Wired article about Wassenaar and Gilc

[Rigo Wenning <wenning2@rz.uni-sb.de>]

FYI, FITUG is a member of GILC

Rigo


>Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:50:08 +0200
>From: "Felipe Rodriquez" <felipe@xs4all.nl>
>Subject: Wired article about Wassenaar and Gilc
>To: "Gilc-Plan@Gilc. Org" <gilc-plan@gilc.org>,
>        "Efa-Board@Efa. Org. Au" <efa-board@efa.org.au>,
>        "Db-Nl@Dds. Nl" <db-nl@dds.nl>
>Reply-To: gilc-plan@gilc.org
>
>see http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/15478.html
>
>Crypto in the Arms Trade
>by Chris Jones
>
>2:50 p.m.  7.Oct.98.PDT
>Is encryption technology a weapon?
>This is the fundamental question that will be debated later this year
>when a coalition of countries meet to review the Wassenaar
>Arrangement, an international agreement governing the proliferation of
>military technology.
>
>The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is
>holding a conference this week in Ottawa to create policies and
>guidelines for a global electronic-commerce system. Since many OECD
>members are also signatories to the Wassenaar Arrangement, this week's
>policy decisions regarding encryption are likely to influence the
>upcoming Wassenaar negotiations, according to David Banisar, staff
>attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
>
>In preparation for the two meetings, privacy advocates are urging the
>OECD and Wassenaar sponsors to adopt less restrictive policies on the
>use of encryption software worldwide.
>
>Members of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign argue that
>cryptographic ciphers, essentially complex mathematical equations,
>should no longer be treated as a risk to global stability. A GILC
>statement issued last month to the 33 participating states of the
>Wassenaar Arrangement calls for the removal of encryption export
>restrictions from future revisions.
>
>"It is true that crypto used to be an esoteric field really only of
>interest to military and spy agencies," said David Jones, director of
>the Electronic Frontier Canada. "[But] all of that is changing now as
>people correspond over great distances through the Internet and their
>personal communications are traveling through God knows what
>computers."
>
>Negotiations on the Wassenaar Arrangement are expected to take place
>in Vienna before the end of the year. But since US security and
>intelligence agencies have considerable influence at both the OECD and
>Wassenaar meetings, observers said that ultimately the encryption
>debate could be a non-issue.
>
>"It's clear to me that the administration continues to follow a policy
>that hampers the development of strong cryptograph ... rather than
>protecting human rights internationally, it hurts [the cause]," said
>Susan Landau, co-author of Privacy on the Line: The Politics of
>Wiretapping and Encryption.
>
>The participating states of the Wassenaar Arrangement are Argentina,
>Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic,
>Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy,
>Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
>Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic,
>Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United
>States.
>
>---
>Felipe Rodriquez  -  felipe@xs4all.nl
>+31-20-6223337 fax/vmail
>+61-2-94750096 fax/vmail
>
>
>
>
>