Wired reports at
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34376,00.html:
> ARLINGTON, Virginia -- Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky pressed
> China Wednesday to abandon its restrictions on encryption technology,
> which curb sales of everything from software to mobile phones.
>
> Under regulations that took effect last month, all foreign and Chinese
> companies or individuals using encryption technology, which protects
> electronic communication from eavesdropping, must register with the
> government.
>
> "It's going to have to change," Barshefsky told business executives in
> a forum on U.S.-China trade relations in Arlington.
>
> She said her U.S. negotiators have repeatedly pressed China authorities
> to reform these rules and also dismissed Chinese efforts to restrict
> information over the Internet as futile.
This should be an excellent antidote to the ravings of paranoids and
conspiracy freaks. The United States is now leading the world towards
ELIMINATING restrictions on cryptography! Given these policies, it
will be politically impossible for the U.S. to put domestic restrictions
into place.
Folks, the crypto war is being won, slowly but surely. For years
doomsayers have predicted the eventual criminalization of crypto usage.
But the actual trends have consistently been in the opposite direction.
It is time for the pessimists to take off their crap-colored glasses and
see the world for what it is. The cypherpunk movement has been tainted
for too many years by naysayers and downright nutcases whose paranoid
conspiracy fantasies have twisted their view of reality. Last year's
absurd descent into Y2K fearmongering was the sad culmination of this
trend.
Let us look to a future with free access to cryptography. How do the
political battles play out? The U.S. is still demanding increasing
supervision of the international financial system. The e-gold.com
startup is so terrified of legal action that they are taking on a
Big Brother role themselves, proactively freezing and shutting down
accounts if they have any suspicion of illicit activity. (Of course,
their actions are being taken behind the scenes as much as possible.)
What are the prospects for true financial privacy through cryptography,
given the current legal and regulatory system? What are the missing
pieces of the puzzle, what code is needed to take the next step into
the future originally envisioned by cypherpunks?
