Public vs. Private Munitions

Here's how I understand it:
     The U.S. Government, concerned only with making America a safer place
for us taxpayers to live in, wants to regulate domestic encryption in order
to have access to the content of all transmissions.  Their theory is that
any cryptosystem that is stronger than their cryptanalysis systems can be
used in illegal transmissions and should be considered munitions.
     Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to
control commercially-available, public encryption systems.  Who is to stop
anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use?  If the
government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and
could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered
munitions?  Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble
that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments
processing time.
     Why are we so worried about government regulation?  Can't we just
devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly
available?

vagab0nd@sd.cybernex.net
http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~vagab0nd/index.html
Visit web page for public key.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hrm... that should foster communication. So lemme see if I understand your
point... everyone in the U.S needs to devise their own cryptosystem,
and then use it to communicate securely. To who? Since I can't publish
my system for fear the government will find it out and then restrict it,
noone else will know about it. I can have a good old time encrypting stuff
to myself, but that's about it. And the likelihood that I'm an expert
cryptographer in order to design a good system is pretty remote.

On Sat, 27 Jul 1996, Erle Greer wrote:

> Here's how I understand it:
>      The U.S. Government, concerned only with making America a safer place
> for us taxpayers to live in, wants to regulate domestic encryption in order
> to have access to the content of all transmissions.  Their theory is that
> any cryptosystem that is stronger than their cryptanalysis systems can be
> used in illegal transmissions and should be considered munitions.
>      Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to
> control commercially-available, public encryption systems.  Who is to stop
> anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use?  If the
> government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and
> could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered
> munitions?  Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble
> that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments
> processing time.
>      Why are we so worried about government regulation?  Can't we just
> devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly
> available?
> 

- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jeremey Barrett
Senior Software Engineer			jeremey@forequest.com 
The ForeQuest Company       			http://www.forequest.com/

   "less is more."
		-- Mies van de Rohe.

   Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design.  Unlike most
   automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the
   numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver.  Rather, if the
   driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the
   dashboard.  "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know
   what's wrong."

		-- 'fortune` output

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMfufny/fy+vkqMxNAQEU5AQAuRmv5F2zTegRuwaQ+BL/nRkuR2oGHJKZ
i5y1M8DHH1SX4dM0idxV3VCqQuuEXqhjO2Q6HSKp+5H3UtDvQMihOD78WE9w67mj
ogsMFFHgmh19W79Z/Plv/G4VhDlBcx4rlYeTGaBGK7mRc6YV/qsQ1U4hQmdnyOmw
1L6EVE8wZYc=
=N4Dh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

On Sat, 27 Jul 1996, Erle Greer wrote:

> Here's how I understand it:
>      The U.S. Government, concerned only with making America a safer place
> for us taxpayers to live in, wants to regulate domestic encryption in order
> to have access to the content of all transmissions.  Their theory is that
> any cryptosystem that is stronger than their cryptanalysis systems can be
> used in illegal transmissions and should be considered munitions.
>      Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to
> control commercially-available, public encryption systems.  Who is to stop
> anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use?  If the
> government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and
> could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered
> munitions?  Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble
> that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments
> processing time.
>      Why are we so worried about government regulation?  Can't we just
> devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly
> available?

If encryption is regulated and outlawed, then Joe Sixpack won't have access to
any none Government Approved encryption algorithms.  I may still have access
to strong crypto, but if it isn't widespread, I won't be able to use it very
effectively.  As to your question about whether random data would be outlawed,
it certainly wouldn't surprise me.  Of course, one could always apply for
permission to transmit random data that is not used to transmit encrypted
information from the government.

- -- Mark

PGP encrypted mail prefered
Key fingerprint = d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348
http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/  


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3
Charset: noconv

iQCVAwUBMfq1BbZc+sv5siulAQE8pQP/YtLpV65vtOEDhCO7DcEiOqiNEc6Y/xy8
gyN80IOH+lpKX72nZF8bK+iQUj0ho4MtyPIFEoCorO72FP0gyMDPBMgi7aBcvchS
p25TNlUsTMvCxbbrPuZ7plZNMEfrZz7vqUpOd2IbFd5mIBg0lRqWtegLeIOGV410
uguC7XNsl6I=
=P0ky
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----