IP: New Statesman on ukcrypto, 26/4/99

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Sender: nbr () popin newcastle ac uk
> Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 12:53:53 +0100
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: "Caspar Bowden" <cb () fipr org> (by way of Brian Randell)
> Subject: New Statesman on ukcrypto, 26/4/99
>
> Dave:
>
> Here's a message from the UK Crypto mailing list with the URL for, and a
> quote from, an interesting New Statesman article that mentions the mailing
> list and its impact.
>
> Cheers
>
> Brian
>
> =====.
>
> http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/199904260035.htm
>
> Editors wanted
>
> Internet by Andrew Brown
>
> ....(snip)
>
> Yet there is at least one example of a successful political campaign being
> organised on a mailing list; and this is the struggle to keep strong
> cryptography legal and widely available in this country. The web has played
> a part. The Foundation for Information Policy Research maintains a website
> at www.fipr.org which acts as a clearing house for all sorts of documents,
> including the texts of all the comments and objections submitted to the
> latest proposals for legislation. But most of the thought and co-ordination
> has been done on ukcrypto, a mailing list, the lowest form of technological
> life. There, for the past two years, the civil servants responsible for
> policy have actually been available, more or less, to the people who
> disagree with them. They have had to justify their actions not to the
> public, but to a small group of geographically dispersed experts, who may
> consult among each other between rounds. It's a kind of updated version of
> Lions v Christians; as in the original game, the audience is on the side of
> the lions, but I think the modern version is rather better for society. It's
> a way that cyberspace makes it easy to be a constructive asshole. Someone
> should enter it for the New Statesman's Internet contest, which the curious
> and determined will find on our website.