🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct28.152443.1589@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>Well, if I ever wondered what it would be like to express an unpopular
>view, I sure know now!

I presume and hope you're giving some thought to the reasons for
disagreement.  These reasons are strong enough that I believe we can
convince you that regardless of the good intent of your proposal,
it would not function as designed.

>Two examples of cases where tapping saved lives:  In one case, the FBI
>prevented a terrorist group from shooting down a commercial airliner
>with a stolen military weapons system.  In another, they prevented
>a porno-ring from kidnaping a 12-year old.  The ring planned to murder
>him while making (and then selling) a film about it.  In that case, they 
>intercepted voice, fax, and conversations over a BBS.  

First, let me mention that alt.folklore.urban would love to hear
about the "snuff film" you mention, as there's never been a
documented sighting of one.

Now, let's consider these scenarios you mention.  What would be the
effect upon them of your proposal?  If a terrorist group wants
security and has access to surface-to-air missiles, they will
probably have good encryption technology as well.  Furthermore, they
are strongly motivated to use this technology regardless of the
legal risk -- what's a piddling crypto charge when you're an
international terrorist?  So you get your intercept authorization,
intercept their e-mail, tap their data lines, and steam the diskettes
out of their mail.  You look at the intercepts and find they're
encrypted, and the key's registered.  So you get a decryption
authorization, decrypt the data, and find -- noise.  Either it's a
secondary cryptosystem or it's just noise, sent precisely to irritate
traffic analysts.  Now what?

You'll be able to nail dumb terrorists, like the ones mentioned
above.  But you can do that now; you gave an example of it above.
You can't read encrypted terrorist communications now -- but you
won't be able to do it anyway.  At best, you'll be able to get the
sender on a charge of "unauthorized privacy".  

However, you might be able to keep terrorists from moving from the
first category to the second.  Will anti-security laws prevent
terrorists from getting security?  Well, do anti-gun laws keep them
from getting guns?  And you can't ftp a gun from an archive site...

>Dorothy Denning