[4011] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: France Allows 128 Bit Crypto
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Jan 20 13:52:18 1999
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 23:07:11 -0800
To: "Enzo Michelangeli" <em@who.net>, <cryptography@c2.net>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Cc: <privacy@ssrc.hku.hk>
In-Reply-To: <005501be440f$65532aa0$88004bca@home>
At 08:50 AM 1/20/99 +0800, Enzo Michelangeli translated:
>Changing the law will take many months. The Govenment has decided
>that the main obstacles holding up the citizens from protecting the
>confidentiality of their communications and the development of
>electronic commerce be lifted without waiting. Also, waiting
>for the announced legislative changes, the Government has decided
>to raise the the the threshold of cryptology the use of which is
>free, from 40 bit to 128 bit, considered by the experts a level
>suitable to ensure durably a very high security.
Even with your improved translation, this is ambiguous.
Does this mean that
"many months from now we will raise the limit to 128 bits"
or "you can use 128 bits now, but the law on paper will take
many months to fix"?
If the latter, does this mean they can still selectively enforce
it on you if you use 128 bits now? Or does this will mean,
as it might in a US context, that the administrative agency
that defines the implementating regulations for the law
has relaxed their regulation so it is less strict,
and the law will later require them to be less strict?
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
