🚀 go-pugleaf

denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>...  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?  

This is the crux of the matter.  Once unbreakable-in-practice encryption
technology exists, it's no longer a matter of choice; that's exactly the
kind of society in which you live.  Any group offering a major threat to
society surely won't be deterred by a bit of legislation.  It might take
a year or two for the black market to ramp up, but when something can be
done by one person using off the shelf parts, it'd take pretty draconian
legislation to stop it.

On the other hand, any legislation at all will (and does) impede the use
of encryption technology by the law abiding.  Extrapolate from the costs
of the present set of laws--having to maintain both domestic and foreign
versions of everything, being unable to use American crypto software for
communication with an overseas branch office, etc.  Now consider a world
where every law abiding citizen has to send keys to some authority every
time they change.  The cost and trouble of compliance will surely be big
enough to discourage frequent key changes, if not widespread use itself.

Finally, it strikes me that a crime, the ONLY evidence for which demands
the decryption of something by the government, is a subtle crime indeed;
perhaps too subtle for a free society.
				--Dunc