From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 01:34:05 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton
Message-ID: <v03007804b005279a4e31@[168.161.105.191]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



*************

Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:04:35 -0400
To: fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Netly's Walter Miller talks crypto with President Clinton
X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/
ReSent-Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 13:12:16 -0400 (EDT)

Walter Miller is Netly's roving, raving, and notoriously misspelling
columnist. He's recently been keeping on top of cyber-rights issues.

Not long ago, Walter Miller had brunch with the Supreme Court justices, and
told them the dos and don'ts of web site design. "I also made sure to
sugest that the US Supreme Court get a password- protected Intranet too --
to post stuff like cafateria specials, snow days, even forums where they
coud flame eachother. Or maybe secretly play network Diablo on laptops
right there on the bench during boring testimony":

  http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1125,00.html

Then he took on the University of Memphis, which tried to wipe out a
student's "Old People" site. "Sections on the site include Geezer News,
(mostly newswire acounts of elderly motoring mishaps), and a humor page the
likes of this: Q: What's 1,000 feet long and smells like urine? A: The
conga line at Century Village":

  http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1196,00.html

Now Walter Miller writes about encryption, and his Granfather's long
history of crypto-talk with President Clinton (who apparently goes by the
alias BUBBA1)...

-Declan

***********

http://pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1227,00.html

The Netly News Network
Walter Miller (http://pathfinder.com/netly/wmiller/)
Trailer Trash on the Infobahn
for the week starting July 30, 1997

An Encrypted Freindship
by Walter Miller (thenetlynews@pathfinder.com)

  My Granfather isnt just a crankey old S.O.B. he's also a
  longtime F.O.B., or 'Freind Of Bill'; No, not Bill
  Gates--the slightley less inportant one: Bill Clinton. (The
  othor Bill probly HAS no freinds...Sorry, that was mean
  spirrited of me, and inspired out of jealousy--but atleast i
  can ADMIT it.)

       But Gramps and Bill Clinton realy ARE freinds.
  They met during the '72 Presidential race. Clinton was 26
  and George McGovorn's Texas campaign chair.
  Granfather was a low-ranking precinct leador. The two
  were tossin back coldies one night after a rubber chicken
  event at a motel out onthe I-10. Eyeing 2 bellbottomed
  chicks at the bar, Bill winked at Gramps; he winked back,
  scribbling with a pen on a napkin: "YOU TAKE THE
  YOUNG CUTIE. ILL TAKE THE OL' UGLY ONE".
  Both men nodded. Unable to read Grampy's scrawl, the
  gals never cought on. Thus began a 25-year freindship
  based on encryption which contineus to this day.

       Well, neithor man got lucky that night, and
  McGovern lost Texas in a 49-state landslide. (Granfather,
  a conservotive Democrat, ended up votting for Nixon).
  But encryption has come along way since. And so has the
  mop-topped boy from Hope.

       Not only did Granps let him keep his favvorite
  ballpoint pen, they both kept in touch. Last week they
  were in toutch allot. It was about the new Encryption bill
  that just passed Congress. Granps suported it while the
  President was agianst it. They hotly discussed it by e-mail
  for a few days, till this mesage arrived:

         Return-Path: whitehouse.gov
         Received: from (ENCRYPTED)
         Message-ID: (ENCRYPTED)
         X-Mailer: (ENCRYPTED)
         MIME-Version: 1.0
         Content-Type: text/plain;
         charset="us-ascii"
         Content-Trans-Encod: 7bit
         :
         From: "Bubba1"
         To: "Granpy"
         Subject: (ENCRYPTED)
         Date: Sun, 27 Jul 97 09:36:55
         -0400
         :
         Dear Sir:
         POTUS suggests e-mail is not the
         best forum for this discussion.
         Please meet POTUS tonite, 8PM,
         EDT in (ENCRYPTED) Chat. The
         regular place.
         :
         On behalf of POTUS,
         Your pal,
         :
         "VPOTUS"
         :
         P.S. Don't worry, POTUS tells me
         it won't take so long as to cut
         into the X-Files, which my
         (ENCRYPTED) sources tell me is
         a repeat anyway.
         :
         =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
         This is my sig.
         tHIs iS mY SIg ON dRUGs
         =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  Of cuorse, "POTUS" is President of the United States and
  'VPOTUS' is Mr. Gore. (Just like most big inportant
  exetcutives in the private sector, there's always some
  low-level lacky handling the adminostrative end of his
  E-mail.)

