Re: The War is Underway (fwd)

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, May 10, 1997 at 06:17:56PM -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 10 May 1997, Adam Back wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> > > However, while we may think their power is gone, or is almost gone, they
> > > think otherwise. And we're seeing an accelerating pace of lawmaking, [...]
> 
> [The fork in the road is discussed]
> 
> > > Who will actually win?
> > > 
> > > I think we will. They think they will. The war is underway.
> > 
> > So what are we doing to fight our side?  (Apart from fantasizing
> > about nuking the bastards till they glow :-)
> >
> > So what can cypherpunks do?
> > 
> > Write code?
> 
> Yes.  One of the major stumbling blocks I have run into is a lack of code
> which really is refined and reviewed enough to serve the purposes I need
> it to serve.  FC97 did a lot to make some more obscure things obvious, and
> familiarize the players with each other, but the details are often hard to
> come by.  Many of the applications out there are painfully behind in
> interface areas forcing developers to use complicated "toolkits" which
> often lack the basics we need. Finding an analogy to easily explain even
> the basics to a customer is very difficult unless the front end jibes with
> the attempt.
> 
> The amount of confusion over what represents a good algorithm is also
> interesting.  Take CAST, which seems a promising cipher and which we
> considered using over IDEA.
> 
> On asking 4 "experts" about CAST, I got 4 answers.
> 
> 1>  A 64 bit cipher with 40 bits secret.
> 2>  A 64 bit cipher - not expected to be very complete.
> 3>  A 128 bit cipher.
> 4>  "Not worth discussing."
> 
> In fact, as I understand it, CAST is of variable key length (Up to 128
> bits), and quite resistant to many attacks which plague DES and even IDEA.
> 
> But digging out that information was painfully difficult.  (It may not
> even be correct).

http://adonis.ee.queensu.ca:8000/cast/cast.html

Also 

http://www.entrust.com/library.htm

[Caveat:  I am not a cryptographer.]

[...]
> 
> Still, these are areas that I wish c'punks would start looking at again.

Unfortunately, c'punks seems bogged down in macho fantasies about guns.

> Even if strong unforfeited crypto is legal in the U.S., it will not be in
> other countries for quite some time.
> 
> There is strength in numbers, not just safety.  The more crypto users
> there are, the less government, or anyone else, can do about it.

Hence the value of the "Crypto is Cool" approach.  A valuable addition
would be crypto packages designed for high school kids.  All my many
nieces and nephews are on the net...

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html