ACM Technews snippets (#2)

[Steve Jenkin]

Another article appeared in the Australian IT this week on using a
patent to thwart Microsoft et al from using "Palladium" to enforce
software licences as well as music etc.

How the USA deals with crypo affects us all - especially in the open
source world.
Good to see that their citizens aren't just lying down & rolling over.


Summary:	http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item10
Article:	http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55884,00.html 

"Professor's Case: Unlock Crypto"
       Wired News (10/19/02); King, Brad 

       Professor Daniel Bernstein of the University of Illinois is
waging a court battle
       with the U.S. government to make cryptographic software code
freely available
       to the American public. In 1995, he filed suit against the State
Department,
       claiming that export laws that curtailed academic publication
violated the
       Constitution. Four years later, federal district judge Marilyn
Hall Patel ruled in
       favor of Bernstein, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld
her ruling in
       2002. The government has since loosened export technology limits,
but
       Bernstein is trying to eliminate the remaining export laws with
this latest salvo.
       The government argues that without such laws, malevolent as well
as
       benevolent parties will be able to encrypt their files. Steptoe &
Johnson lawyer
       and former National Security Agency general counsel Stewart Baker
says the
       United States would be bereft of a strategic advantage, and
claims that there is
       historical precedent. He says that America's victory in World War
II could have
       been attributable to the edge it had over Germany and Japan in
terms of
       encryption know-how. Author and security expert Bruce Schneier
says preventing
       large companies from using the technology to limit rights is the
next
       cryptography challenge. He says, "We always thought about
cryptography as
       being a tool to protect the little guy versus the big guy. It
never occurred to us
       that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would get passed."
-- 
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Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
PO Box 48, Kippax, ACT 2615
0412 786 915