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Barlow v. Denning on AOL (OFFICIAL)
As promised, here's the official transcript of the Barlow v. Denning debate
on AOL:
<< Here's the official transcript of the Barlow v Denning debate. My
comments are within the angle braces, as is this one. No text was
changed, only comments and notes were inserted. >>
TIME Online Odeon, March 10, 1994
Tonight's TIME Online Odeon is a debate about the controversial "Clipper
Chip" policy of the U.S. government. Our guests are John Barlow (Barlow1)
and Dorothy Denning (DDenning), who were both interviewed for TIME's
Clipper story in the March 14, 1994, issue of the magazine. Philip
Elmer-DeWitt (PhilipED), TIME senior writer and author of the story,
moderates the debate, and Robert Pondiscio (RPTime) of
TIME is the host.
Editor's note: I have edited this transcript slightly by moving small
pieces of text around to avoid confusion related to overlapping
responses. (Tom Mandel)
OnlineHost : Good evening and welcome to the Time Online Odeon!
Tonight we look from both sides at the Clipper Chip, a
semiconductor device that the National Security Agency
developed and wants installed in every telephone,
computer modem and fax machine.
In his article in the current issue of TIME, Philip
Elmer-DeWitt writes: "The chip combines a powerful
encryption algorithm with a ''back door'' -- the
cryptographic equivalent of the master key that opens
schoolchildren's padlocks when they forget their
combinations. A ''secure'' phone equipped with the chip
could, with proper authorization, be cracked by the
government.
"Law-enforcement agencies say they need this capability to
keep tabs on drug runners, terrorists and spies. Critics
denounce the Clipper -- and a bill before Congress that
would require phone companies to make it easy to tap
the new digital phones -- as Big Brotherly tools that will
strip citizens of whatever privacy they still have in the
computer age.
"Lined up on one side are the three-letter cloak-and-
dagger agencies -- the NSA, the CIA and the FBI -- and key
policymakers in the Clinton Administration (who are
taking a surprisingly hard line on the encryption issue).
Opposing them is an equally unlikely coalition of computer
firms, civil libertarians, conservative columnists and a
strange breed of cryptoanarchists who call themselves
the cypherpunks."
RPTime: Lined up on our stage tonight are John Perry Barlow, Dr.
Dorothy Denning and Philip Elmer-DeWitt. Barlow is
co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which
promotes freedom in digital media. A recognized
commentator on computer security, he is arguing against
the Clipper Chip.
Dr. Denning is the chairperson of the Computer Science
Department at Georgetown University. A leading expert
on cryptography and data security, she favors the
adoption of the Clipper Chip.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, TIME's technology editor will lead
the questioning of our guests.
Audience questions may be sent up using the Interact
with Host function....Phil?
PhilipED: Dr. Denning, could you *briefly* make the case for why
we need the key escrow encryption system?
DDenning: The government needs a new encryption standard to
replace DES. They came up with a very strong
algorithm called SKIPJACK. In making that available,
they didn't want to do it in a way that could ultimately
prove harmful to society. So they came up with the
idea of key escrow so that if SKIPJACK were used
to conceal criminal activity, they would be able to get
access to the communications.
PhilipED: Thanks. Mr. Barlow, could you briefly make the case
*against* Clipper?
Barlow1: We'll see if I can be brief...We oppose Clipper in
large part because of the traffic analysis which it
makes possible. We believe that it is in the
functional nature of the chip as designed to greatly
enhance the ability of government to observe who
we are calling, when, and from where, all fairly
automatically and centrally. We also oppose Clipper
because of the many way in which we believe the
escrow system could be compromised, by people
and institutions both inside and outside of government.
PhilipED: Dr. Denning, what about John's contention that
Clipper makes it easier to detect calling patterns?
DDenning: I don't buy this. First off, for law enforcement to
access any communications, they need a court
order. Even if the communications are encrypted.
Second, with a court order, they can get access
to call setup information and find out what other
lines the subject of the investigation is talking to.
This is of much more use than anything in the
encrypted stream.
PhilipED: John, is Dorothy right that you need a court order
for call set up info?
