From: jya@pipeline.com (John Young)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 74ca41396129cde728003caac36305ff89be70e16699d011a7ce02ec700303e3
Message ID: <199606080230.CAA26365@pipe5.t2.usa.pipeline.com>
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UTC Datetime: 1996-06-08 06:53:33 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 14:53:33 +0800
From: jya@pipeline.com (John Young)
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 14:53:33 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: NTT Chips Beat Cops
Message-ID: <199606080230.CAA26365@pipe5.t2.usa.pipeline.com>
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The Economist, June 8, 1996, p. 65.
Encryption
Silence of the bugs
Spare a thought for America's professional snoops. For
decades the FBI and others have counted the telephone
wiretap among their favourite weapons against crime, as
countless mafiosi can (and did) testify. Now, software in
a computer or digital telephone can scramble a message so
effectively that no law-enforcement agency can read it. For
years, the government has fought back by restricting the
use of encryption, to the fury of privacy advocates on the
Internet, where rampant eavesdropping makes encryption
essential. Now a bit of silicon and a stack of paper have
apparently ended the battle: the cops lost.
The bit of silicon is actually two chips that can encrypt
data transmissions so that they are in effect uncrackable.
Had the chips been developed in the United States, the
government would have classified them as "munitions" and
banned their export. But they were developed in Japan, by
NTT, the telephone giant, and the Japanese subsidiary of
RSA, an American encryption company, which revealed their
existence early this week. They can therefore be used
around the world, and even imported into the United States.
There seems nothing the American government can do about
it.
As if that were not bad enough, America's restrictive
encryption policy took another hit last week when a report,
commissioned by Congress and compiled by the prestigious
National Research Council (NRC), concluded that the policy
had hurt Americans far more than it had helped them. For
the past few years, the White House has been offering a
purported compromise: give the government (or a mutually
trusted third party) a key to read your encrypted e-mail,
and you can scramble it all you like. The problem with this
so-called "key escrow" proposal was that it smacked to many
of Big Brotherism. The computer industry rejected it out of
hand, and fell back instead on weaker encryption that was
not regulated, even though this can be cracked over a
weekend with a home PC.
Up to now, the government's response to cries for better
encryption for all has been to fall back on its
responsibility to protect the citizenry. The NRC panel
rejected this, together with the "if only you knew what we
know" argument the government has usually trotted out.
Composed of former security officials and encryption
experts, this panel did know what the government knows, and
was still not convinced.
Now the NTT chips seem to sweep away the whole debate. NTT
has already sold the chips in 15 countries, and they should
soon be incorporated in products. Stewart Baker, the former
general counsel of America's National Security Agency,
concedes that the chips have probably killed encryption
controls in America, but argues that the battle will
continue to run in Europe, where countries such as France
limit their use. For the rest of the world, these bits of
silicon may indeed make it harder for police to protect
citizens. But they will also make it easier for citizens to
protect themselves.
--
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