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Re: More restrictive controls on cryptography proposed in US Senate
Albert, you are right, this is a big danger. Jeff, Mark, read this!!!
> Senator Grassley has proposed a bill S974 "The Anti-Electronic Racketeering
> Act":
We should suggest it renamed "The Racketeering Anti-Electronic Act"!!
>
> >S974 prohibits the distribution of "computer software that encodes or
> >encrypts electronic or digital communications to computer networks that
> >the person distributing the software knows or reasonably should know,
> >is accessible to foreign nationals and foreign governments,
> >regardless of whether such software has been designated as
> >nonexportable".
> [...]
This should be prevented. Mark, I trust you to get this message in IBM and
CSPP. Jeff, I suggest we discuss this in the SAAG and make IETF position
known to all relevant bodies including the press (whatever that position would
be :-)
(I admit; this is so crazy that probably it wouldn't pass anyway, I mean,
these people do _think_ about the bills, right? Umm... I guess maybe we should
still do something...)
> >There is an important exception though. S974 allows distribution if
> >the software contains a "universal decoding device". It is assumed that
> >key escrow schemes such the now-infamous "Clipper Chip" are the target of
> >this statement.
Oh, wonderful, such a surprise exception!!
>
> The material above is taken from the "Voters Telecommunication Watch"
> analysis. (I got the first announcement in VTW BillWatch Issue #9, Date:
> Sat Jul 15) For the full text of the bill Email: vtw@vtw.org with "send
> s974" in the subject line. (For general VTW info see:
> http://www.panix.com/vtw/exon)
>
> It appears that the bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee and action
> is not imminent, but it seems this bears watching as it could have an
> extremely adverse effect on electronic commerce and network security. One
You bet!
> might read it to outlaw international use of any kind of cryptography
> without Clipper-like holes: i.e. the encryption functions of PGP, SSL,
> SHTTP, etc.
>
best, Amir