The Cryptowars: A short history of encryption politics

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