At 08:42 PM 5/12/97 +0000, you wrote:
<snip>

So, perhaps we will never need to see the "Corporate Takeover" of the
>Chomsky list, since email can be legally intercepted, if we take
>that precedent seriously. What can save us is PGP encryption. I don't
>use it, and I suppose I should. But that would prevent even the CIA
>from reading our posts for quite a while. That's why PGP is illegal
>in the US (but who in God's Earth is going to stop you?)
>
>Paul King

A small correction. PGP is not illegal in the US. What is illegal is
exporting cryptographic software, or code that exceeds a certain bit length
because the government classes that as munitions. It is not illegal to use
PGP, it is not illegal to send messages outside the US encoded with PGP. In
terms of actual effect on world users this means diddley-squat...actually,
it just means that European companies can market world-wide what US
companies are foridden to sell outside their own borders. As one
cryptography company in the US quipped, US govt. policy on the subject
seems to be "export jobs, not cryptography".

In the long term, it's possible that the government would wish to make
illegal any cryptography that they don't have the key to (the clipper chip
nonsense), but it is not clear that this will succeed.

It isn't paranoia to be worried about privacy violation and email. The
often used comparison is it's like sending everything on a postcard. In
fact, it's worse. It's like postcards that can be selected to be read by
the words that they contain.

I really recommend that interested people read the Computer Privacy
Handbook by Andre Bacard.

Having access to strong cryptography is a small thing in certain ways, but
it is a way to draw your own line in the sand. I believe in it, though that
sounds goofy. The following list is a list of weblinks with information
regarding PGP, Private Idaho, and mixmaster remailers.

http://www.systemics.com/software/
http://www.fatmans.demon.co.uk/crypt/
htt
p://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/ICAMS/people/jon/cyphernomicon/cp_faq.html
http://h
ome.earthlink.net/~cybermule/wherepgp.htm
http://www.ifi.uio.no/~staalesc/PG
P/
http://www.lila.com/nautilus/
http://www.pgp.com/
http://www.privacyright
s.org/
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/privacy-compcon97-www/privacy-html.ht
ml
http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/pi.html
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/rem
ailer-list.html

FWIW
Cheryl Gilbert
Cheryl Gilbert
[log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9519/
...........................................
Official history is believing the murderers at their word.
        --Simone Weil