Times story

[Ian Brown]

Good feature in the Interface section of today's Times... A few
excerpts:

> The chances of governmental success are slim. Some would say they have
> already failed because uncontrolled high-level cryptography is easily
> available from the public domain. There is some evidence to show that
> restricting the export of cryptographic software has slowed its commercial
> use, but as the people who are using these packages are not talking about
> it, it would be virtually impossible to make an informed comment. The
> Government can control the legitimate and law-abiding companies who wish to
> use cryptography to protect their assets and their customers' privacy, but
> it will be impossible to control the criminals, who will simply do as they
> please.

> Governments worldwide are concerned that terrorist groups could use
> encryption to defeat the efforts of law enforcement agencies. Certain
> terrorist groups are, indeed, becoming increasingly proficient in the use
> of computer technology; but it is hardly likely that an active terrorist
> group would place its cryptographic keys in the hands of a government
> escrow service.

> Restrictions on the export of cryptographic software are also working
> from a false premise. Given time, freely available information and a
> reasonably skilled programmer, any terrorist organisation could develop its
> own implementation of commonly used cryptographic algorithms without the
> need to conform to government regulations.