fido encryption.

Hi all!  I just conducted an experiment whose results indicate how far
we (Cypherpunks) have to go in educating the American Public WRT encryption
technology:  
 
I send an encrypted message via fidonet! (awk!)
 
     I had heard a rumor that fidonet forbade encrypted e-mail, but I had to
find out for myself.  Well, they do.  Now I understand that these sysops are
spending their own money and equipment to provide these services and have
the right to regulate it in any way they see fit.  That's not the point. 
The point(s) is/are:
 
1)   They ACTIVELY enforce this policy.  They don't simply say "no," they
check (presumably) all of their user's email to enforce this policy.
 
2)   They seem to be afraid to pass/store encrypted messages on their
system.  This indicates to me a lack of understanding of the concept of
privacy.  They seem to buy into the idea that "only BAD people encrypt
email."
 
     We need to educate the electronic community before we can hope to
educate the general public.  The text of the messages follow with the names
removed.  BTW, the text of the plaintext message was "this is a test."  Just
thought you'd be interested.  Comments?
 
 
=========================================================================== 
 BBS: The Tech Source 
Date: 09-16-93 (00:00)             Number: 261 
  To: MIKE DIEHL                    Recvd: YES (PVT) 
Subj: Encrypted Mail                 Conf: (0) PrivateE-M 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
This is a test. 
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- 
version: 2.2 
 mQCNAiu/jPkAAAEEAMGeUcJS+AfY32cDfy/v/UcA9JdqNOBOl/K37jFOBuCkXCSp 
lBa 
---END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- 
 
Mike, Please advise the sender of this message that I DO NOT allow 
encrypted mail to pass thru this system. I expect folks to abide by this 
rule voluntarily... 
 
I would hate to have to block all messages from this source becuase 
someone wishes to violate my policy :) 
 
BTW, the debate about "encrypted" mail with me is MOOT...  I will not vary 
from my position... (just thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to 
try to convince me it is OK to allow encrypted mail...) please have the 
other person send encrypted mail directly to your machine... 
 
Thank you.. 
 
Sysop of Another BBS?

> 2)   They seem to be afraid to pass/store encrypted messages on their
> system.  This indicates to me a lack of understanding of the concept of
> privacy.  They seem to buy into the idea that "only BAD people encrypt
> email."

Most of them are scared to death over possible liability, like if someone
is selling credit card numbers and using their BBS to forward the messages,
they feel they could be legally liable.  There have been too many instances
of folks getting their computers confiscated over this sort of thing.

Personally, I feel like it's all a scam, cooked up by those in the DA's
office who are jealous because ours are bigger than theirs are.  ;)  A 486/50
with a couple of GB HD and a SVGA monitor and a couple of 1.4K modems is a
pretty hard thing to pass up if you're short on computing power in the DA's
office ... and short on $$$...  :(
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG			erc@apple.com			510/659-9560
                            anon-0001@khijol.uucp
If you want magic, let go of your armor.  Magic is so much stronger than
steel!        -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"

J. Michael Diehl writes:
 > 2)   They seem to be afraid to pass/store encrypted messages on their
 > system.  This indicates to me a lack of understanding of the concept of
 > privacy.  They seem to buy into the idea that "only BAD people encrypt
 > email."

However, they do understand the US Gov's policy of 'we found it on
your system, we're taking everything, it doesn't matter if you knew it
was there or not'.

Doesn't Fidonet have a long tradition of feuding and splitting
into "subnets", which is facilitated by the way they maintain their 
nodelist files? An excited Fido'er expalined it to me one night at usenix
several years ago, but I had little interest in pc networking then.
Perhaps a encryption ok subset of fidonet could form? Anyone who knows
more about this care to comment?

Andy