At 04:21 PM 9/14/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>I guess we agree mostly, but you also stated this: "If a law against
>cyrptography will not stop the bad guys from using it..."
>
>This "if" is what I have trouble either accepting or refuting.  I just don't
>know.

Has the current, years-old US ban on exporting US invented, strong
cryptography technology prevented it from getting into the hands of
terrorists or terrorists states?  No.  Why?  Unless the all the current
possessors of a technology restrict it, it will not remain restricted.

Several years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed a great many
mathmeticians and programmers were out of work.  They were finding very
good income by writing strong crypto for all the countries, including "bad"
ones, that could not get strong crypto from the US.

>  But I am not by any means convinced that laws plus enforcement plus
>pressure on countries such as Germany fail to hinder criminals.

Hinder?  Well I supose it might slow them down only long enough to realize
they have to go to all the other possible sources for the tools they want.
That only means "dialing a different number" to connect to the right
source.  "Oh, I can't call any western countries to get my encryption.
I'll just call China (or Russia or North Korea or Iran or India or any
other country with some educated people)."

Yes, you want to restrict this discussion to just limits within the US.  It
cannot be restricted in such a way.  Strong crypto programs written in
Russia or Afganistan do not stop working with the terrorists get to our
soil.  This is the key reason restrictions here will not solve the problem.
 We don't have a monopoly on the know-how so we cannot stop it from being
supplied from elsewhere.

Alan

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|Alan Dayley             www.adtron.com
|Software Engineer       602-735-0300 x331
|ADayley@adtron.com
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