Re[4]: VerSecure - "strong encryption" exportable from t

[Brian Gladman]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stewart Baker <sbaker@steptoe.com>
To: ukcrypto <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>; ukcrypto
<ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Date: 01 March 1998 23:48
Subject: Re[4]: VerSecure - "strong encryption" exportable from t


>
>Brian's response strikes me as overwrought.  HP and everyone else who sells
>crypto hardware faces a market where there are many countries with controls
and
>many without, and several that seem to be moving from one status to the
other,
>or otherwise changing policy.  Making many different products that can't
>interoperate is possible, of course, but not exactly what made the PC
market
>take off.

But this is not the issue, I am not against what HP are doing in technical
terms as I made clear. My question is a simple one - In those countries
where there are no domestic controls on cryptography, is it right that HP
should offer governments just such controls?

You clearly believe it is and I respect your right to hold this view but I
do not share it - in my view such actions take us down the slippery slope
towards an authoritarian state.

As I said, I hope that this is not what is happening and I now await a
public statement from HP to clarify their intentions in respect of the
control of this technology as applied within the domestic crypto market in
the UK.  Rest assured that I wil be delighted to find that they have got
this right since I think they will suffer dearly for the oversight if they
have not.

      Brian