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In one sense, the anti-crypto forces are not yet being as crazy as they have been at certain times in the past. People often forget that the federal government
by justin66 6y ago
In one sense, the anti-crypto forces are not yet being as crazy as they have been at certain times in the past. People often forget that the federal government wanted to put Phil Zimmerman in prison over PGP in the nineties. [1]
In another sense, this is much crazier. There wasn't much at stake commercially in the nineties, but today, legislatively screwing up crypto could compromise trillions of dollars worth of commercial transactions if something goes wrong.
https://philzimmermann.com/EN/news/PRZ_case_dropped.html https://philzimmermann.com/EN/news/PRZ_case_dropped.html
- upofadown 6y agoIt's more or less the same thing. PGP was used as an example of why the Clipper chip was pointless and futile. PGP is an example of why the Earn IT act is pointless and futile. The Earn IT act is just another instance of the sort of incomplete thinking that produced the Clipper chip.
- justin66 6y agoThe point I was getting at in my second paragraph is, the consequences of screwing up everyone's cryptography today include wrecking the modern economy. This wasn't true 30 years ago.