🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct27.143737.1574@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
[...]
>2.  The reason I made the proposal is because I am concerned that we
>may be facing a major crisis in law enforcement.  I expect many of
>you will say "that's wonderful"

amen to that!

>                                but I don't see it that way.  
>Electronic surveillance has been an essential tool in preventing 
>serious crimes such as terrorist attacks and destabilizing organized crime.

Come on, Dorothy!  The damned government will surveill these people *and*
let them do their thing if it suits the gov't to do so!  They just want to
keep on top of it, that's all.  The government will stop terrorist attacks
when it is clearly beneficial or expedient to do so, and will let them
continue (or even take them over itself) if it's beneficial or expedient to
do so.

>The economic benefits alone are estimated to be in the billions.

Nonsense.  That kind of argument didn't stop the S&L scandal or the
deficit.  I sure as hell don't want to give up *any* civil liberties
for billions in "savings".  I'd rather pay billions to *get* the civil
rights, and up until the time I was in my early 20's (almost 30 years ago),
I thought that's what I *did* get.  I know better now, and I'm mad as hell.

>                                                                  This
>issue is not about snooping on innocent citizens but about doing what
>we can do prevent major crimes that could seriously disrupt other
>liberties.

Which is worse?
I'm not willing to make tradeoffs of that sort.

>            The problem is likely to get even worse if criminals know
>they use the telecommunications systems without any chance of getting
>caught.

Not really.  There's *lots* of ways to fight "crime".  Problem is, sometimes
it requires a little head-scratching.  Used to be, that's what people did
when they had a problem.  Now they just make it illegal.

Both you and I know that innocent citizens are going to get snooped on,
regardless.  I may think I'm innocent of something and the government
may nontheless get the idea that i need to be checked up on, for whatever
reasons they may or may not bother to rationalize.  Thanks, but no thanks.
I'll take my chances with the terrorists.  Besides, they don't look that
different from the government in the first place.  A pox on both houses!

I'm sorry, but I find it impossible to have any trust toward an organization
that persists in regarding me as its enemy/citizen/property.

In any case, if the government decides to take a dislike to me because
of my political views, they are a far bigger threat to me than any petty
criminal.  Maybe those of you with vanilla or mainstream politics don't have
anything to worry about (why that should be the case, I don't have a clue
except that mundane speech is no *threat* to anybody), but I don't have the
resources to stand off the government (worst case: Weaver-style
confrontation).  I at least have a fighting chance with a petty criminal,
who is just an individual without infinite resources.

>3.  My proposal was to register your private key with a trustee, 
>different from the government.  The key would be encrypted under some
>other public key so the trustee couldn't decrypt it.  I have suggested
>it be the key of the DOJ, but it could be another independent trustee.
>I believe this would provide acceptably good protection since someone
>would need to get a court order and then the cooperation of 3 agencies
>to get at your communications: the telecommunications provider (to get
>the bit stream), the first trustee (to get the encrypted key), and
>the second to decrypt it.  Experience with the telecom providers has
>been that they are very fussy about court orders -- you have to get
>the semicolons right!

No problem getting the semicolons right once it's automated.
Besides, the fact that the t'com providers are fussy is just evidence
of a turf battle.  It doesn't testify to the telecom providers commitment
to free speech/privacy at all.  They just don't like being pushed around.

>You can get even more security by using Silvio Micali's "fair 
>public-key cryptosystem" approach.  Called "fair" because it is 
>designed to strike a balance between the needs of the Government and
>those of the citizens.  With his approach, you would break your key
>up into 5 parts and give it to different trustees.  All 5 parts
>are needed to reassemble it, but it is possible to veryify the parts
>individually and as a whole without putting them together -- 
>ingenious!  He presented this at CRYPTO '92. 

Who gets to pick the "trustees"?  Can any of my friends be trustees
of my key?  Or does it have to be somebody "neutral", like, say, a
government agency?  Or 5 government agencies?  How reassuring!

>4.  Someone suggested that law enforcement routinely taps without
>court order.  This is an ungrounded claim for which I have never
>seen any evidence.

