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Comment by ramchip | Hacker News Reader

Butler gave him a shopping list of equipment he'd need to get started, including a new laptop, military-grade crypto, and an antenna.

Out of curiosity, what's a "military-grade crypto"?

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A) The writer of this article made a mistake.

B) It's a special device Max used to get some extra cash out of his non-technical partner.

An out-of-date term since before the Internet went "pop." Early on, when the U.S. military was reluctant to allow civilians full access to cryptographic technology, there were still laws on the books limiting consumer e-mail clients and the like to 40-bit encryption. When Moore's Law eventually made this kind of barrier breakable in milliseconds, the laws were changed to allow 128-bit encryption to be "exported." Nowadays, there's no real limit due to most crypto research being driven overseas, although I don't remember if the arbitrary key size limit was finally removed in the U.S. proper.

I think the real question is: "What item on a shopping list could 'military-grade crypto' refer to?" The term conjures up a black-market, backroom deal for something smuggled out of an air force base, but the reality is that a lot of "military-grade crypto" software is available legally for free... and I'm guessing these guys are not above pirating anything non-free. So what were they buying? Staunch's rationales above are fairly convincing.

It is another name for snake-oil cryptography: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil

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