivation
>comes from bureaucratic turf wars.  Seeing 'Government' as your great
>enemy is a damaging misnomer.

Indeed, many government policies can be understood only from this
perspective. Clipper is a perfect example. Key escrow exists only
because the NSA doesn't want to risk blame if some terrorist or drug
dealer were to use an unescrowed NSA-produced algorithm.

The fact that a terrorist or drug dealer can easily go elsewhere and
obtain other strong or stronger algorithms without key escrow is
irrelevant. The NSA simply doesn't care as long as *they* can't be
blamed for whatever happens. Classic CYA, nothing more.

A similar analysis applies to the export control regulations regarding
cryptography.

Phil