[1594] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Legislation is useless
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marc Horowitz)
Tue Sep 23 14:35:47 1997
To: perry@piermont.com
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
From: Marc Horowitz <marc@cygnus.com>
Date: 23 Sep 1997 14:19:57 -0400
In-Reply-To: "Perry E. Metzger"'s message of Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:44:50 -0400 (EDT)
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:
>> At this point, I'd say we should all concentrate on having Congress do
>> nothing at all and on getting crypto deployed absolutely
>> everywhere. The only reasonable defense against the current stupidity
>> is to make sure that to implement GAK will require throwing out every
>> phone and cable box and computer in the country. Let them try to do it
>> then.
This solution would work, but it is not practical. Given the current
legislative climate, manufacturers of phones, cable boxes, and
computers would have to be crazy to integrate this technology into
their new products. The risk is just too high. Sure, the members of
this list could work to secure their own equipment, but until it's out
of the box for everyone, it doesn't help. The cellular phone vendors
and service providers have had a billion-dollar-a-year incentive to
deploy strong crypto, yet they haven't. Why is this? Not for
technical reasons.
For crypto to be deployed successfully, it needs to be universally
interoperable. Perry, as an IETF working group chair, you know what a
daunting task that is. It can't be done without the vendors.
I'm going to trust that when crypto cases (Karn, Bernstein, Junger)
make it to the Supreme Court, the right thing will happen. I'd like
to be more proactive, and I'd like it to happen sooner, but I'm
cynical that I can do anything that the list of rich, powerful
companies on the letter Declan published can't. The Supremes' answer
to the CDA gives me a little bit of hope that there's still nine smart
people in government who really can make a difference.
I don't plan on letting down my guard; I'll fight how I can when I
can. But at this point, short of a landmark SC decision, all I think
we can hope for is preserving the status quo, as bad as it may be.
Marc
