Still more coverage of the bad news (Wired)

White House Wins Crypto Vote
by Rebecca Vesely

2:57pm  19.Jun.97.PDT Just one day after a joint university-corporate
team cracked the government's standard 56-bit encryption code, the
Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday approved a bill that would write
into law the current Clinton administration limits on crypto exports
involving software stronger than 56 bits.

"This is the height of irony," said Robert Holleyman, president of the
Business Software Alliance, an industry lobbying group that has
expressed a strong preference for rival legislation that scraps the
export limits. Holleyman said the committee "went ahead and voted
without having a clear understanding of the issue."

In addition to the restrictive export provisions, the Secure Public
Networks Act would also set up a system of domestic key recovery. The
bill is co-sponsored by Senators Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska), John McCain
(R-Arizona), Ernest Hollings (D-South Carolina), and John Kerry
(D-Massachusetts)

"Privacy and security will not be achieved with this head-in-the-sand
approach," Jerry Berman, executive director for the Center for
Democracy and Technology, said after the committee vote. Berman cited
a recent study by 11 encryption experts that a federal - or global -
key recovery system is unreliable and unfeasible. "The key recovery
concept is vaporware," he said.

In response to that study, one of five amendments to the bill accepted
by the Commerce Committee called for the National Institute of
Standards and Technology to study the feasibility of creating such a
vast system of storing data on virtually every person involved in
electronic transactions.

An amendment introduced by Kerry would create an advisory board on
encryption export, made up of four government officials - from the
FBI, CIA, National Security Council, and the Office of the President -
and four industry representatives. The board would advise the
president on changing technologies and to decide whether and when to
change crypto-export policy.

"It would guarantee rapidly that we will not be disadvantaged in the
market," Kerry said.

But at least one senator on the committee was not so sure.

"Let's deal with the reality of the business world," said Senator
Conrad Burns (R-Montana), whose own data legislation, Pro-CODE, though
widely supported by the high-tech industry and privacy groups, has
been swept aside by the new bill. "You're going to be a day late and a
dollar short."

And Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi expressed
concerns over the McCain/Kerry bill, saying that he doesn't think "we
let this percolate quite enough."

Industry leaders said after the committee meeting that the idea of
such an advisory panel showed how out of touch the government can be
with the business world.

"Who are we kidding?" asked John Scheibel, vice president and general
counsel for the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Last
month, Scheibel, noted, Sun Microsystems announced a deal for overseas
marketing of encryption software made by a Russian firm because of
administration export controls.

The confusion among legislators over high-tech issues such as
encryption became clear when, bizarrely, some senators started
referring to the issue of online pornography in conjunction with
encryption policy.

"I think Senator Burns' bill is the freest approach for us to compete
on the open marketplace, but I do want to protect our children from
pornography," Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) told the
committee. McCain, who is chairman of the Commerce Committee, agreed.
"I must do what I can to protect people from child pornography and
illegal gambling" on the Internet, he said.

But it was perhaps Senator John Ashcroft (R-Missouri) who made the
connection between safeguarding electronic commercial transactions
from prying eyes and shielding children from porn on the Net most
plausible: "We're not going to outlaw photography because someone
takes dirty pictures. People use it for good things and bad things -
and it's the same with encryption." 

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