The Cryptowars: A short history of encryption politics

Technology Pill

Welcome to the last of our short series on encryption. This week we're just talking amongst ourselves, luckily Gus is an expert on encryption - having been working in and around the encryption debate since the '90s.

Links

- Read more about PI's work on encryption here: ⁠privacyinternational.org/learn/encryption⁠

- Matt Blaze and crypto.com: theverge.com/2018/7/6/17540818/crypto-com-domain-matt-blaze-monaco-mco-cryptology-sale; you can now find Matt at mattblaze.org

- More about ITAR and the export of cryptography: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States

- More about France's ban on encryption ending in this 1999 article from the Register: theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/

- More about the Data Encryption Standard: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

- Find out more about the Clipper Chip: gizmodo.com/life-and-death-of-clipper-chip-encryption-backdoors-att-1850177832

- Or take a look at this NY Times article from 1994 (paywalled): nytimes.com/1994/06/12/magazine/battle-of-the-clipper-chip.html

- Matt Blaze's flaw in the Clipper Chip: wired.com/1994/09/clipping-clipper-matt-blaze/

- NSA Data Center: wired.com/2012/03/ff-nsadatacenter/

- NSA holding data: nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html

- An old website that helped you sign up to be an Arms Trafficker: http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/

- Here's some of the RSA illegal tattoos: http://www.geekytattoos.com/illegal-tattoos-rsa-tattoos/

- Phil Zimmerman's release of PGP: mit.edu/~prz/EN/essays/BookPreface.html

- A documentary on this topic: reason.com/video/2020/10/21/cryptowars-gilmore-zimmermann-cryptography/

- The Reply All episode on Minitel: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/8whoda