Background on Phil Zimmermann:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=zimmermann
http://www.mccullagh.org/image/6/phil-zimmermann.html
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1234-2001Sep20.html
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 21, 2001; Page E01
The tears have come in the kitchen, the car and the shower, too.
Like many Americans, Phil Zimmermann, a stocky, 47-year-old computer
programmer, has been crying every day since last week's terrorist
attacks. He has been overwhelmed with feelings of guilt.
Zimmermann is the inventor of a computer program called Pretty Good
Privacy, or PGP. He posted the tool for free on the Internet 10 years
ago; it was the first to allow ordinary people to encrypt messages so
only those with a "key" could read them. No government or law
enforcement agency has been able to get in.
People warned Zimmermann back then that he could be putting powerful
technology into the wrong hands. He knew that was theoretically
possible, but he also knew that the program could do good: His work
created a way for people in oppressed countries to communicate without
fear of retribution.
Now the government is investigating whether Zimmermann's technology or
another scrambler was used by the hijackers to coordinate last week's
attacks, and U.S. lawmakers are calling for new restrictions on the
use and distribution of the technology.
[...]
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Received on Sep 21 2001
Intro
