DH for email (re: email protection and privacy)

[m5@vail.tivoli.com (Mike McNally)]

In light of a conversation (not a private conversation; it was at an
EFF-Austin gathering) with Mike Godwin in which he stated that the
court has ample precedent to cite you for contempt upon refusal to
produce encryption keys, I think it's clear that no decypherable
encryption scheme is really adequate to protect private materials
during a legal investigation.  Similarly, I suspect that a scheme to
protect information by automatic destruction or obfuscation (as a
friend described it, "digital flash paper") would be considered
illegal obstruction of justice.

Therefore, were I to be in possession of information that for
political or business reasons I strongly required absolute privacy, I
would resort to physical security as the closest thing to a sure-fire
solution.  Back things up onto high-density tape, and keep the tapes
(*and* the tape drive, lest its presence be taken as prima facie
evidence of the existance of off-line "evidence") in some secure
place.

- --
Mike McNally