Re: Final Solution to the Crypto Problem

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Tim May wrote:

>Namely, once the infrastructure is deployed, once most electronic commerce
>is handled via card tokens (and card readers are actually pretty cheap, and
>volume will drive the price down further), the President can cite some kind
>of national emergency, or widespread tax evasion, or whatnot, to announce
>that beginning on suc-and-such a date all cards must be licensed, even to
>domestic users.

Not to diminish the validity of Tim's alarm, is there not reason to
anticipate that
these tokens will be crackable. And thus continue the race between crypto 
enforcers and crackers?

In addition to the recent successes against smart cards, there seems to be 
trouble with the government's program for widespread use of Fortezza cards, 
according to complaints of various military and civilian sites. The Fortezza
site at ljl.com seems to have been set up so that open, easily accessible
information could be gotten by the harried military users (see, for example,
the list of Fortezza complaints at http://infosec.nosc.mil ).

Moreover, there is surely to be continued competition among the players
who are trying to increase their market share -- both government and
commercial, both domestic and international. Will they not continue to 
attack each other's crypto products? And will not each nation's government
continue to subsidize their favored producers in international economic and
military contentions?

The point is made on cypherpunks that the odds are increasingly on the 
crackers even if there are periodic gains by behind-the-scenes plots among
the enforcers and there temporary allies (as Tim notes, these are often short-
term romances). And that hardware systems are the most vulnerable due 
to their illusory physical security -- the fatal conceit that brawn can beat 
brains in crypto, as it claims it used to do in iron- and fire-power (that was
before iron became subservient to code).

Finally, take a look at the history of these "emergency" Executive Orders 
outlined in No. 12924 posted by Peter Junger. Then look at the predecessors 
to those at www.house.gov. They go back through several administrations 
and confirm what Hal first raised: there is a concerted effort to get around 
accountability for the continuation of the so-called emergency, and 
successive Congresses have been complicit in the camouflage.