Re: So, what crypto legislation (if any) is necessary?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 4:11 PM 3/26/96, Adam Shostack wrote:
>Timothy C. May wrote:
>
>| My point is that I see no compelling legislation that is needed. If enough
>| people in Washington really want increased length in _exported products_
>| (remember the "exported" part), the Congress and the President should find
>| it easy enough to get said products on to the Approved List. (I note that
>| the Leahy Bill really doesn't change this system anyway...some products go
>| on the list, some don't...the law only seems to say that when the horse has
>| already left the barn, i.e., when "comparable" products are already in
>| fairly wide use outside the U.S., then the products should be put on the
>| approved list. Big deal.
>
>        Tim,
>
>        I'm forced to disagree on this point.  I think that the
>comparable product has the potential to be a very big deal; it means
>that any product using IDEA or 3DES may become exportable, because
>such products are available outside the US.

I certainly don't disagree that if Leahy is passed, which is unlikely, then
conventional ciphers like 3DES will become exportable. (And I am forced to
add, "Big deal.")

What I'm more interested in are not the ciphers which had their genesis in
the crypto work of the 70s, but in the new and exciting applications to
come. Things such as this list often discusses. I believe Leahy could stall
export of these new items until eventually there are offshore equivalents
of sufficiently wide deployment that the Leahy clause would get invoked.

Leahy does little to confirm basic Constitutional rights, and offers a sop
to the export control advocates. And the criminalization of use of crypto
in furtherance of a felony (any of the 14,662 felonies now on the books),
according to the reading of several analysts who have studied Leahy, is
disturbing. Whether it can be used to prosecute operators of anonymous
remailers remains unclear, but associating cryptography with criminality
more directly and statutorily than it is now is NOT a step in the direction
we want to see!

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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
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