Why Surveillance State Needs Toy Crypto

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

At 8:19 AM 9/19/95, Christian Wettergren wrote:
>What I don't understand is why the law-enforcement is so concerned
>about bruting things. It is probably quite easy to tap the keyboard,
>smart force, exchange the binary with the real thing etc for them?
>
>(Unless they want to read it all from a nice tipped-back armchair in
>a certain location? :-))
>
>What I'm saying is that this kind of attack should work quite easily
>in the one-by-one cases, but not on a large scale, malicious data,
>trojan horses, outright bugging. So why all this Clipper (son-of-X)
>fuss?

It's really about the threat model.

Sure, the authorities _could_ place microphones in offices and homes, but
this requires huge amounts of effort and is only justified when the target
is really, really important.

As Whit Diffie has said (and this makes about the fifth time I've credited
him on this, so I hope he's satisfied), widespread surveillance must attack
the communication channels, not just attack the origins and destinations.
That is, the _economics_ of mandating weak crypto are vastly more efficient
for the surveillance state.

--Tim May

---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."