[2331] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Rivest's Wheat & Chaff - A crypto alternative
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Hugh Murray)
Mon Mar 23 18:08:41 1998
To: "Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr@nfr.net>, Vin McClellan <vin@shore.net>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 15:33:36 -0500
From: William Hugh Murray <whmurray@sprynet.com>
CC: "cryptography@C2.net" <cryptography@c2.net>
-- [ From: William Hugh Murray * EMC.Ver #3.1 ] --
[Important discussion deleted.]
> I believe that, repugnant as it may seem, the crypto-community's
> most effective tactic is to polarize the debate deliberately
> into moral absolutes, as has happened with the gun debate
> and the abortion debate. That is one of the fundamental tactics
> of revolutionaries: to radicalize the margin of discussion by
> removing the grey area and making fence-sitting uncomfortable.
> It's a high stakes game because if you lose you lose completely.
> Sore losers then have to resort to bombings, etc., and things
> go downhill fast from there.
> --
> Marcus J. Ranum, CEO, Network Flight Recorder, Inc.
> work - http://www.nfr.net
> home - http://www.clark.net/pub/mjr
I think that you have it exactly right. It is a "high stakes" game with
winner take all. While we may hold the cards, the bureaucracy has all
the chips; we cannot call their bluff, much less raise. Unlike the gun
lobby, we lack the support of the congress or the people.
I recall telling Clint Brooks that the decision about export control was
too important to be made by the president, that it was of such import
that it had to be made by the congress. Better I should have bitten my
tongue off. Now it appears that the congress will decide, that the
issue will not be export control but the private and commercial use of
cryptography, and that we are about out of chips.
Bill
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