don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell) (09/22/84)
You miss the whole point if you think they are worried about the Soviets getting the UNIX crypt(3) routine. Both the US and the Soviet Union use codes that are much more sophisticated than DES for their military and diplomatic messages. I doubt very much if they can read each other's codes. The idea is to prevent third world countries from getting this software. Currently, the NSA can read their communications easily, and they want to keep it that way. I wouldn't be surprised if many of these countries use rotor machines. For example, in the middle of the Faukland Islands war, Argentina began using DES. The British were very upset. Similarly, Nicaragua began using better codes recently and the US was upset. I don't think there is anything the US can really do to stop this. It is just part of the awakening political consciousness of the third world.