Endnotes For The Computer Revolution, Encryption & True Threats to National Security


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    * G.A. (Jay) Keyworth, II, is chairman of The Progress & Freedom Foundation. He served as Science Advisor to President Reagan, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and as a member of the National Security Council.

    David Colton, Esq., is an adjunct fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation and a telecommunications attorney.


    1For banks and other institutions, the government has in the past permitted selective exceptions using 56 bit keys.

    2To export more powerfulencryption products of 64 bit length, U.S. industry must use a Government-approved escrow process. Although there have been no formal limits on what technology is available for domestic use, the Administration seeks to u se export controls to limit domestic technologies by skewing economies of scale and incentive.

    3Achieving Privacy, Commerce, Security and Public Safety In the Global Information Infrastructure (May 21, 1995).

    4An alternative, for example, would have been to station a cavalry soldier at every milepost and start taking depositions every time a steer wandered into a pasture. In the absence of expanding use of encryption technology, the enforcement of i ntellectual property rights in the future will be approximately this efficient.

    5J.A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles: A Theoretical Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process 69 (1939).

    6Trusted Information Systems, Inc., Worldwide Survey of Cryptographic Products (December 1995). A survey conducted by the Commerce Department confirms the widespread availability of foreign encryption technologies.

    7Morgan Stanley, The Internet Report (1996).

    8Management Advisory Group, The Impact of Export Control Policy on U.S. Competitiveness (december 1995).

    9Siwek & Mikkelsen, U.S. Software Industry Trends, 1987-1994: A 20th Century Business Success Story (1996) (noting that in 1994, for example, the U.S. exported $26.3 billion in software, more than double the $21.3 billion for telecommuni cations equipment).