[1674] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Legislation is useless
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Phil Karn)
Wed Oct 1 00:15:46 1997
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:05:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>
To: marc@cygnus.com
CC: perry@piermont.com, cryptography@c2.net, karn@qualcomm.com
In-reply-to: <t53en6fevua.fsf@rover.cygnus.com> (message from Marc Horowitz on
23 Sep 1997 14:19:57 -0400)
[I'm letting this through my current embargo on the basis that I think
it is a genuine contribution to the current discussion. --Perry]
>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
Don't sell yourself short. The entire Internet owes its existence and
success to a relatively few suitably talented and dedicated
individuals who, single-handedly or in small ad-hoc groups, can
recognize a problem, conceive and implement a solution, make the code
generally available, attract a following and quickly establish a
worldwide de-facto standard.
Certain flashy ad campaigns to the contrary notwithstanding, it's no
coincidence that the Internet wasn't created by the rich and powerful
companies on Declan's list (*especially* the telcos), though the
reverse was true for some of them (e.g., Netscape). The creative
instinct has always been a stronger motive than mere profit to do
truly new and revolutionary things. That's especially true when a
new technology threatens somebody's existing revenue stream, as it
often does. Or the existing political order, as in the case of strong
crypto.
We already have two excellent examples of highly successful grassroots
crypto projects: PGP and SSH. Both were originally conceived by lone
individuals with a vision (Phil Zimmermann and Tatu Ylonen),
implemented with enthusiastic volunteer help and made freely available
in source form on the net where they became de-facto Internet
standards as the "official" efforts (PEM, TLS and IPSEC) languished in
an increasingly OSIfied IETF. There's no reason to believe that this
sort of thing can't happen again.
The day when it is no longer possible for an individual to establish a
de-facto Internet standard on the merits of his work is the day that
the Internet will begin to die. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet.
Phil
