🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <40mm5n$4h7@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>, 
<jcam2@mdw031.cc.monash.edu.au> writes:
> GuyD@world.net wrote:
> 
> [stuff about cyptography ban deleted]
> 
> :       ******* And now for the juicy bit ********
> 
> : It is a fact that Telstra had a software development project in
> : progress in early 1995, who's aim is to monitor and log phone connections
> : through their exchanges, to determine:-
> :   a) Which calls are voice, and which are modem.
> :   b) If modem, what baud rate and protocol.
> :   c) Given (b), to determine whether the link is using encryption.
> :   d) Lastly, given a positive (c), to attempt to analyse what _sort_
> :      of encryption it is.
> 
> Come on! Certainly a ban on cryptography is a stupid and unenforcable
> law, but claiming that THEY are monitoring all our phone calls to check
> if people are using encryption is absurb. I would guess that in the order
> of 10,000,000 phone calls are made each day in Australia (note that this
> is just a guess, and could be an order of magnitude different from the
> real value). All these calls would have to be monitored from start to
> finish to make sure that nobody started transmitting encrypted data 
> part way though the connection, or switched from a voice to modem
> connection. Surely this would be incredibly computationally expensive.

Not so. I'm guessing about this, but I expect that the aim would be to
examine a random sample of connections, looking for modem signals.
Then just look at some portion of the modem ones. Given a) & b), then
determining which are using 'popular' encryption like PGP is _easy_,
because the Internet mostly uses ASCII only, and encrypted email and
such usually has nice headers announcing that it is encrypted, and how.
Yes, I know that there are all sorts of ways to hide encryption, and that
ultimately good encryption cannot be detected, but there are not yet any
_common_ packages (that I know of) to do this easily. And remember that
the aim of govenment is not to stop _everyone_ using good encryption,
but to:-

1. Stop _most_ people using it. This cuts down the level of public freedom
   from government control dramaticly. It also helps make the people who
   take freedom seriously (dangerous dissidents all) stand out from the
   background noise, because they are the ones still using the politically
   incorrect encryption tools. Meanwhile all the real crims will be using
   real (hidden) encryption - but that's not of much concern to government
   because crims don't tend to be politically or idealisticly motivated.

2. Use the illegality of encryption as a handy club to beat down the few
   individuals who are making nuisances of themselves. Yet another silly
   law that everyone ignores, and gets away with ignoring. Until _you_
   are the poor sod that gets made an example of.

> Furthermore, is it even possible to tell the difference between
> encrypted and non-encrypted data? A good encryption scheme could 'hide'
> cyphertext in some other data, such as an image (steganography). Or you
> could develop your own encryption system that has no well known header
> that would identify it.

Yes, true again, but not very relevant on the wider stage, because _most_
people do not have the computing skills to do this for themselves. They
will have to wait for some utility to become available, and if it's a
public utility it's likely to have some sort of recognisable signature
revealing it's use. Mostly. And that's all government care for - 'mostly'.

> An interesting urban legend .. but not much more.
>  - Jamie

I have held the documents in my hand. The person involved was a close
friend, and did not lie. Neither am I.

It's just a shame that the significance of the information didn't strike
me till after I'd left that day.

Guy Dunphy

..This unregistered copy of <<STONE_AXE>> is more than 31514830 days old.