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Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton
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Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:04:35 -0400
To: [email protected]
From: Declan McCullagh <[email protected]>
Subject: FC: Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton
X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/
ReSent-Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:12:16 -0400 (EDT)
Walter Miller is Netly's roving, raving, and notoriously misspelling
columnist. He's recently been keeping on top of cyber-rights issues.
Not long ago, Walter Miller had brunch with the Supreme Court justices, and
told them the dos and don'ts of web site design. "I also made sure to
sugest that the US Supreme Court get a password- protected Intranet too --
to post stuff like cafateria specials, snow days, even forums where they
coud flame eachother. Or maybe secretly play network Diablo on laptops
right there on the bench during boring testimony":
http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1125,00.html
Then he took on the University of Memphis, which tried to wipe out a
student's "Old People" site. "Sections on the site include Geezer News,
(mostly newswire acounts of elderly motoring mishaps), and a humor page the
likes of this: Q: What's 1,000 feet long and smells like urine? A: The
conga line at Century Village":
http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1196,00.html
Now Walter Miller writes about encryption, and his Granfather's long
history of crypto-talk with President Clinton (who apparently goes by the
alias BUBBA1)...
-Declan
***********
http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1227,00.html
The Netly News Network
Walter Miller (http://pathfinder.com/netly/wmiller/)
Trailer Trash on the Infobahn
for the week starting July 30, 1997
An Encrypted Freindship
by Walter Miller ([email protected])
My Granfather isnt just a crankey old S.O.B. he's also a
longtime F.O.B., or 'Freind Of Bill'; No, not Bill
Gates--the slightley less inportant one: Bill Clinton. (The
othor Bill probly HAS no freinds...Sorry, that was mean
spirrited of me, and inspired out of jealousy--but atleast i
can ADMIT it.)
But Gramps and Bill Clinton realy ARE freinds.
They met during the '72 Presidential race. Clinton was 26
and George McGovorn's Texas campaign chair.
Granfather was a low-ranking precinct leador. The two
were tossin back coldies one night after a rubber chicken
event at a motel out onthe I-10. Eyeing 2 bellbottomed
chicks at the bar, Bill winked at Gramps; he winked back,
scribbling with a pen on a napkin: "YOU TAKE THE
YOUNG CUTIE. ILL TAKE THE OL' UGLY ONE".
Both men nodded. Unable to read Grampy's scrawl, the
gals never cought on. Thus began a 25-year freindship
based on encryption which contineus to this day.
Well, neithor man got lucky that night, and
McGovern lost Texas in a 49-state landslide. (Granfather,
a conservotive Democrat, ended up votting for Nixon).
But encryption has come along way since. And so has the
mop-topped boy from Hope.
Not only did Granps let him keep his favvorite
ballpoint pen, they both kept in touch. Last week they
were in toutch allot. It was about the new Encryption bill
that just passed Congress. Granps suported it while the
President was agianst it. They hotly discussed it by e-mail
for a few days, till this mesage arrived:
Return-Path: whitehouse.gov
Received: from (ENCRYPTED)
Message-ID: (ENCRYPTED)
X-Mailer: (ENCRYPTED)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Trans-Encod: 7bit
:
From: "Bubba1"
To: "Granpy"
Subject: (ENCRYPTED)
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 97 09:36:55
-0400
:
Dear Sir:
POTUS suggests e-mail is not the
best forum for this discussion.
Please meet POTUS tonite, 8PM,
EDT in (ENCRYPTED) Chat. The
regular place.
:
On behalf of POTUS,
Your pal,
:
"VPOTUS"
:
P.S. Don't worry, POTUS tells me
it won't take so long as to cut
into the X-Files, which my
(ENCRYPTED) sources tell me is
a repeat anyway.
:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is my sig.
tHIs iS mY SIg ON dRUGs
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Of cuorse, "POTUS" is President of the United States and
'VPOTUS' is Mr. Gore. (Just like most big inportant
exetcutives in the private sector, there's always some
low-level lacky handling the adminostrative end of his
E-mail.)
Later that evening, their convorsation contineud, but
this time in chat:
Granpy: YOU OUT THERE, BUBBA?
Bubba1: Right here, Gramps.
Sweet4U: Who else is out there?
Prowler: I'm here. Whos there?
Granpy: I TELL YUH, BUBBA I
AIN'T GLOATING, BUT I'M GLAD
ABOUT THET THAR NEW ENCRYPTION
BILL.
Bubba1: Well, Gramps, I did have
reason to oppose it.
Prowler: Hey Granpy--ALL CAPS
are for SHOUTING ONLY
Granpy: I AM SHOUTING
Sweet4U: Bubba, age, M/F?
