11.17.1. USPS involvement in electronic mail, signatures,
authentication (proposed in July-August, 1994)
+ Advantages:
- many locations
- a mission already oriented toward delivery
+ Disadvantages:
- has performed terribly, compared to allowed compettion
(Federal Express, UPS, Airborne, etc.)
- it's linked to the goverment (now quasi-independent, but
not really)
- could become mandatory, or competition restricted to
certain niches (as with the package services, which
cannot have "routes" and are not allowed to compete in
the cheap letter regime)
- a large and stultified bureaucracy, with union labor
- Links to other programs (software key escrow, Digital
Telephony) not clear, but it seems likely that a quasi-
governemt agency like the USPS would be cooperative with
government, and would place limits on the crypto systems
allowed.
11.17.2. the death threats
+ An NSA official threatened to have Jim Bidzos killed if he
did not change his position on some negotiation underway.
This was reported in the newspaper and I sought
confirmation:
- "Everything reported in the Merc News is true. I am
certain that he wasnot speaking for the agency, but when
it happened he was quite serious, at least appeared to
be. There was a long silence after he made the threat,
with a staring contest. He was quite intense.
"I respect and trust the other two who were in the room
(they were shocked and literally speechless, staring into
their laps) and plan to ask NSA for a written apology and
confirmation that he was not speaking for the agency.
We'll see if I get it. If the incident made it into
their trip reports, I have a chance of getting a letter."
[jim@RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos), personal communication, posted
with permission to talk.politics.crypto, 1994-06-28]
11.17.3. False identities...cannot just be "erased" from the computer
memory banks. The web of associations, implications, rule
firings...all mean that simple removal (or insertion of a
false identity) produces discontinuities, illogical
developments, holes...history is not easily changed.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind