[3932] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: AUCRYPTO: Bidzos pro-wassenaar posturing.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Julian Assange)
Fri Jan 8 16:55:12 1999
To: Darren Reed <darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au>
Cc: aucrypto@suburbia.net, cryptography@c2.net
From: Julian Assange <proff@iq.org>
Date: 09 Jan 1999 08:14:11 +1100
In-Reply-To: Darren Reed's message of "Sat, 9 Jan 1999 01:58:05 +1100 (EST)"
[I figured I'd let people get out a message or two more but I don't
think I'm going to let the Bidzos slamming run much longer. It isn't
that I love him -- it is that I don't think the discussion is really
what the readers of Cryptography want to be viewing in their
mailboxes. --Perry]
Darren Reed <darrenr@reed.wattle.id.au> writes:
> Is this aquisition and employment change of Eric Young and Tim Hudson by
> RSA a sneaky way to stop the development of products such as SSL and
> Cryptozilla which are not commercial in nature and hence widely available
> and not as easily "controlled" by anyone ? But maybe that's just the
> conspiracy theorist in me as I've no information about the truth of that
> suggestion.
>
> Darren
Only insofar as RSA sees a hugely popular free crypto library, with
it's own top revenue earning patents about to expire, a recipie for
financial disaster. The motivations around Bidzos/RSA's recent public
pro-export-control stance are quite clear. For every country that
introduces introduces or tightens its export controls, other than the
US, RSA has that much less competition. This is the `level playing
field' that Bidzos is talking about. Evidentially Bidzos/RSA believes
that lobbying for stronger export controls in other countries isn't
going to encourage tightening of US controls to any significant
degree. It's a high risk, Machiavellian strategy. It's morality, Jim,
but not as we know it.
Cheers,
Julian <proff@iq.org>
