11.17.1. USPS involvement in electronic mail, signatures, authentication (proposed in July-August, 1994) + Advantages: - many locations - a mission already oriented toward delivery + Disadvantages: - has performed terribly, compared to allowed compettion (Federal Express, UPS, Airborne, etc.) - it's linked to the goverment (now quasi-independent, but not really) - could become mandatory, or competition restricted to certain niches (as with the package services, which cannot have "routes" and are not allowed to compete in the cheap letter regime) - a large and stultified bureaucracy, with union labor - Links to other programs (software key escrow, Digital Telephony) not clear, but it seems likely that a quasi- governemt agency like the USPS would be cooperative with government, and would place limits on the crypto systems allowed. 11.17.2. the death threats + An NSA official threatened to have Jim Bidzos killed if he did not change his position on some negotiation underway. This was reported in the newspaper and I sought confirmation: - "Everything reported in the Merc News is true. I am certain that he wasnot speaking for the agency, but when it happened he was quite serious, at least appeared to be. There was a long silence after he made the threat, with a staring contest. He was quite intense. "I respect and trust the other two who were in the room (they were shocked and literally speechless, staring into their laps) and plan to ask NSA for a written apology and confirmation that he was not speaking for the agency. We'll see if I get it. If the incident made it into their trip reports, I have a chance of getting a letter." [jim@RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos), personal communication, posted with permission to talk.politics.crypto, 1994-06-28] 11.17.3. False identities...cannot just be "erased" from the computer memory banks. The web of associations, implications, rule firings...all mean that simple removal (or insertion of a false identity) produces discontinuities, illogical developments, holes...history is not easily changed.
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