Re: Digital Telephony Act

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

David Koontz writes:
> 
> Whats going to happen when direct satellite phone service becomes a
> reality ( as in the joint Loral/Qualcomm effort ) ?

And don't forget "Teledesic," the 800-satellite (or something huge)
project of Bill Gates and McCaw Cellular. Graham Toal discussed this
recently in a post on software key escrow and Microsoft's possible
involvement in SKE.

Teledesic plans to enter the data/voice market, so any mandate for
wiretapping would impinge on them. (End-to-end encryption, as with
PGP, bypasses this....the great Unresolved Question has always been
how all these proposed schemes will deal with end-to-end encryption,
aka "superencryption.")

> When one notes that it is difficult to impossible to prevent service
> stealing in the cellular environment, how will it be prevented in
> direct broadcast?
> 
> It might not be possible to detect unauthorized encryption schemes
> without direct monitoring.  
> 
> Do the Feds think this is can be won?

Should the Surveillance State not be thwarted (via contributions of
technology from groups like ours), I can imagine all sorts of
draconian laws about encryption, demands that cleartext be produced on
demand, etc. Suspicion of "structuring" communications to evade the
intent of the law may be enough to trigger sanctions.

But this is what we're here to fight. Deploying technology
ubiquitously is more important than writing letters to
Congressrodents.


--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."