Editing 504: Legal Hacks
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Being able to share unbreakable codes and decrypt other people's codes gives countries a military advantage - for example, in World War II, the Americans and British were often able to figure out where a German attack would be coming and send reinforcements there, because they had cracked the {{w|Enigma_machine|German codes}}. Because of this, the {{w|Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States|United States government initially tried to keep}} the mathematical details of strong encryption algorithms (including RSA) inside the country by classifying the algorithms as a weapon. It is a crime to share certain kinds of weapons technology with other countries without permission. Amateur and professional cryptographers, angry about the attempt to restrict their work, lobbied the government to change the rule and stop treating cryptography as a weapon, in part so that they could continue to collaborate with colleagues overseas, and in part because they wanted the ability to pass secret messages that the government could not easily decrypt. The export restrictions were gradually loosened and would have mostly been lifted by the year 2000. | Being able to share unbreakable codes and decrypt other people's codes gives countries a military advantage - for example, in World War II, the Americans and British were often able to figure out where a German attack would be coming and send reinforcements there, because they had cracked the {{w|Enigma_machine|German codes}}. Because of this, the {{w|Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States|United States government initially tried to keep}} the mathematical details of strong encryption algorithms (including RSA) inside the country by classifying the algorithms as a weapon. It is a crime to share certain kinds of weapons technology with other countries without permission. Amateur and professional cryptographers, angry about the attempt to restrict their work, lobbied the government to change the rule and stop treating cryptography as a weapon, in part so that they could continue to collaborate with colleagues overseas, and in part because they wanted the ability to pass secret messages that the government could not easily decrypt. The export restrictions were gradually loosened and would have mostly been lifted by the year 2000. | ||
| β | In the comic, [[Megan]] makes the provocative and counter-intuitive point that perhaps the cryptographic community could have best ensured easy access to the RSA technique by *allowing* the government to treat RSA as a weapon, and then, once everyone is certain that RSA is a weapon, invoking the {{w|Second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, commonly known as the " | + | In the comic, [[Megan]] makes the provocative and counter-intuitive point that perhaps the cryptographic community could have best ensured easy access to the RSA technique by *allowing* the government to treat RSA as a weapon, and then, once everyone is certain that RSA is a weapon, invoking the {{w|Second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, commonly known as the "right to bear arms" amendment (that is, the right to own and use weapons). In other words, if RSA were a weapon, it would be granted constitutional protections. |
This interpretation is likely a reference to the very strong social and political movements opposing arms control in the United States. The legal basis for this movement is the position that most or all laws prohibiting private ownership of firearms (and potentially other weapons), violate the Second Amendment. Accordingly, publicly referring to the Second Amendment tends to imply opposition to gun control. Megan's implication is that, by connecting RSA to this debate, crypto enthusiasts would gain a large group of unlikely allies who are strongly committed to keeping weapons legal and unrestricted. They could also invoke the legal cover of the Constitution, allowing them to fight restrictions in court. | This interpretation is likely a reference to the very strong social and political movements opposing arms control in the United States. The legal basis for this movement is the position that most or all laws prohibiting private ownership of firearms (and potentially other weapons), violate the Second Amendment. Accordingly, publicly referring to the Second Amendment tends to imply opposition to gun control. Megan's implication is that, by connecting RSA to this debate, crypto enthusiasts would gain a large group of unlikely allies who are strongly committed to keeping weapons legal and unrestricted. They could also invoke the legal cover of the Constitution, allowing them to fight restrictions in court. | ||
