FC: RSA 2000 day 2 conference report from "Ralph" (food poisoning, Congresscritters)

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Subject: side note on food
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Declan,
Be glad you aren't here ... food poisoning from the rsa conference lunch
buffet. My colleagues are floored by it, I am merely miserable. Missing
all of the soirees tonight, but if it is widespread, and I think it was,
there will be a bunch of sick folks tomorrow. My colleagues think it was
the potato salad, I had know, so I think it was that AND the regular salad
with fruit in it, which I barely tasted. No more buffets for us! Saving
self for Cryptographers Gala Wednesday night.
Ralph

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Subject: RSA 2000 day 2 conference report from "Ralph"
To: declan () well com

Declan,
1st order of business was the Washington panel, with Mr. Bidzos, RSA
CEO, as moderator. First up was Rep. Goodlatte, praising the SAFE act; he
loves the new export regs for their "global market access". Mr. Reinsch
(sp?) stated the 14 Jan regs are THE regs. He explains the 3 pillars of the
regs are for law enforcement, Privacy & export controls; his portfolio is
the export control. He stated any crypto can be exported after a tech
review (time unstated). He went on to state that there were classes of
business and retail crypto which can be exported. Further, open source VPNs
for governments must be licensed. Source code may be published on the
internet. He follows to state that they follow the Wassenauer (sp?)
Agreement. He said these regulations were very complicated.
Mr. Lee, DOJ. Stated the threats were terrorism and economic crimes; He
supports Cyberspace Enforcement Security Act (CESA); PUSHING FOR ESCROW VERY
HARD. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (sp?) mentioned her personal talks with Gebhardt,
Clinton, Gore and Pedesto as supporters ... She stated the regs "fell short
of ideal".
Mr. Bidzos stated we need competitiveness in the global market. He said the
regs were not ideal, but they were a start.
Panel Discussion:
Time frame of SAFE bill: on congressional agenda
CESA: needs a look
Digital signatures: Reinsch stated he had no idea on this issue, as it is
too close to the strong crypto topic.
***********REVELATIONS
from Goodlatte:
Government cannot match pace of technological change. Sees internet as
"challenge to sovereignty, if not dealt with quickly" [his words in quotes]
>From Lofgren:
"Congress is glacial compared to the Internet"
I must conceded the best quote to Lofgren: "there are members of congress
who think a mouse has fur and a tail"
***********
---------------------------------------------------
IBM put on an extravaganza that butchered Homer, Shakespeare and Star Wars.
A senseless cultural crime ... but it was funny, and kept our attention.
Though the Tall Blonde Female CFO should have come in to Wagner, Die
Neibilungen, Ride of the Valkyries. Product? Oh, were they selling a
product?
----------------------------------------------------
Vint Cerf, Keynote later on Tuesday.
- Opens with break the ice humor, good, practiced speaker.
- Analogies of internet with early industrial revolution and later electric
motors.
- moves through network ubiquity to devices and the growth if the internet
- internet tech overview, now to wireless future of internet enabled devices
-Security needed for public network infrastructures, corporate networks,
remote access, severs and to download software
- Proactive measures include active monitoring, strong authentication for
command and control of infrastructure, paranoid applet hotbeds, firewalls,
false alarm filters, end user to end user encrypted tunnels, OS state
transition analysis by tiger teams, firewall configuration consistency
checks, IPv6 with IPsec, NAT boxes and more.
Policy issues
- crypto and export
- digital signatures and certificates
- taxation
- intellectual property (trademarks, copyrights)
- Liability & resolution of disputes
- censorship and voluntary filtering.
He also pushed the Interplanetary Internet, nodes on earth with gateways in
space. His web site is www.wcom.com/cerfsup
Needless to say, a comparison between any of Mr. Cerf's predecessors'
presentations and his presentation is like comparing, oh, 1000 random digit
one time key pads with Caesar's substitution cipher; they are not even in
the same class.
As for the Washington panel, they live in a different world. Don't they
know cryptographers and engineers will know when smoke is being blown ....
ROFL
Disclaimer: I know that Mr. Cerf co-invented the internet, and I like his
Interplanetary Internet idea, so he is favorably received.
L8r,
Ralph

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