LE Risks with No Crypto

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

Did anyone notice the fun little bit in the story of the bust of the Viper
Militia in Arizona?

The state employee that BATF sent to infiltrate the group almost "assumed
room temperature" because an ally of the Militia working for AT&T pulled his
long distance phone records.  The infiltrator was questioned rather closely
about some of his phone calls to official numbers.  He managed to persuade
them that he wasn't a Fed.

Too bad AT&T doesn't use an encrypted open books system to store is records
so that "bad guys" can't abuse those records and put our heroic law
enforcement personnel at risk.

This is a perfect illustration of the fact that technology puts the
government most at risk because it will always be the juiciest target.
"Worth the powder to blow it up with."

DCF