From: sneal@muskwa.ucs.ualberta.ca (Sneal)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 93 16:03:21 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The first casualty of war
Message-ID: <9304192302.AA10374@muskwa.ucs.ualberta.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu writes:
>Who Has the Keys?
>-----------------
>
>The evasion of `who stores the keys' makes me wonder. It suggests that
>the proposal was poorly crafted (which is true in any case), but, more
>likely, IMHO, the scheme is weak enough for the NSA (but maybe not
>cops) to break regardless, and hence their casual disregard for this
>seemingly monumentally crucial point.
 
     It appears that the opposition is using the old rhetorical trick
of "begging the question."  Rather than stating the important
question (which is "Should there be a key registration scheme?"),
they jump right over it to "Who will register the keys?".  The
purpose is to focus debate on the latter issue without anyone
stopping to examine the former.  
 
     However, two can play at that game, as in:
 
"Nobody seems to have thought about what will happen when Clipper is
broken."
 
"Developing a system that is "impervious" (to anyone but its developers)
required at least four years." 
 
     Sleazy?  Yeah.  Not that I'm advocating fighting fire with fire or
anything.