Re: tlug: 128 bit encryption

[Christopher Sekiya <wileyc@example.com>]

On Mon, 15 Jun 1998 craigoda@example.com wrote:

> Out of technical curiousity, is it possible to download the 128bit encryption
> Netscape from their site with Lynx?

lynx-2.7.1 doesn't work ... the Netscape server doesn't grok the data
posted from the ITAR-compliance page.  Perhaps 2.8 works.

> I'm still kind of curious as to why the U.S. has this law when it forces
> encryption stuff to be developed in Australia, Europe, and other places.

The US government equated strong (i.e., not easily broken by various
alphabet-soup agencies) crypto with munitions.  One wouldn't want one's
enemies (or even allies) to have crypto that one's intelligence services
couldn't break just as one wouldn't want to give one's enemies (or even
allies) the Bomb[1].

That was the party line for about ten years.  Once the ITAR restriction
began to be ridiculed for the very reason that you pointed out above, the
feds changed the slant somewhat.  Now it's "we have a very good reason for
this policy, but you aren't cleared to know what it is".

There's a "briefing" jointly delivered by the NSA and the FBI that
supposedly converts staunch anti-ITAR/pro-crypto advocates into
pro-ITAR/anti-crypto advocates[2].  I don't know anyone who has endured
this briefing, so I can't comment on their reasoning.

--	Chris (wileyc@example.com)

[1] I think that the US did in fact share its single-stage fission
    technology with the UK, but I may be mistaken.  I'm very sure that
    multi-stage was _not_ shared with anyone.

[2] Dorothy Denning received this briefing.  Nasty about-face.

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