[2441] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Economic Strategy Institute puts price tag on crypto-regs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Wed Apr 1 16:54:34 1998
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 13:46:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/afternoon/0,1012,1868,00.html
The Netly News
Afternoon Line
April 1, 1998
Golden Fleecing
Losses caused by export controls on encryption technology could cost
the U.S. as much as $96 billion over the next five years, according to
a study by the Economic Strategy Institute. And that's not counting
the cost of implementing a key escrow system, which would raise the
damage to $140 billion. The report, which was released today, pulls no
punches on the futility of export controls and urges that they be
discontinued immediately, not the least of the reasons being that
other countries are currently free to market their own encryption
products without fear of U.S. competition. More to the point, the
grail of national security that U.S. lawmakers cite reverentially as a
justification is no more than a feel-good myth for much the same
reasons -- if we don't sell it, you can always get it somewhere else.
But is it really going to cost that much, or does the study just
represent someone's best guesses? Last September the Congressional
Budget Office came up with a much lower, price tag. Requiring key
escrow, they said, would cost consumers just $200 million to $2
billion a year.
Hoarse and Buggy
If it feels like you're being deluged with more and more reports on
the millennium bug, it's because you are. "The federal government is
giving far more attention to this than" any other information
technology issue ever, government Y2K czar John Koskinen said
yesterday. At a White House briefing, Koskinen denied reports that the
IRS is doomed to collapse, claiming "they are headed toward solving
the Y2K aspects of their problem in the IRS effectively." But at a
Senate hearing today, legislators weren't buying Koskinen's sunny
optimism. "We've gotten classified reports that are so disturbing they
had to be classified," growled Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), chair of the
governmental affairs committee. What about reports of underpaid
government programmers fleeing for the private sector? What about
failures that "create a vulnerability" that hackers will exploit? Sen.
John Glenn (D-Ohio) even wondered if he'd have to "reassess" his plans
to rocket into space aboard shuttle Discovery this fall. Admitted
Koskinen: "Some systems are clearly not going to be fixed in time. The
question is not just whether we have contingency plans, but whether we
can prioritize." --By Declan McCullagh/Washington
(Note my colleague Jonathan Gregg wrote the first item. --Declan)
