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List:       security-basics
Subject:    strong encryption -- can/should governments "allow" it?
From:       "Nil Fiat" <knowfaith () allofyourgodsaredead ! com>
Date:       2002-04-30 14:13:04
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IMO:  Most politicians, world leaders and corporate executives are 
less moral, less trustworthy, less 'nice' and less likely to obey 
the law than most citizens.  Therefore, if any restrictions on 
encryption should be in place, they should be the other way 
around:  Governments shouldn't be allowed to have encryption the 
citizenry can't break.  So there.

FYI:  K.W. Jeter wrote this great little story called "Farewell 
Horizontal".  It takes place in the way future, where people don't 
worry at all about the government/big corporations (same thing, 
even just a little bit in the future!) having all this ultra-
spiffy encryption and data security, because they figure "the 
hackers" can always break it and the information will get out if 
it needs to.  Of course, as the narrator points out, the myth of 
the 'hackers' dates from long ago (our time), when the controls on 
information were shoddy and encryption was new; in his time, 
there's no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that anybody could ever 
crack those information stores...And he figures the population 
might be quite upset about it, but the media does such a good job 
of keeping the 'hackers can break it' myth alive...*lolol*  
Something to think about.  Good luck with your paper!

-ST 

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