Significance of PGPFone?

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

Steve Bryan asks about the potential significance of the new PGPFone:

At 8:59 PM 8/11/95, Steve Bryan wrote:

>Am I the one of the few who thinks that PGPFone is the biggest CypherPunk
>event for years? I think it will be even more significant if we get strong
>encryption

Hard to say how significant it is. Some points:

* Nautilus has been out for a while....after a splash of publicity when it
appeared, not much has been heard recently.

* E-mail and the Net are fundamentally different from voice communication.
Encrypting or signing messages in text form is different from encrypting
voice communications between two parties. (The eventual large use of
encryption is likely to be driven by digital payment schemes, proof of
signed contracts, etc. In other words, non-voice applications.)

* Wiretapping of voice communications is fundamentally a different sort of
problem than interecepting cleartext of e-mail and Net interactions. This
is a point Whit Diffie makes cogently, that it's much easier for
packet-sniffers to automate surveillance at the touch of a key than it is
to order audio lines to be tapped. (Quibblers may cite increasing
automation, causing some convergence, but the point remains that voice
conversations must still be recorded, listened to, etc., whereas computer
text messages may be more easily analyzed.)

* Most of my voice communications are with nearby folks, for various
reasons, and I doubt I'll be rushing to encrypt them anytime soon (or
expect the other party to).

* The versions of PGPFone, Nautilus, etc., that run on the Internet (as
opposed to modem-to-modem phone calls) will be extremely interesting
because of the pricing structure..."free" phone calls anywhere. (Some
people are doing this already, of course, and the telcos are starting to
notice.)

* I have a Macintosh, so I'm planning to get it and try it out. This may
change my views of things. But, to be honest, I'm fearful of the "when you
have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome: that when I find
someone else who has PGPFone I'll find reasons to call them just to test
the functioning. Needless to say, this is not reason enough to keep on
using it.

* Anecdotally, most people I know who have "secure phones" use them only
occasionally. Several people have said variants of "I only used it to test
it to see if it was working." It's not obvious to me that things will be
much different with even more casual users such as most of us are.

* It is a fact that the people most motivated to use crypto are the ones
with the most to fear from an anticipated threat. Thus, Pablo Escobar's
"crew" will likely deploy such tools, where Joe Suburban probably won't.

(The arguments sometimes made, that Mafiosos and Colombian drug cartels are
"too stupid" to use crypto are vitiated by the ease-of-use which these new
crypto tools are designed to have....also, corner drug dealers who some
might think to be illiterate are typically the earliest adopters of
cellular phones, pocket pagers, and whatnot.)

(Don't flame me for stating the obvious. I'm not advocating restrictions on
crypto, or invoking the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse.)

* Finally, I have a "fax modem" on my Macintosh, as many of you do. Guess
what? I went and got a real fax machine. Lots of reasons. First, my fax
modem had to be installed just right...if inits or preferences got subtly
shifted, it stopped working properly. Second, sending things was a bitch.
(Had to have the scanner up and working, which was not often, etc.) Third,
robustness.

This is relevant to the cryptophone issue because many folks believe only
the "bump in the cord" model--where the crypto module is just a bump in the
phone cord--will work for most people. Most users will not have their 486 +
SoundBlaster + other stuff set up and working for routine phone calls.
(Configurations changing, various OSes, etc.)

(The Internet versions make it more advantageous to use one's computer, so
I have more hope for them than I do for modem-to-modem versions.
Incorporating a voice communication module into other
programs--telnet?--might be an idea. And Java and HotJava fit in
somehow....)

So, I hope to get PGPFone when it appears, but I'm not convinced it'll be
the biggest revolution imaginable.

--Tim May

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