Barlow1: Dorothy, the government asked for and received over
100,000 calling records last year without a court
order. I see nothing in the Clipper documents which
indicates that they would require a court order to get
this kind of information, which each chip would make
readily available to the entire network. Furthermore,
my faith in court orders has been eroded by 30 years
of government wiretap abuse.
DDenning: You need a court order to do implement pen registers
and dialed number recorders in order to find out who
is talking to whom.
Barlow1: But that's only with the present system where putting
a pen register on a line requires physical entrance to a
company site.
PhilipED: Aren't we talking about three different hurdles here, one
for a wiretap, one for a pen register (to track calling
patterns in real time) and one for phone records?
Barlow1: There are three different sources of information, as
you say. But there are not three "hurdles."
RPTime: Let's take a question from the audience...
Question: How would you guarantee that this facility will never be
misused? If you can't make that guarantee, why
should a democratic society, with a prohibition
against prior restraint, consent to this?
RPTime: John Barlow?
Barlow1: That sounds like a question for Dorothy. I don't think
we should, obviously.
RPTime: Dr. Denning?
DDenning: First of all, there has been no evidence of widespread
abuse of wiretaps since passage of the 1968 and 1978
wiretap statutes. Second, there are a lot of security
mechanisms going into it to protect against abuse.
Third, it will provide much greater protection against
illegal wiretaps than we have now, since almost all
phone conversations are in the clear. It will make
virtually all illegal wiretaps impossible. Fourth,
if for some reason it doesn't provide adequate
protection, we can destroy the key databases and
everyone will have absolute privacy against government
wiretaps. I don't think our society will tolerate that
kind of abuse.
PhilipED: John, isn't Dorothy right that you're better off with
compromised encryption than none?
Barlow1: Gee, where to begin...First of all, there was plenty
of abuse after 1968. Remember Watergate, Dorothy?
Second, I believe that Clipper in the Net will
dramatically *enhance* certain powers of surveillance
over current technical abilities. One of the reasons that
wiretap hasn't been more abused is the bureaucratic
overhead of current practices. Make it so that it
doesn't require 50 agents to conduct a wire tap and
you'll see a lot more of it. And Watergate included
quite a number of wiretap violations. Indeed, the
burglers were caught trying to install one.
DDenning: I was talking specifically about wiretap abuses. And
there hasn't been any evidence since the 1978 law.
Barlow1: As to the assertion that we can always back up and
destroy the databases if we don't like it, I can't imagine
that someone as bright as yourself would believe that
this is possible. Technology and power ratchet into
positions which almost never retract without a complete
change in the system of authority
RPTime: Care to respond Dr. Denning?
DDenning: Clipper would prevent the Watergate burglars from getting
anywhere since they wouldn't have a court order.
Clipper will not make wiretaps cheaper or easier. Wiretaps
are becoming more difficult. And there will always be
more agents involved because they have to follow
exacting procedures, including minimization (throw out
all conversations that are not specific to the crime at
hand).
Barlow1: Dorothy, they were from the *Government* remember? I can't
imagine that Nixon wouldn't have been able to find a
sympathetic ear from somebody at NIST and somebody else
at Treasury. Further, you're not talking about the truly
insidious element of this, which is dramatically improved
traffic analysis. Content is less important than context,
and most agents will support this.
RPTime: Another question from the audience. JCMaille asks...
Question: Does the government have a constitutional right of access
to my personal communications?
RPTime: Dr. Denning, why don't you go first?
DDenning: The Supreme Court ruled that wiretaps with a court
order are constitutional. At one time, communications
were not even protected under the 4th Amendment.
The government could wiretap without a court order!
Now a court order is required.
PhilipED: To put the question another way, do citizens have a right
to use powerful encryption?
DDenning: Right now there are no laws preventing the use of any
encryption. Clipper is voluntary. You can still use
something else.
<< Notice that she said "Right now" as if she is aware of a possible
bit of legislation that would make all other encryption methods
illegal!!!>>
RPTime: We have to apologize. John Barlow has temporarily lost
his connection...
PhilipED: Dr. Denning, in your opinion would a law outlawing
powerful encryption be unconstitutional?
DDenning: I don't think so. But that doesn't mean it will happen.
<< NOTE: ^^^^^^ ******* ^^^^^>>
RPTime: John Barlow is back with us. Sorry for the interruption!
