David Conrad wrote:
>> 5. The Federal Government attaches importance to international
>> cooperation on encryption policy. It encourages market-driven,
>> open standards and interoperable systems and will work to
>> strengthen multilateral and bilateral cooperation.
>
>Does this mean the German government will not allow export of strong
>crypto developed within Germany?
My reading of the full statement, via Babelfish, is that Germany will
abide the Wassenaar Arrangement export controls on encryption but
will work to loosen them in concert with other signators.
This is not a novel, for there are several countries which claim to hold
the same position -- Denmark, Sweden, others -- but have not been
able heretofore to budge the US-dominated members -- which, ta da,
turn out to be those 2nd and 3rd tier members of UKUSA.
So, while Echelon-favoritism may eventually fracture Wassenaar,
it could also turn out that the whole gang of 33 will be seduced by those
special upper tier membership privileges of real-time access.
As someone working on an Echelon story asked elsewhere, just what
strength of crypto can NSA crack these days.
