🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct27.143737.1574@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>Electronic surveillance has been an essential tool in preventing 
>serious crimes such as terrorist attacks and destabilizing organized crime.
>The economic benefits alone are estimated to be in the billions.  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.  The problem is likely to get even worse if criminals know
>they use the telecommunications systems without any chance of getting
>caught.

Let's take this in pieces:

1.	criminals
2.	terrorists
3.	high school kids

1.	Criminals have been using serious cryptography for decades.  Kahn's
"Codebreakers" includes accounts of cryptanalysis of criminals' systems and
hearings in which those results were presented -- from the 1950's.  (I
 believe it was Mrs. Friedman as the cryptanalyst in those cases.)  Are
you trying to tell us that major organized crime figures which were once
doing good enough cryptography that a major cryptanalyst had to be called
in to break their systems wouldn't have kept up with the state of the art?
These folks are going to be naive and just wait for what is readily
available to the general population and cheap besides?

2.	Terrorists buy military equipment -- serious munitions.  Are you
suggesting that these folks are somehow naive about encryption and waiting
for what they can buy at Radio Shack?  Furthermore, they are usually based
outside the USA -- so they can do their crypto shopping in Europe or Asia.
I'm told that Moscow has some good systems for sale, relatively cheap....

3.	High school kids have personal computers and copies of PGP.  These
are the only possible folks against whom a proposal like this could be
aimed.

	I had a high school kid in my home for a while...and for a while,
my phone was tapped (I was told).  The reason: some friend of my daughter's
was suspected of selling drugs at school -- small bags of pot, to be
specific.

	Look at the war against drugs, in the last 12 years:  Noriega got
supported.  Oliver North's people were running drugs to help the Contras.
But -- private citizens who happen to carry large sums of cash get their
cash confiscated -- with no proof of drug connection -- all in the name
of the war against drugs.


I'm sorry, Dorothy, but I don't buy your argument.  The real threats won't
be affected.  The high school kids will.  This is a war by the Executive
branch against common folk -- not against organized crime figures or
terrorists.  Those are just the excuses for the real war.  Of course, I
don't know *why* that real war is being waged.  It might just be voyeurism.
It might be a belief that once you're in law enforcement, there should be
no secrets from you.  That's for others to discover.  To me, it's something
to be fought.



>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.

>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. 


These mechanisms sound like good steps actually -- assuming we can't
establish the absolute right to privacy.

However, the independent trustee should be required by law to keep careful
records of key requests and to make those publicly available via the FOIA.
It might make sense to delay release by a month or two -- but certainly not
for years.

In addition, the independent trustee should not give out a private key
under any circumstances.  That would give blanket ability to decrypt future
traffic.  The trustee should decrypt session keys and give those to the FBI
-- with a court order, log entry and FOIA release for each one.



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

Never??  Where were you during Watergate?


>We are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, but not
>reasonable ones in response to "probable cause" of crime.

What constitutes "probable cause"?  If I have sent some encrypted message,
is that probable cause?

>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?

Yup.

I'm no fan of major threats against Society.  I am a foe of major threats
against Society.

To me, the Executive branch constitutes a major threat against Society
-- or rather, it can unless it is kept under strict control.  The Nixon
Administration could happen again.

-- 
-- <<Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are my own, of course.>>
-- Carl Ellison						cme@sw.stratus.com
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