[1678] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Legislation is useless
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Donald E. Eastlake 3rd)
Wed Oct 1 16:09:34 1997
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 15:53:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@cybercash.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <t53oh59pa0y.fsf@rover.cygnus.com>
On 1 Oct 1997, Marc Horowitz wrote:
> Date: 01 Oct 1997 15:18:21 -0400
> From: Marc Horowitz <marc@cygnus.com>
>
> I don't believe PGP or SSH has as many users as TLS does. This is
> probably because Netscape had the financial resources to play the
> export game, and was willing to compromise on crypto strength.
If by "as many users" you mean people with software that can and even
or rare occasions does use SSL (aka TLS) you are right. But I believe
some surveys by volume of packets show that, at least in Europe, SSH is
more widely used that SSL. (Factoid: NSI trasnmits updated copies of
the root, com, etc., zones to the other root servers daily via SSH.)
> PGP is available full-strength around the world. Early versions got
> out of the US because they were smuggled out. Later versions got
> there on paper and were scanned. Neither is a very good business
> model, and for any of these systems to become truly ubiquitous, they
> will need commercial backing. (I'm suddenly reminded of the time I
> spent in the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin after IETF, and
> how it documented the escalation of the East German people vs their
> government, as the people tried to escape. The PGP situation is
> disturbingly similar. Fortunately smuggling out crypto will never
> require the measures to which the East Germans were forced to resort.)
PGP is certainly headed towards being a completely open protocol under
IETF standards control. This makes source code tranmission a lot less
relevant.
> SSH is not made in the US, so our silly rules don't matter to Tatu
> like they did to Phil.
>
> ..
>
> Marc
Donald
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