PhilipED: Barlow, Denning just said she didn't think a law banning
powerful encryption would be unconstitutional. What
do you say?
Barlow1: Actually, I believe that our current export embargoes are
a violation of the 1st Amendment which specify speech
without regard to the manner of speech. If we could
restrict manner of speech, it would be constitutional
to require that everyone speak English. Which of
course it isn't.
PhilipED : John, can you make the case why ordinary law-abiding
citizens need powerful encryption?
Barlow1: Because it is in the nature of digitally networked
communications to be quite visible. Everytime
we make any sort of transaction in a digital
environment, we smear our fingerprints all over
Cyberspace. If we are to have any privacy in the
future, we will need virtual "walls" made of cryptography.
RPTime: Another audience question...
Question: Isn't this like the gun argument? If guns are outlawed
only criminals will have guns? Well, if Clipper is
standardized, won't criminals be the ones NOT
using it?
RPTime: Dr. Denning?
DDenning: If Clipper becomes the de facto standard, then it will
be the chief method of encryption. That would be
what you'd get at Radio Shack. What criminals
use will depend on what is readily available and what
their cohorts are using. Both parties of a
conversation have to use the same thing. Criminals
also talk to a lot of people outside their immediate
circle - e.g., to buy goods and services. Also,
they can be quite stupid at times. But the main
thing is that criminals will not be able to take
advantage of the SKIPJACK algorithm as a way
of concealing their conversations. This is the
whole point. It is not to catch criminals. It is
to allow people access to a really high quality
algorithm in a way that someone cannot use
it to conceal criminal activity.
<< More like it's to have people think they have a really high quality
encryption device while they are spied upon by Uncle Sam's boys.>>
Barlow1: The gun analogy is excellent up to a point. I can't
for the life of me imagine why we would think that
even a stupid criminal would use Clipper if
something else were available. And when I talk
to people in the administration their big hobgoblin
is the "nuclear-armed" terrorist. Any fanatic
smart enough to assemble and detonate a nuclear
device is going to be smart enough to download
PGP from a bulletin board somewhere.
Also, I'd like to point out that the gun analogy
doesn't go the whole distance. Crypto is by its
nature a purely *defensive* technology. You can't
shoot people with it.
PhilipED: Speaking of PGP, Dr. Denning, is that encryption
system secure, in your opinion?
DDenning: I don't know of anyone who's been able to break the
IDEA algorithm that it uses.
<< Notice that she sidesteps Barlow's point about gun control and
only answers about IDEA. >>
RPTime: Back to the audience for a question from Steve HW..
Question: This is for Dr. Denning. What is the evidence of
harm if the Clipper proposal is not adopted?
DDenning: The harm would be to the government. They would
not be able to use it and would have to resort
to something less secure. Also, Clipper is part
of a larger project to make hardware available
for encryption and digital signatures. This
will be used, for example, in the Defense Message
System. The goverment needs a new standard.
I personally believe that making really powerful
encryption like SKIPJACK available without
key escrow could be harmful to society. Wiretaps
have been essential for preventing and solving
many serious crimes and terrorist activities.
<< If Clipper is to be used for digital signatures, what's to stop
a cop who did a wire tap from pretending to be the parties he just
spied on? There would be no harm to government as there are other
encryption methods out there just as strong as skipjack if not
more so. The new standard could simply be RSA, IDEA, etc...>>
Barlow1: Why on earth would the government have to use
something else if they failed to get the rest of
rest of us to buy into this folly? Hey, they are
already using SKIPJACK. It's a government
algorithm and has been in use for a: long time.
There are plenty other algorithms which we
can use which are truly protected... unless of
course, this is only the first step in a process
which will outlaw other forms of crypto. And I
believe that it must be. Makes absolutely no sense
otherwise.
<< Bingo! >>
DDenning : CPSR and others are asking the government to drop
Clipper.
Barlow1: EFF is not asking the Government to drop Clipper,
though we would vastly prefer they did. We're
merely asking that no steps be taken to require it
either by law or practice...as, for example, would
be the case if you had to use a Clipper chip to file
your tax return.
PhilipED : Dr. Denning, do you think this is the "first step in
a process to outlaw crypto"?