Well, if it were competently done, you wouldn't.  That's how it's supposed
to work, and it's not that hard to get good at it.  Fortunately, human beings
screw up, coverups fail, shit happens, and we learn about the latest and
greatest government abuses, and for some of us, this means "don't trust
the government."  Nevertheless, some people seem to have an undying faith
in the integrity of government.  Well, lots of people kept their christianity
after Jonestown, the Pope and Pat Robertson, too.  Go figure.

>                    Regardless, their ability to do this is 
>disappearing with the new digital based technologies.  They need the
>help of the service providers, who in turn ask for court orders.
>Court orders are not all that easy to get as law enforcers have to
>document why other approaches have failed etc.

Nonsense!  It's a routine piece of legal machinery.  All they have to do
is say, "we can't get the info any other way."  It's not like the cops have
to appear, hat in hand, before the grizzled old curmudgeon of a skeptical
judge, who has just turned down the last 23 similar requests on grounds of
violation of civil rights and terminal tackiness...Dream on!.  One phone
call, a 3-hour wait while the machinery grinds, a couple of lattes get drunk,
possibly a routine court appearance by a lackey of the DA, and presto!
instant court order!  Just wait `til client-server technology comes along :) ...

>5.  Many people have noted that you could not enforce key 
>registration.  They may be right, but I am not throwing in the towel
>yet.  Let's take phones, which is what law enforcers are most 
>interested in. Products are emerging that you can attach to your
>phone and that will do DES encryption.  Criminals and everyone
>else are most likely to use commercial products -- easiest to
>get and cheapest.  The products could be designed so key registration
>would essentially be part of the sales process.

What's the point of encryption?  Do you expect the criminals to buy
the tappable DES scrambler phones?  Maybe the clueless ones will, and the
ones who inevitably will get caught.  How long do you think that will
last?  If I'm encrypting a plan to commit murder, am I going to use a method
I have no confidence in because it's a crime to use stronger methods?

>There can be social benefit to government regulation even when 
>regulation is not 100% successful.  None of our laws prevent the
>acts they outlaw.  But this does not mean we should get rid of
>all laws.  

Nobody (in this forum, at least) is arguing to get rid of all laws.
Just the stupid ones (and please, no flames about one person's stupid
law being another's protection; we all know lots of examples of what I'm
talking about).

Jeez, I'd just settle for the government setting an example
of propriety -- start obeying it's own rules.  Then, at least I'd know what
a "good citizen" looks like (and maybe, know how not to act).
But the government is the biggest crook of all and I'm not comforted by
their promise to clean out all the littler crooks.  When that's done,
are they going to commit suicide (I wish)?

For example, we have agencies like the FDA busting down people's doors
to confiscate herbs and vitamins, because of their "doubtful" efficacy?.
Is this tolerable?  Do I want to entrust *my* secrets (like my private key)
to a bunch of zealots and ideologues and people who think civil rights is
for effete snobs, or that it's *illegal* to be wrong?

>6.  Some people have said we should not give up our privacy to the
>government.  But the constitution does not give us absolute privacy.

Of course not.  Privacy, like other rights, has to be *taken* and not
given back.  If it was *given* to you, there's only one thing you can be
sure of: that it was of *no* *further* *value* to the giver.  Such things
are likely to prove of little value to you as well.

>We are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, but not
>reasonable ones in response to "probable cause" of crime.  In all
>areas of our lives, the government can invade our privacy if they
>have good reason to believe we are engaged in major criminal activity.

...OR if they happen to be bored, OR something is needed to distract
people from the current scandal, OR to shore up somebody's flagging
political fortunes, OR to act out someone's divinely appointed agenda...
Yes...for innocent, diddley stuff, like smoking marijuana.  It used to
be for being a Socialist.  Jock Sturges lost all his pictures because
he had some naked kid pix that some stupid Fed thot was kidporn.

>They can break into our homes, our safes, and so on.  Do we really
>want a society where electronic communications cannot ever be broken
>when there is good reason to believe some major threat against society
>is being planned?  

Yes.  For one thing, credibility of the source has to be taken into
account.  What major threat do you have in mind?  You don't consider
"our" government to be one, evidently.  As I said, I'll take my chances
against organized crime, muggers, rapists, drug dealers, terrorists, etc.
[...]
-- 
kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
 Nostalgic conservatives will soon be referring to the Bush Era as
 "those Halcion days of yesteryear".