Extremely Disappointing: Political Cryptography

[Benjamin Grosman <bgrosman@healey.com.au>]

Dear All,

I have been an advocate of strong cryptography since my first haphazard
experiments with my own pitiful encryption schemes. Upon gaining a
little more knowledge on the subject, I have become an even stronger
advocate. The right for one to think what one likes is supposedly
"gratis", but this right is almost useless if the ability to communicate
one's thoughts to others _in a private and secure manner_ is burgeoned
by those who would grant not only to assumedly trustworthy government
departments but anyone with enough will the ability and the permission
to not only control the manner in which we communicate our thoughts with
others, but to also listen in.

And yet this is not the worst part of it all. We are reliant upon
politicians, most of whom one would be encouraged to believe are there
only due to such qualities as charisma and "political nouse", a term
unto itself really, to make decisions on that which they really have
very little idea. This decision by the U.S. Senate to endorse an action
that will only repress the whole world's ability to communicate in
private (the US being the leader by far in matters of technology,
especially the Internet) is yet another example of those ill-educated in
a particular matter succumbing to either a knee-jerk political reaction,
or a knee-jerk personal reaction. Or, as in this case, a combination of
both.

> Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), committee chair and chief
> sponsor of the measure, led the attack, saying
> Congress must "stop child pornography on the Internet
> and Internet gambling. These legitimate law
> enforcement concerns cannot and should not be
> overlooked or taken lightly."

"Child Pornorgrapy and the Internet" - in my opinion it is "The Phrase
that Pays" in practically every situation to do with the Internet,
politically speaking. I am sure that you could put forward a very good
argument as to why practically any facet of the internet should be
controlled, repressed, and spied upon, simply by mentioning the "phrase
that pays" in the company of Politicians. It engenders the
aforementioned knee-jerk reactions, encourages them, and stokes their
fires to a new level.

Over here in Australia it is generally accepted that most Australians
have a general disdain of politicians and politics in general.
Naturally, the young are at times passionately ideological, particularly
arts students with too much time on their hands, and they always have
faith in "the new vision", the new guard of politicians - the young
politicians, who will lead them in their struggle. Little do they
realise that this "new guard" had to get to their positions somehow -
usually by gaining favour with the "old guard". And in doing so they
effectively kneecap themselves : always chained to pleasing those who
got them there, they are never able to actually do anything they
themselves passionately believe (or believed) in, and they themselves
end up becoming the "old guard", sucked into a vicious circle. If indeed
they ever believed in what they claimed to be aiming to do.

> He warned that allowing encryption to be exported
> would permit child pornographers to use it. "If it's
> being used for child pornography? Are we going to say
> that's just fine? That's it's just business? I don't
> think so."

Such narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness is something we would
probably have all hoped to not have seen, particularly in "leaders" of
such stature. "The Phrase that Pays" seems to only be so applicable to
the Internet: these same politicians would no doubt scream to all
reaches of the globe the right for all to free speech, and yet would
they repress the export of printing presses? Computers? Paper? Pencils?
I am sure that these tools are far more crucial to the business of Child
Pornographers than strong cryptography. It seems ridiculous to try and
control or at least impinge upon the business of child pornographers by
controlling the export of something that will only affect the ability of
those outside of the United States to view or obtain such material. But
then again, where the Communications Decency Act, a law of sheer
repression, failed, systems such as Government Key Escrow might succeed.
A later part of the article summarised this beautifully:

> Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) tried to disagree. "It's like
> photography. We're not going to [ban] photography if
> someone takes dirty pictures." (At this point, one of
> the more deaf committee members asked, "Pornography?
> Are we going to ban pornography?")
>
I guess that the whole idea of children's uncontrolled access to
information had to follow:

> Then Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.) chimed in,
> saying she doesn't want "children to have access to
> pornography or other bad types of information."

I am also an advocate of freedom of information, as strange as it might
sound to combine that with advocacy for privacy and security. In my
opinion there is a time and a place for everything, and it is also so
with information: certain things should remain private, and justifiably
so (e.g Credit Card numbers, bank account details, Social Security
details), but most other information can only lead in the long run to
the enhancement of our ability to learn about ourselves, and the world
in which we live. Attempting to generally control access to information
is the next step in the progression of repression of freedom. First you
repress the ability to communicate thoughts privately, as mentioned
before, and then you try and control the thoughts of the current and
next generation by restricting access to information that does not fit a
personal model. The next generation will thus have grown up accepting
this as normal, and the world is safer place. And so we have a model
society...a society that reflects the views of a past generation's
society. Every "Condition" Perpetuates Itself, Due To Every
"Condition's" Fear Of Change.

Perhaps I am being a bit alarmist. Perhaps I have been influenced too
greatly by George Orwell's "1984". Or perhaps I am seeing something here
that others have known for ages, and I have only just seen it. I am not
sure of that, but I am sure of this: I am just of voting age now in
Australia, and if I could add my voice to those trying to convince
politicians of the obvious truth here in the USA then I would. But
Australia always has and probably always will continue to follow the
path of the United States. Perhaps the only way for me to be able to
share my thoughts with others will be to remain so unimportant that
nobody could possibly be interested in me.

Benjamin Grosman

-------------------------------
Apologies to those who were forced to read a very rambling diatribe
against this whole situation. I have tried to formulate my thoughts upon
reading the news of the defeat into something at least slightly
coherent. I will try at a later point to polish this up...