Fun_People Archive
25 Dec
QOTD: Bobby Inman on government cryptographic restrictions

Date: Sat, 25 Dec 93 13:35:49 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: QOTD: Bobby Inman on government cryptographic restrictions

 From: vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU!bostic (Keith Bostic)

Society has recognized over time that certain kinds of scientific inquiry
can endanger society as a whole and has applied either directly, or through
scientific/ethical constraints, restrictions on the kind and amount of
research that can be done in those areas.

        -- Adm. Bobby R. Inman in a February, 1982 article for _Aviation
           Week and Space Technology_ on why cryptographic research
           should be limited to government scientists.  Full text of this
           article is available for anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org as
           pub/EFF/Policy/Crypto/inman.article.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

To paraphrase The Guardian, America is a funny place -- people
can build neutron bombs, but they can't encrypt their email.

© 1993 Peter Langston