----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefan Winter" <stefan.winter@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 10:15 AM Not long ago, someone was stabbed with a knife, so: > Encryption has its dangers and the IETF should not be encouraging its > widespread adoption. Knives have their dangers, and the metal-processing industry should not be encouraging their widespread adoption. Funny - that conclusion, which is analogous to yours, doesn't make much sense to me. Does it to you? Encryption is a tool - it's neither good nor bad in itself. What you do with it is the question. What we have seen in deployed reality is that lack of usage of this tool by the internet population at large has played into the hands of adversaries. The idea to put the tool into everybody's hands and make them *use* it is absolutely a good idea as a countermeasure IMHO. Especially since the adversaries *are* using it, regardless whether the good guys do or not. The rioters you mention above did use it - and they can continue to do so no matter what we decide in the IETF. The TV manufacturer could have used it - they were simply stupid enough to forget about it. <tp> The analogy that come to my mind is not knives, but guns. Many, probably most, countries in the world place quite stringent restrictions on what their citizens can do in owning or using guns. Were the UN to produce a convention restricting their use, one country one vote, I expect that it would be passed with a large majority. The evil done by terrorists, criminals, evil empires and so on with guns outweighs the good. The technology is neutral; the user of it is evil or not, as the case may be. If encryption makes terrorism, crime and so on more likely, then we could see countries impose restrictions on encryption in the same way as for guns, and a few years down the line, the role of the IETF in encouraging the use of strong encryption could be seen as a serious misjudgment, one that is damaging to the standing of the IETF. Authentication is fine, in fact I think that it is grossly misunderstood and underused and does not, as far as I can see, pose a threat; encryption is a different matter. Tom Petch Greetings, Stefan Winter > > Tom Petch >