re an open letter to mr clinton in article strnlghtc m cv hx netcom com sci crypt strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes here s a simple way to convert the clipper proposal to an unexceptionable one make it voluntary that is you get high quality secure nsa classified technology if you agree to escrow your key otherwise you are on your own david as an economist i m sure you can see the flaws in this logic if the naive market is flooded with proprietary but weak encryption then truly strong encryption will be unable to compete suppose the govt had a secret tv broadcast standard and then sold tvs below cost private industry has a better standard but it s not as widespread due to the govt early flooding of the market with cheap proprietary sets even though the industry s technology is better the programming is being broadcast to the govt s unduplicatable standard who could compete the other flaw of course is that making something voluntary today ensures that it will be voluntary in the future i went to renew my ca drivers license last week and was required not only to give my ssn but to produce an ssn card to veryify the number note that a federal law once said that no state or local govt could ever require the use of ssns for drivers license registration specifically i do not trust the govt that says trust me on this even though we could have an arrangement that doesn t require your trust something is big time fishy if you look more carefully you ll see it mel mel beckman internet mbeckman mbeckman com beckman software engineering compuserve ventura ca voice fax you can observe a lot just by watching yogi bera
