Good news for Canadians, I think...

[Martin Janzen <janzen@idacom.hp.com>]

On the mailing list for the "Electronic Frontier Canada" (similar to, but
not a part of EFF), David Jones (djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA) writes:
>
>      Feds want encryption; Police opposition ignored.
>
>The federal government wants its employees, and Canadians in general,
>to use strong, public-key encryption.  Yes, the same encryption methods
>that American law enforcement is so uptight about.  The same encryption
>that Canadian cops want to avoid, so they can continue to eavesdrop.
>
>It's summarized in a recent Ottawa Citizen article:
>
>        gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/00/org/efc/media/citizen.13feb96
>
>You may recall the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP)
>have voiced their opposition to any encryption of communications unless
>police had access to a "backdoor" last summer.
>
>        gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/00/org/efc/law/cacp.24aug95
>
>In Canada, it looks like the right to privacy of telecommunications
>might take precedence over the police interest in snooping to catch
>criminals.


I won't repost the entire article here, but here are some highlights:

  - The system is initially intended to secure email between federal
    government employees.  Deployment is expected to begin next year.

  - Key management is decentralized; each department hands out its own keys.

  - Top-secret messages will be encoded using "palm-sized computer cards"
    (presumably some kind of PCMCIA device).

  - The Communications Security Establishment (~= NSA) helped to design
    the system, and claims that it's "more sophisticated than existing
    public versions".

    (This is the part that still worries me a bit, even though EFC's
    David Jones is quoted as saying that he has no concerns.  Will the
    algorithms be published?  Also, why develop a new, untested system --
    why not just buy the thing from RSA, Viacrypt, etc.?  Stay tuned...)

  - There's a great quote from Bob Little, deputy secretary of financial
    and information management for the Treasury Board:  "[The CSE] don't
    have access to the keys . . . and never will.  We did it to avoid
    the American experience with the Clipper Chip."

  - The RCMP (~= FBI) is not amused.


All in all, it sounds like a positive development for once.

--
Martin Janzen           janzen@idacom.hp.com