Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05@uow.edu.au>
17Jun98 USA: US CRYPTO SOFTWARE BID ENDS IN FAILURE.
The meeting between the FBI and leading US computer executives on
government encryption policies has ended in failure (see Electronics
Weekly, June 10).
Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI director Louis Freeh met with the CEOs
of Microsoft, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Netscape Communications, America
Online and others.
The purpose was to explore whether a compromise could be reached on how
encryption technologies are treated by the US government.
The FBI and the Clinton administration want to the computer industry to
gives it access to encryption keys, through a 'key escrow' plan, so that it
can monitor encrypted messages.
The government also wants strict controls on encryption exports. The US
computer industry argues that these policies are costing US firms billions
of dollars in lost sales overseas.
The Business Software Alliance issued a study claiming that the FBI's key
escrow demands will cost at least $7.7bn a year.
ELECTRONICS WEEKLY 17/06/98 P12
-o-
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Received on Wed Jun 17 21:07:14 1998