Re: NIST Explains Clipper "Review"

[mjr@TIS.COM]

	One thing that occurs to me: rather than arguing Clipper's
technical merits, or whether or not it's Big Brother and therefore
evil, we should be making the press aware of the fact that Clipper
is going to cost major $$ for the taxpayers. This will be reflected
in terms of increased cost on consumer electronics, and in the cost
of administration of the key escrow system. Since both agencies for
the escrow will be government, the taxpayers are going to bear the
entire burden of the very complex (and presumably expensive) escrow
management.

	Our CEO, Steve Walker, has asked how many court ordered
wire taps are performed anually. Apparently, the number is very
low (under 1,000) - we must question the cost effectiveness of
a measure designed to protect wiretapping at a cost of hundreds
of millions of dollars, when apparently wiretapping is not that
important a tool in the arsenal of law enforcement.

	Recently, at the NCSC conference, a Mr. Brooks from NSA
spoke on the Clipper panel, and stated proudly that they had been
working hard on clipper for over 3 years. Unfortunately, NSA's
budget is classified, so we'll never find out how much this
B1-bomber of telecommunications has already cost the taxpayer,
but we need to bring the potential expense involved to the
attention of our various representatives. In a time when people
are losing their jobs and government is trying desperately to
cut costs, we must ask ourselves if it would be more cost effective
to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars clipper will cost
the taxpayer on hiring more police officers, or on social programs.

	I don't believe that our elected representatives or the
non-technical press understand the issues behind key escrow. We
need to make them understand that effectively clipper means that
the consumer will pay more for certain forms of electronics,
that the taxpayer will pay more for administering programs of
questionable usefulness, and that the government is using covert
budgets to subsidize an attempt to compete in the telecommunications
business.

	Our elected representatives and the press understand
$300 government toilet seats. Perhaps we need to come up with
a nice name for clipper. Rather than calling it the "big brother
chip" perhaps we should call it the "B1 bomber of data communications"
or point out that it is really an implicit tax on telecommunications.

mjr.


[PS - these are my personal opinions]