ukcrypto digest, Vol 1 #783 - 8 msgs

[Owen Lewis]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Richard
> Clayton
> Sent: 09 July 2002 12:47
> To: UKcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: ukcrypto digest, Vol 1 #783 - 8 msgs
>
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> In article <5.1.0.14.0.20020709122826.029d9428@server1.nigelwhitfield.co
> m>, MS <ms@PyroSkin.com> writes
>
> >At 07:47 09/07/2002 +0100, you wrote:
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> > [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of James
> >> > Hammerton
> >> > Sent: 08 July 2002 15:54
> >>
> >>
> >>In the particular of your 'banning PGP' example, it does seem
> to fall at the
> >>first fence. There are no longer any restrictions on the free
> movement of
> >>unclassified cipher programs within the EU. No EU country can
> abrogate this
> >>agreement unilaterally any more than it can any other intra-EU trade
> >>agreement it has entered into.
> >
> >Oops!   The use, or even possession of, PGP or a PGP-encoded message is
> >illegal in France....
>
> not these days (or indeed since January 1999)

Quite so. And it was only illegal before that if the possession and use was
unlicensed.

Changes in law and regulation rarely lead public opinion but follow it with
a drag time of some years.

If there is any watershed in general demand to electronic encryption
systems, it must be the advent of the PC. It is the omni-presence of cheap,
small and powerful computational engines for data processing, storage and
communication that made possible the general use of cryptography. Also,
quite arguably, it was the mass adoption of such engines that in itself
created the need for a wide deployment of crypto systems.  I don't think
that people's perceptions of their security needs changed so much as did the
means by which information was communicated and stored.

Imagine how popular (and how useless for general purposes) PGP would be if,
to use it at all, one had to build an extension onto the house to garage a
Ferranti No 2. Putting to one side the large, expert service crew and the
need for a climatically controlled environment, does anyone have access to
sufficient of the specs for a No2 to calculate how long one would need to
(a) generate a 2048 bit key pair - I remember how long it used to take to
generate a 512 bit key pair on a 10MHz 286 box :-) and(b)decipher a 256Mb
file enciphered with PGP using a 2048 bit key?

Owen