On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, James A. Donald wrote:
>A number of countries, notably the Soviet Union, have outlawed crypto
>without much apparent effect.
In Russia that could be because now they cannot even collect taxes
effectively. If we consider the former Soviet Union, the foremost point
about steering of resources in a centralized society applies: the goals
perceived as primary tend to receive more than their fair share of
attention, while the "secondary" ones wither and die. When there still was a
Soviet economy, crypto was a non-issue, and hardly received notable
attention outside the intelligence community. And now that the SU has
collapsed, the number of *real* problems far outweighs Crypto and the Gang.
Besides, to date crypto simply hasn't been so significant a threat. Once
it's touted as the number one threat to the organized society (i.e. the only
reason there is drug trade, kiddy porn, terrorism, AP, whatever), this is
bound to change. Plus, it was only a couple of years ago when online
communication became relevant to the majority of Western people, and
computational capacity reached a level to allow comprehensive Big Brother
monitoring of transport data.
Even if the last five years have been sort of slow on the list, it doesn't
mean the world hasn't changed.
What I'm really saying is, if one is an advocate of anonymity, one now has
to plan for a climate where protocols cannot be widely published, all secure
communications have to be deniable as well, crypto advocacy is no longer
perceived as an eccentricity, but a threat comparable to terrorism, and all
public communication can be monitored and at the very least partially
analyzed.
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], gsm: +358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
