Why I think the NSA should love Strong Crypto

[pcw@access.digex.net (Peter Wayner)]

Perry writes:
>Once SIGINT becomes much harder regardless of their previous attempts
>to stop it, I suspect that the NSA will become a friend and not an
>impediment.

Well, I often think that institutions and their desire to maintain their
funding can lead to strange decisions. On one hand, doing everything to slow
the emergence of strong crypto allows the NSA to continue to vaccuum up
signals from the world.

That would seem to justify their existence. But there are many people who
can do this without the assistance of the NSA. The FBI has a crack team. I'm
sure every agency can learn to snoop on phone calls. The US Forest Service,
for instance, is meeting plenty of resistence out in the American West. I
wouldn't be surprised if they have their own internal security unit that has
developed the ability to do this.

Now, imagine a world with plenty of strong crypto everywhere. Suddenly,
cracking messages is a very tough job that requires plenty of computer power
and high-powered mathematicians. The Forest Service can't order that up from
the Police version of Toys-R-Us. Even the FBI's relatively sophisticated
team isn't ready for it. It just takes plenty of investment of time and
education.

That's why I say that Strong Crypto is really in the NSA's best interest.
They haven't had a worthy adversary since the Soviet Union fell apart.

But I'm just a wise guy.

-Peter