DDenning: No I do not. The government has not been using
SKIPJACK to my knowledge. The Clipper initiative
represents the first time that the government has
put one of their really good algorithms out there in
the unclassified arena. They are trying to do this
in a way that won't backfire against the public.
Other NSA developed algorithms are not available
for purchase by the public.
<< Yeah, right sure they won't try to outlaw other encryption methods.
If the NSA has other algorithms which are not for public use, let the
Government use some of those instead!>>
Barlow1: I appreciate their willingness to make some of that
crypto research available to a public which has paid
so much for it, but I'm afraid that I would never
trust an algorithm which was given to me by any
government. And I certainly don't trust a classified
algorithm like Skipjack, even without a back door
which everyone can see. I think I'll stick to systems
which have been properly vetted to be clear of
such compromises, like RSA. I hope others will do
likewise and that RSA will become the standard
which Clipper shouldn't be.
RPTime: Time for one more question from our audience...
Question: To John Barlow: Isn't society becoming increasingly
vulnerable to concerted criminal/terrorist disruption,
requiring *stronger* law enforcement tools?
Barlow1: Gee. I don't know. It's a scary world. However, I'm
willing to take my chances with the few terrorists
and drug lords there are out there rather than
trusting government with the kind of almost unlimited
surveillance power which Clipper and Digital
Telephony would give them. It's a touch choice. But
when you look at the evil perpetrated by government
over this century in the name of stopping crime,
it far exceeds that done by other organized criminals.
<< Here, here!>>
PhilipED: Dr. Denning, hasn't remote listening technology
enhanced police abilities to eavesdrop to the point...
where the loss of a few wire taps won't mean much?
DDenning: No. They need to get the cooperation of the service
providers to implement a wiretap. The loss of some
wiretaps could be costly indeed. As an example,
wiretaps were used to help solve a case that involved
plans by a Chicago gang from shooting down a
commercial airliner. There have been 2 cases where
they helped save the lives of kids who were going to
be kidnaped for the making of a snuff murder film.
They helped solve a case where a man's house was
going to be bombed. I could go on. If we take John's
arguments about law enforcement to their logical
conclusion, we'd just get rid of law enforcement. I
think it's better to have it. The people in law
enforcement hate it as much as the rest of us when
some member of the community does something wrong.
And they correct it, design new procedures and laws
where necessary, and go on.
<< Notice she side-stepped the whole remote listening issue and instead
introduced the four horsemen of law enforcement (Terrorists, Drug Dealers,
Child Molesters, and Pornographers.) >>
Barlow1: Oh, please. I'm not proposing eliminating police. I'm
opposing giving them unlimited powers. Also,these
are the same cases cited over and over by everyone
from you to Judge Freeh. Surely, we aren't going to
fundamentally change the balance of power in this
country because of these two (undocumented, to my
knowledge) stories.
DDenning: Clipper is not going to change the balance of power.
It does not give law enforcement any additional
authority to do wiretaps.
<< Yeah, right.... Two DAT tapes could contain the whole of the
key-escrow databases.. what price would some desperate criminal
organization, government, or government agency pay to obtain them?>>
Barlow1: Well, this is where we basically disagree, Dorothy.
If we could continue the same level of law
enforcement capacity we presently have, I'd have
no objection. But I believe, for reasons I'm not sure
we have the bandwidth to discuss here, that we
are talking about dramatically enhancing their abilities.
For one thing, we would greatly reduce the
bureaucratic overhead involved in wiretap, which is
what keeps it under 900 cases nationwide at the
present.
RPTime: And that will have to be the last word on the matter
for tonight...
DDenning: The overhead of a wiretap is more likely to increase,
not decrease.
PhilipED: Not quite!
RPTime: Maybe not! ;-)
RPTime: THAT will be the final word!
Barlow1: Well, let's get together and talk, Dorothy.
RPTime: TIME thanks Dr. Dorothy Denning and John Perry
Barlow for being with us tonight...along with
Philip Elmer-DeWitt. Thank you all, and goodnight!
PhilipED: Thank you both. This was very interesting.
DDenning: Thank you for the opportunity to be here!
Copyright 1994. Time Inc. All rights reserved.