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Date: 1999-01-14

Krypto: Das Treffen in Cupertino


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Das kalifornische Cupertino, Heimstatt aller bonbonfarbenen
Computer, steht morgen, Freitag, im Zeichen eines raren
semi-offiziellen Events. PECSENC, das Beraterkomitee des
US-Präsidenten in Sachen Krypto wird sich der Cypherpunk-
Gemeinde stellen. Vom EX-NSA Berater Stewart Baker
angefangen - dem p.t. Publikum durch zwei Kurzinterviews
für q/depesche eventuell bekannt - über John Gilmore (GNU)
bis zum gleichnamigen Entdecker des Elgamal-Algorithmus
wird alles dort vertreten sein, was Rang & Namen hat.
Ein Hauptthema: der ewige junge Wassenaar-Vertrag.

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John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
PECSENC is a hard-to-parse acronym for the President's
Export Council, Subcommittee on Encryption. The Council
is a group of assorted citizens appointed by the President of
the US under Executive Order 12991 to advise him on US
trade issues. Since crypto policy is so complex and painful,
they pushed it into a subcommittee of its own. That
subcommittee is meeting this Friday at HP in Cupertino.
They usually meet on the East Coast, far from most people
affected by the crypto regulations, so I thought it would be
friendly of us to show up and welcome them to Silicon Valley.

I will be speaking at the meeting about the Wassenaar
Arrangement, but that isn't why you should come. You
should come because this is one of the few public fora in
which government and selected citizens actually discuss
crypto policy. Officially, and to advise the President.

They faxed me 6 pages of maps and directions, but it all
boils down to: Take I-280 to Cupertino, exit on Wolfe Road
going north/east, turn right at the second light on Pruneridge
Ave, turn left at the first light into the HP complex, go 200
feet and turn right at the "T" intersection, and follow to the
last building on the left, Building 46. Park in the visitor lot in
front, register at the reception desk and get a badge. The
room can hold about 60 people (of which about 30 will be
PECSENC and invited speakers.)

There won't be an opportunity to rant, like there was a few
years ago when the National Research Council invited public
comments at the CFP conference. (Perhaps they'll set one
up for a future meeting -- I think it would be informative for
them.) But it's a chance to see the alice-in-wonderland
workings of the government as they try to manipulate a
supposedly independent advisory group into overlooking the
emperor's nudity. We may get a chance to make a few
short, polite comments, though they've arranged the agenda
so the public gets to comment *before* the government or the
subcommittee says anything worth commenting about.

Some of the people on the subcommittee should be well
known to cypherpunks:

Stewart Baker, lawyer, ex-General Counsel of NSA, GAK
cheerleader Kevin McCurley, cryptographer, IBM
Research, President of IACR (IACR was established by
Diffie, Chaum, Rivest, etc in the '70s to protect and
foster crypto research -- www.iacr.org) Esther Dyson,
business philosopher & author, EFF, ICANN Interim Chair
John Liebman, lawyer, author of major export control law
tome (I'm leaving out ten or twenty people, mostly
because the list isn't published anywhere online that I can
find)

As part of their role in "supporting" the subcommittee's work,
the government has published the driest and least fun-looking
"Notice of Open Meeting" that the law will let them get away
with: http://www.bxa.doc.gov/tacs/PECSENCMtg.html
However there is a juicier agenda which I received as a
speaker:

We have revised the schedule in light of certain timing
constraints. So, please note that the private sector
discussion of Wassenaar will take place in the afternoon. In
addition to John Gilmore, PECSENC member Ira Rubenstein
will address this topic. (Lynn McNulty of RSA has been
asked to offer remarks on RSA's experiences, too.) Also,
Whit Diffie will let us know shortly whether he will speak
before the group.

Here is the updated agenda:

President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption
January 15, 1998 Pacific Ocean Room, Bldg. 46 19447
Pruneridge Avenue Cupertino, California 95014

9:00 Opening Comments/ Stewart Baker, Acting
PECSENC Chairman Discussion of List Server/
PECSENC's Role

9:45 Public Comments

10:00 BXA Update William A. Reinsch Under
Secretary for Export Administration

10:30 Congressional Presentation Representative Zoe
Lofgren

11:00 Briefings The Wassenaar Arrangement and
Ambassador Aaron's Initiatives James A.
Lewis, Director Office of Strategic Trade and
Foreign Policy Controls Bureau of Export
Administration (BXA) Michelle O'Neill
Executive Director to Ambassador David Aaron
International Trade Administration (ITA)

12:00 Lunch for Members

1:15 Briefings Private Sector Perspective on the
Wassenaar Arrangement John Gilmore, Co-
Founder, EFF Ira Rubenstein, Senior Corporate
Attorney, Microsoft

2:00 Foreign Availability of Encryption Technology
Kevin McCurley, Ph.D., IBM

2:30 What's New In Commercial Crypto
Dr. Taher Elgamal, CEO, Securify, Inc. Dr. John
Atalla, Chairman, Tristrata, Inc.

4:00 Adjourn

I encourage anyone from the Bay Area crypto community
who cares about export controls on crypto to come observe
the meeting, and participate in the discussions in the
hallways. Like attending hearings of the Bernstein case,
open your costume box and pull out the business drag (suits
& whatever businesswomen enjoy wearing these days). Our
role will be less to inform the meeting of anything in
particular, and more to inform them by our quiet presence
that lots of significant people care to watch exactly what
they're doing with our civil rights.

After watching how it operates and thinking for a bit, you
might have some informed suggestions for the
subcommittee, which can be sent to them by email. As
Thomas Pynchon said, "If they can get you to ask the wrong
questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." The
Commerce Dept may have been all too successful at getting
the subcommittee to focus on the wrong questions. (E.g.
before the DES Cracker announcement, they were debating
whether to ask the President to decontrol DES -- a useless
and counterproductive action which of course the government
has just done.) Just as the cypherpunks came up with some
great questions to inform the Clipper debate, I'm sure we can
come up with some meaty questions for the subcommittee to
chew on, rather than the pap the gov't feeds them.

If you have any further questions about PECSENC or the
meeting, please contact:

Jason Gomberg Encryption Policy Controls Division
Bureau of Export Administration +1 202 482 1368
<JGOMBERG@bxa.doc.gov>

I hope to see you-all there.

John Gilmore, Electronic Frontier Foundation

PS: Also, don't forget the cypherpunks meeting the following
day, in rooms B1-B2 of the San Jose Convention Center,
noon-6PM, Saturday 16Jan99.

relayed by
Robert A. Hettinga
http://www.philodox.com
via Miki San
http://www.gis.at/




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edited by Harkank
published on: 1999-01-14
comments to office@quintessenz.at
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