RAND_MR1382

open.”
On the downside, some postings on ukcrypto may alienate the very government officials
the authors hope to influence. According to Gladman,
discussions on the list can become slinging matches that quickly put those in government on the defensive and
hence inclined to discount what is being said. It would be more effective if we had a way of focusing on the issues
and not the personalities. 36
But Andrew Brown gave ukcrypto high marks, crediting it with most of the thought and
coordination behind the successful campaign to keep strong cryptography legal and
widely available. He wrote in New Statesman,
There, for the past two years, the civil servants responsible for policy have actually been available, more or less, to
the people who disagree with them…. They have had to justify their actions, not to the public, but to a small group
of geographically dispersed experts…. It’s a kind of updated version of Lions v Christians. 37
Nigel Hickson, one of the principal players in the policy debates from the U.K.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), agrees the Internet and ukcrypto in particular
have played a role in shaping U.K. cryptography policy. 38 But he was also critical of the
list:
Whilst ukcrypto has undoubtedly had an influence on the development of U.K. encryption policy, it has tended to
polarise the debate into extremes. This may be because there tends to be a large “silent majority” on the list who do
not directly contribute because of commercial or policy reasons. 39
Besides participating in ukcrypto, the DTI has published draft consultation documents
on the web for comment. Many of the comments they receive arrive through electronic
mail. DTI has also met with industry groups and participated in non-Internet forums,
such as conferences and seminars. These have also helped shape policy decisions.
There are Usenet newsgroups and other interactive forums that focus on practically
every conceivable topic relating to foreign (and domestic) policy. Whether these are
effective or not in terms of influencing policy is another matter. After studying the
effects of the Net on the American political system, Richard Davis, a political science
professor at Brigham Young University and author of The Web of Politics, observed that
In Usenet political discussions, people talk past one another, when they are not verbally attacking each other. The
emphasis is not problem solving, but discussion dominance. 40
Davis also found interactivity on the Internet to be primarily an illusion:
Interest groups, party organizations, and legislators seek to use the web for information dissemination, but they are
rarely interested in allowing their sites to become forums for the opinions of others. 41