Maarten Billemont writes: "I feel there's an important implicit reference there I'm missing. What con in the 90s are you referring to?" The crypto wars of the 90s appeared to have been won, but instead were lost by misunderstanding of the deeper battlefield, and the craven patriotic nationalistic retreat from global devotion after 9/11. Dissidents became quiescent about NSA, warned of popular backlash to funding and reputation by challenging authority during crisis. Crypto and comsec promotion was curtailed, sensitive files were withdrawn, private words were whispered to "don't go too far." Protect the nation became dominant, to hell with foreigners as foreigners said to hell with the US. Music to all nationalistic spies industries Snowden's nationalism (don't harm the US) has brought nationalism back into fashion as US firms struggle to maintain global markets, not least by deploying technology funded by US spy industry, now as in the 1990s. Technology which the Snowden outlets continue to withhold, allegedly due to a pact with Snowden (withheld 97% of Guardian's claim, 99.999% of what DoD claimed). So rigged crypto is again being touted as the holy grail of comsec and privacy, by pretty much the same parties united in the 1990s by common nationalistic and economic interests cloaked in globalist market-freedom propaganda. "We have to help our spies because they help their spies steal economic secrets." 9/11 failure of spies continues to be used as a rationale for more obsequiously, subversively, secretly empowing them. Is Snowden a tool, witting or unwitting, for this, hard to say, but his claim of "encryption works" certainly has the ring of enthusiastic crypto deception of the 1990s. Ring so beloved of the legal teams fronting the "lawful interception" deception movement, then and now. Note that all the hurrah about Reset the Net embraces the notion that corporations will institute cryptographic protection subject to lawful interception, the timeless evasion of faulty security where comsec promises are never fulfilled, and only fools would believe them, for goodness sake, have you no understanding of the real world? Comsec wizards chuckle on mail lists and at industry standards settings, our industry is fundamentally cheating, lying, stealing and taking adherents for a ride, spies our principal customers. At 09:47 AM 6/7/2014, you wrote:
On Jun 7, 2014, at 8:08, John Young <jya@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > No they haven't, Jim, you know that is a con from the 1990s. > Same type of corporations pushing the deceptive scheme, > matched by "displeasure" of the spies.I feel there's an important implicit reference there I'm missing. What con in the 90s are you referring to?