Bubba1: Um...uh, well, Shucks...
Prowler: Prowler here.
(((BURP!))) Who's out there?
Needless to say, this chat thread, like most, soon
descended into the ininteligible drivol of a dozen voices
saying nothing to no one in particulor.
So Gramps and the Presidant took it private.
Bubba1: Geez, that garbled
chatroom drivel sounded like my
last cabinet meeting.
Granpy: NO WONDER REAGAN USED TO
FALL ASLEEP IN HIS, HUH?
Bubba1: LOL! Who needs
encryption when you've got IRC
chat!
Granpy: LEVITY ASIDE MR. PREZ,
BUT WHO NEEDS ENCRYPTION WHEN THE
GOVORMINT HAS THE SOFTWARE KEYS?
Bubba1: Oooh. That was cold,
Granps.
Yes, Granfather had hit a nerve with that one. The gist of
the encryption bill was to allow US companies to export
encryption technollogy. Right now America's ass is
getting kicked in the world market cause we're not allowed
to sell encyprtion software while foriegn competittors are
alredy doing it. Mr. Clinton had opposed the bill, but
would of alowed it only if the US Govorment--yes, the
US Goverment was given access to the software keys to
be able to crack the codes.
Granpy: WHY DON'T WE ALL JUST
SURRENDER OUR NET PASSWORDS, HUH?
HOW 'BOUT OUR BANK ATM PASSWORDS,
AND CREDIT CARD PINS?
Bubba1: Come on, Gramps. I had
the FBI and the DEA on my side on
this, not to mention members of
both parties. What about
international spies? What about
drug kingpins? They use encrypted
technology.
Uh, ecxuse me Mr. President, but spies and druglords
also use the telephone and the U.S. Mail. And when you
need to put badguys under survellance, you simply get a
court ordor, and you do it. I have to agree with Granfather
on this. And I cant help but think that mabye a little of the
high-profile hand- wringing abbout encryptoin exports
might be just some old fashionned low-tech fear of
computers.
And besides. Nothin personal, but I use my conputer
for private corespondence. My browsing logs, purchasing
habbits and credit card numbers are here too, and I dont
want them falling into the wrong hands. Or, perhaps,
falling onto the desk of some fat guy in the White House
basement in charge of 'security' who no one
remmemmbers hiring. Granfather relayed my concerns to
the Prez.
Bubba1: Is that what your
grandson said? I feel his pain.
Granpy: HE'LL BE FEELIN MINE ON
HIS SKINNY ASS IF HE DONT GIT ME
A BEER, LIKE I DONE ASKED HIM TO.
Bubba1: LOL!
In any case, their disagreement on this one isseu
hasnt hurt Granfather's and Clinton's freindship any.
Funny thing is, theyve relied on encryption to maintain it
in secrecy. (A close freindship with Granfather is bound to
be a politicol liability, if you think abbout it). And
somhow I think the president is better at 'encryption' than
he thinks--Ive ben readin in the papers about Whitewater
for 5 years now: The president seems unscaithed, and I
still dont know what the hell is going on.
Bubba1: Do you think my loss on
the encryption bill will hurt my
approval rating?
Granpy: YOU KIDDING? WHAT'RE YOU
AT, 68 PERCENT? HELL, TWO MORE
POINTS, YOU KIN START DATING
AGINN, BOY.
Bubba1: ROTFL! Seriously--you
think this chatroom is secure?
Granpy: YUP. UNLESS NEWT OR AL
ARE HACKIN' IN.
Bubba1: Those guys? Everything
Al knows about computers he
learned from his kids. And Newt
still goes to Newsgroups for
news.
Granpy: YEH, THE NEWS IN
BINARIES, I'D BETCHA.
Bubba1: LOL! Hey, BTW, speaking
of 'non-family fare' I
accidentally erased that gross
.wav file from last week. Can you
send it again?
Granpy: SEND IT? GIMME A MINUTE
AND I'LL BE ABLE TO MAKE IT AGINN
FOR YOU, LIVE.
Bubba1: HAH! I'll leave you
Newt's private phonemail; you can
leave it for him there.
Granpy: SO, BUBBA--D'YOU STILL
LIKE ENCRYPTION?
Bubba1: Know what, Grampy? I
like privacy better. Handing
over encryption keys to the
government sucks.
Granpy: HERE IT COMES...NOW,
BUBBA, NOW
Bubba1: OH! Hold that, er
"thought" another second, I'll
give you Newt's secret
number...typing...Got a pencil?
area code (202) (ENCRYPTED)...
...And this is where the convorsation seemed to end. Or at
least, it was the last I got of it that wasnt garboled.
###
-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/
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