The Focus on Clipper Details Plays into Their Hands

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

I believe the focus on Clipper/Skipjack details and technical issues
plays into the hands of those who want to deploy these systems.

* By concentrating on issues of key length, escrow details,
availability of the chips, etc., attention is shifted from the real
issue--the mandatory use of Clipper (probably) and why this is so
wrong--to the issue of _practicality_.

* If the issue becomes _practicality_ instead of _ethicality_, then we
ultimately lose, I fear. Any criticisms we successfully raise can be
more or less responded to by the NSA, Denning, Sternlight, and so on.
Then we'll look for new practical problems, and the chase will
continue. Meanwhile, Clipper will be that much furhter along.

* My response when people ask me about arcane details of key length,
family keys, etc., is to just _snort_ and shake my head and say: "Who
cares? I don't plan to use it."

* I'm really not slamming those on this list who are actual experts on
the Clipper system, as much as anyone outside the NSA can be of
course. Their intelligent comments, their poking of holes, and so
forth, has been useful. 

* My concern is that too much attention can be focussed on a
fundamentally wrong idea, much like the syndrome of the pilot of an
aircraft staring at his altimeter and tapping it furiously as he
crashes. 

* If, for example, the Cypherpunks and others help to compile a list
of questions about Clipper (and recall that we did just that about a
year ago) and then these questions are answered or otherwise dealt
with, where does this leave us?

In my opinion, the very notion that one's private keys have to
"escrowed" with the local cops is ethically flawed. If the proposal
were that house keys had to be escrowed, or that personal diaries had
to be escrowed, would we be debating the technical details of what
kinds of envelopes the diaries would be sealed in?

Granted, Cypherpunks is a techncally-oriented group, more so than
legally or politically oriented (though most of us are politically
aware and motivated by ideology), and so we have a store of knowledge
about crypto that most folks don't have. Hence a focus on Clipper's
arcane details is to be expected. 

But let's be sure it doesn't divert us away from a prinicple rejection
of the whole concept of key escrow.


--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
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W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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