From: Matthew J Ghio <mg5n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 94 13:19:52 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Dorothy Denning
In-Reply-To: <ohQYSpy00UhBE4Sn4c@andrew.cmu.edu>
Message-ID: <4hQZzIO00awNEh60YI@andrew.cmu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Anthony Ortenzi wrote:

> Number 2.  People on this list have said that she's an expert in
> cryptography. When I read that damned Newsday article posted
> on cypherpunks, I thought that she was just a whiny college bitch.
> The argument was just very, well, flimsy is the word I guess.
> I believe that Clipper is wrong, but someone could at least write
> a paper that would influence more by pointing out its merits,
> rather than just saying that the government should start spying
> on all of us to stop drug deals....

Not to mention that she obviously doesn't keep up with current events. 
The part about the world trade center made me laugh.  Here it is again
for those of you who missed it:

  Opponents say that terrorists will not be so foolish as to use
  encryption to which the government holds the key but will scramble
  their calls with their own code systems.  But then who would have
  thought that the World Trade Center bombers would have been stupid
  enough to return a truck that they had rented?

Maybe it was just a bad miswording, but it certainly doesn't strengthen
the argument as a whole, and doesn't give me much confidence in her
proofreading ability.
(They didn't return the truck, they put a bomb in the truck, it got
destroyed, then the idiot tried to claim that the truck had been stolen,
and demanded his deposit back.)

Dorothy Denning may have a college education, but she is a bit lacking
in social awareness.  She is just a pawn that the NSA is using as a
spokesperson so that they don't have to take the heat from the debate
over clipper.