[hackuser]

> "The software industry estimated that, if export controls were removed, US companies could sell as much as $60 billion a year in encryption hardware and software by 2000."

He writes that in the context of describing the business leaders' arguments at the time. He could have written it much later. For example, I could write the following today: "Ronald Reagan estimated that unemployment would drop 2% by 1988".

That said, I see no definite references in the article past 1997.

[bthornbury]

I agree about the context here, and I thought over it before posting it. If you look at the previous statements which are also giving estimates, they have established dates. this led me to the conclusion that this statement about the year 2000 had some probabability of being written in the context of future estimate.