Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@amanda.dorsai.org>]

On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, David Sternlight wrote:

> Let those who passed basic English use the skills they were taught. Freeh
> said, and I repeated, that the system wasn't designed to prevent determined
> criminals from using robust crypto.

Yes, and the implication is this: the system was designed to prevent law 
abiding folk from using robust crypto, and to allow the TLA's and LEA's 
to snoop on them.

Ya just gotta luv ol' Lou Freeh, why it warms my heart to know his 
intentions, or was that my asshole, I get soo conf00sed sometimes.... NOT!

> You are either dense or obfuscating. The point has now been made repeatedly
> that the issue isn't the disappearance of stand-alone niche crypto, but
> prevention of robust, built-in, unescrowed crypto, transparently usable in
> exported copies of Microsoft Word, Netscape, Eudora, etc. Read the previous
> sentence until you understand it.

Gee, um, is there really that much of a difference?  Regardless of whether
he misinterpreted or missed your point, without built in strong crypto in
such staples as Word, Netscape, Eudora, etc, without easily invoked "Press
this button" transparent, but strong crypto, the issue is moot.  Joe
Sixpack won't be able to protect his privacy effectively, and so out of
Joe's lack of geek skills, Lou C. Furr Freeh can read Joe's email and his
loveletters, and listen in on Joe's phonecalls whenever he gets the urge. 

And Lou, like all his kind does have that urge.  Too often.

It seems you sir have missed THAT point.  Was it that you missed it on
purpose? Or out of ignorance?  One of the majorly useful tactics is to
make it hard for someone to use crypto - if you do, they aren't likely to
use it, this makes your, I mean Freeh's job much easier.  So what if there
are some cypherpukes out there, they're only a handfull and surely they're
easily dealt with, and easily tracked by regular means, and well, if they
get out of line, they can be dealt with.  Just have to join the list and 
watch them.

Divide and conquer.  Divide the tools Joe Sixpack would use from those 
that would make them spook-proof and you can conquer Joe's privacy easily.


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 + ^ + |  Ray Arachelian |FL|       KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS      |==/|\==
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===================http://www.dorsai.org/~sunder/=========================
 Key Escrow Laws are the mating calls of those who'd abuse your privacy!