[2305] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: reference
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Gutmann)
Fri Mar 20 19:09:44 1998
From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
To: blair@technologist.com
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Reply-To: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 09:28:41 (NZST)
>It may be useful to note the the New Zealand Dept of Health recently
>aquired "strong" 128bit crypt under such provisions.
The exact details of this are very hard to find out, I've heard several
different versions of exactly what it is they got. From what I've been able
to find out, they think they have some sort of general export permit for
strong crypto (which doesn't mean much, I've seen the documents and specs
they've produced and they have only slightly more than no clue at all about
crypto - their requirements docs have more amusement than practical value
:-). From what others who have dealt with them have said, what they've got is
the ability to do server-gated crypto under very controlled and restricted
conditions to a single or small number of servers, just like a bank. This
isn't going to be of any actual use to them, since they want general-purpose
point-to-point secure messaging (meaning email, SSL, file transfer, the whole
nine yards) among doctors, hospitals, medlabs, and whatnot.
Peter.
