🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 15 Feb 1994 15:35:09 EST, you said:
> >please forward this to everyone you know...  this is important!
> >
> >For those of you who don't know, Clipper is a proposal circulating in the
> >government right now whereby the government will require that all methods of
> >encrypting data (including e-mail) have a 'backdoor' of sorts so that the
> >government will be able to decrypt and read the data.  As you may have
> >guessed, this is an infringement on your right to privacy.

This is not accurate.

There is nothing in the actual Clipper proposal that mandates a backdoor.

The major *actual* complaints about Clipper center around:

1) The non-exportability of the technology, placing us at a world
disadvantage (see the current hassles involving DES encryption for
details).

2) The fact that NSA developed it and is keeping the actual algorithm
secret, saying "trust us".  Admittedly, the DES encryption standard was
also developed in secret, but the algorithm is public and has been
scrutinized for many years - so there *may* be a backdoor but if so,
it's VERY well hidden indeed.

3) The worries about the fact that the chip would be sole-sourced out
of one company, and that key escrow may not be particularly secure (in
particular, there are *2* keys required in order to use the Clipper
backdoor to wiretap a convo - but there is no "expiration" of these
keys so once a law enforcement agency gets 1 wiretap, that chip is
permanently compromised.

4) the *percieved threat* that at a *future* date, the federal
government may mandate the use of Clipper in preference to other
schemes for private and commercial use.

Yes, Clipper is a bad idea.  But not for the reason cited in the
original letter.

/Valdis