🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 6275 of sci.crypt, Dorothy Denning writes:

>6.  Some people have said we should not give up our privacy to the
>government.  But the constitution does not give us absolute privacy.
>We are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, but not
>reasonable ones in response to "probable cause" of crime. 

The constitution grants no rights whatsoever.  Our rights are ours by
nature, and the constitution (specifically, the Bill of Rights)
was intended to preclude the government from abridging them.  The
government exists, by our consent, in order to defend our rights.  


>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.
>They can break into our homes, our safes, and so on. 

The suggested registration of cryptographic keys merely extends this practice:
the government can invade our privacy for any or no reason.

>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?  

I do.  There will always be a tradeoff between individual privacy and
the so-called common good.  We are simply discussing where to draw the
line.  Let us suppose, for instance, that Dr. Denning's proposal could
demonstrably save 100,000 lives and one billion dollars a year.  Would
this be worth the concommitant invasion of privacy?  As a society, we
could save more lives and money each year be prohibiting cigarette
smoking.  We have (rightly, in my opinion) chosen not to do so, even
though prohibition would be nowhere near as hideous an assault on privacy 
as Dr. Denning's suggestion.  For, make no mistake about it, her suggestion
is tantamount to the end of privacy.  It would simply forbid us to keep
a written account which the government cannot read.

The prospect of a society where private communication is illegal makes
for some interesting speculation.  Suppose that A decides to illegally
send B a DES encrypted message.   A is a sly one, so he sends B a note:

Dear B
I know you love to play with simulations of large cellular automata,
particularly Conway's beautiful game of life.  Here is a file of
initialization data for an NxN automation.  Enjoy.
           Yours,
	   A

A then includes a file which appears to be a random stream of bits.
Those fellows over at the CEA (Crypto Enforcement Agency) have long
had their eyes on A, but they face a dillema.  If they haul A (and 
perhaps B) into court, they will have to prove that A is sending 
illegally encrypted data, since A is presumed innocent.  To do this
they will have to decypher A's message.  Perhaps they cannot, because
they cannot break DES.  Even worse, perhaps they can break DES,
but they do not want to reveal this in court.  Two solutions are
obvious.  The first is to outlaw the mere possesion of encryption
technology, be it hardware, software, or even books.  They can
break into A's house, seize his computer, and maybe bust A for
possesion of DES, PGP, and some articles on factoring large integers.
Even better: change the presumption of innocence.  When the CEA busts
you, you are guilty until proven innocent.  Think of what a boon this
simple procedural change will be to the law enforcement community.
And after all, that's how this whole discussion began:

>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" but I don't see it that way.  

Please do not misunderstand me.  I do not want to suggest that Dr.
Denning is or would be in favor of anything so radical as changing
the basis of our legal system.  But once we begin to trade liberty
for security, we will soon be left with neither.

		David Cabana
                drc@gauss.math.usf.edu