Re: Encouraging News - France

I should've added to my last post that not only am I skeptical that
citizens in France will be able to use truly strong, unbreakable crypto,
but that the "encouraging news" is quite likely just the opposite.

No solution which involves key escrow or "mandatory voluntary" key recovery
is "encouraging."

The French do not have a solid basis for protection of free speech, as the
United States (mostly) does. We Americans can point to the First Amendment
and pretty much nuke any proposals to place prior restraint on the forms or
content of speech, including the languages we speak to each other in,
whether Navaho, Urdu, or PGP.

This is why so many of us are opposed to SAFE, which for the sake of eased
export requirements would infringe on domestic use of crypto. (By
felonizing crypto use in conjunction with a crime, and that crime could be
any one of thousands of crimes on the books.)

So, I doubt strongly the news out of France is "encouraging." Rather, I
expect France is about to fall into line with the OECD agreements on
escrowed encryption.

As so many Cypherpunks apparently like to say, "Feh."

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 11:25 AM 9/1/97 -0700, you wrote:
>This is why so many of us are opposed to SAFE, which for the sake of eased
>export requirements would infringe on domestic use of crypto. (By
>felonizing crypto use in conjunction with a crime, and that crime could be
>any one of thousands of crimes on the books.)

According to some article on some mailing list, SAFE appears to be dead;
the chairman of one of the relevant committees believes too strongly in
"National Security" to be willing to let it out.  On the other hand,
if it does get out, the ACLU and CDT lobbied some words into it that
would at least limit the use-a-crypto penalties to crimes that are
Federal criminal felonies, so jaywalking while using a cellphone doesn't 
get hit (unlike jaywalking while carrying an assault BBgun.)

It's still seriously wrong, of course, but at least the number of cases
that it applies to is substantially reduced, though the number of 
Federal felonies keeps increasing at an appalling rate.

If SAFE does go through, I'm sure someone will get busted for 
selling drugs while using a cellphone, with the prosecution arguing
that since the cellphone is capable of interstate phone calls,
the drug deal is a Federal crime and not just state, and therefore
the use-crypto-go-to-jail applies...

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#   (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)