Re: Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called for a global prohibition on encryption

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Sep 14 2001 - 08:16:08 MDT


On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 06:56:58AM -0700, Robert Coyote wrote:
> The "bad guys" already have the encryption they need, do you think they will
> jts say "oh shucks ok well use the one wiht the backdoor in it " the only
> ppl that will be effected by this are ppl who desire to obey the law

Exactly, and this is of course obvious to anybody with half a brain
transplant. But in the current climate, getting this kind of legislation
through is far easier. Critics can be silenced by variants of exclaiming
"So you EFF guys want Bin Laden to be able to plot the death of american
innocents in peace?!". Also remember that it is supported not just by
the intelligence community but also by the content providers (since once
you have legislated one mandatory hardware/software regulation, the
related copyright protection systems would be easy to add on).

The situation is fluid right now, make use of it and try to steer the
politicians away from making too many dangerous laws in the US. It would
be sad if it was Bin Laden who managed to make Linux illegal.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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