re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption in article qmugcinnpu gap caltech edu hal cco caltech edu hal finney writes the key question is whether non clipper encryption will be made illegal the administration is not saying since encryption threatens the public safety and effective law enforcement we will prohibit it outright as some countries have effectively done nor is the u s saying that every american as a matter of right is entitled to an unbreakable commercial encryption product there is a false tension created in the assessment that this issue is an either or proposition rather both concerns can be and in fact are harmoniously balanced through a reasoned balanced approach such as is proposed with the clipper chip and similar encryption techniques the clear middle ground implied by these statements is to say that americans have the right to clipper encryption but not to unbreakable encryption this implies that ultimately non clipper strong encryption must become illegal text deleted no value judgement implied it s shocking and frightening to see that this is actually happening here hal finney hal alumni caltech edu more than shocking what this says to me is no less than that government is very interested in monitoring the public this does more than scare me it mortifies me pgp and ripem must become widespread enough to resist what mr finney has imho correctly identified as the next logical step what was once an academic discussion with regard to concealing cyphertext has now become a real consideration the rhetoric that the clinton administration seems obsessed with harmony either or propositions tension tells me that they know how difficult it will be to sell this proposition the phrase i hear more and more is i can t believe this is actually happening here call me conserative clinton was a huge mistake that we ll all be paying for tommorow and many years from now have we approached the age of speakeasy public key depositiories uni dark uni acs bu edu public keys by finger and or request public key archives at pgp public keys junkbox cc iastate edu sovereignty is the sign of a brutal past
