From: kkirksey@world.std.com (Ken B Kirksey)
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 93 08:58:22 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: strong crypto => increase in rubber-hose attacks?
Message-ID: <199311251654.AA02170@world.std.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>Assume you use strong crypto to protect your secrets.
>
>Assume a lot of people start using crypto to protect their secrets.
>
>Assume there are people who want to discover these secrets.
>
>
>Might we some day see an increase in the number physical attacks as bad guys  
>resort to rubber-hose methods to get at the keys that protect the secrets?

Now Jim, you wouldn't be implying that our big warm fuzzy government would
EVER resort to using methods like that on it's own citizens, would
you? :-)  Not possible, unless you count Waco, Ruby Ridge, Ken Ballew,
John Lawmaster, no-knock search warrants, ad infinitum...

Seriously, I think you may be right, although physical security has always
seemed to me to be the weakest link in any crypto chain.  All I can say
is that scenarios such as you envision simply point out the wisdom of
always going armed.  Or did I read to much Heinlein when I was a kid? :-)


                                Ken

=============================================================================
Ken Kirksey            kkirksey@world.std.com            Mac Guru & Developer
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Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon
the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
                                                            - Mahatma Ghandi