       Later that evening, their convorsation contineud, but
  this time in chat:

         Granpy: YOU OUT THERE, BUBBA?
         Bubba1: Right here, Gramps.
         Sweet4U: Who else is out there?
         Prowler: I'm here. Whos there?
         Granpy: I TELL YUH, BUBBA I
         AIN'T GLOATING, BUT I'M GLAD
         ABOUT THET THAR NEW ENCRYPTION
         BILL.
         Bubba1: Well, Gramps, I did have
         reason to oppose it.
         Prowler: Hey Granpy--ALL CAPS
         are for SHOUTING ONLY
         Granpy: I AM SHOUTING
         Sweet4U: Bubba, age, M/F?
         Bubba1: Um...uh, well, Shucks...
         Prowler: Prowler here.
         (((BURP!))) Who's out there?

  Needless to say, this chat thread, like most, soon
  descended into the ininteligible drivol of a dozen voices
  saying nothing to no one in particulor.

       So Gramps and the Presidant took it private.

         Bubba1: Geez, that garbled
         chatroom drivel sounded like my
         last cabinet meeting.
         Granpy: NO WONDER REAGAN USED TO
         FALL ASLEEP IN HIS, HUH?
         Bubba1: LOL! Who needs
         encryption when you've got IRC
         chat!
         Granpy: LEVITY ASIDE MR. PREZ,
         BUT WHO NEEDS ENCRYPTION WHEN THE
         GOVORMINT HAS THE SOFTWARE KEYS?
         Bubba1: Oooh. That was cold,
         Granps.

  Yes, Granfather had hit a nerve with that one. The gist of
  the encryption bill was to allow US companies to export
  encryption technollogy. Right now America's ass is
  getting kicked in the world market cause we're not allowed
  to sell encyprtion software while foriegn competittors are
  alredy doing it. Mr. Clinton had opposed the bill, but
  would of alowed it only if the US Govorment--yes, the
  US Goverment was given access to the software keys to
  be able to crack the codes.

         Granpy: WHY DON'T WE ALL JUST
         SURRENDER OUR NET PASSWORDS, HUH?
         HOW 'BOUT OUR BANK ATM PASSWORDS,
         AND CREDIT CARD PINS?
         Bubba1: Come on, Gramps. I had
         the FBI and the DEA on my side on
         this, not to mention members of
         both parties. What about
         international spies? What about
         drug kingpins? They use encrypted
         technology.

  Uh, ecxuse me Mr. President, but spies and druglords
  also use the telephone and the U.S. Mail. And when you
  need to put badguys under survellance, you simply get a
  court ordor, and you do it. I have to agree with Granfather
  on this. And I cant help but think that mabye a little of the
  high-profile hand- wringing abbout encryptoin exports
  might be just some old fashionned low-tech fear of
  computers.

       And besides. Nothin personal, but I use my conputer
  for private corespondence. My browsing logs, purchasing
  habbits and credit card numbers are here too, and I dont
  want them falling into the wrong hands. Or, perhaps,
  falling onto the desk of some fat guy in the White House
  basement in charge of 'security' who no one
  remmemmbers hiring. Granfather relayed my concerns to
  the Prez.

         Bubba1: Is that what your
         grandson said? I feel his pain.
         Granpy: HE'LL BE FEELIN MINE ON
         HIS SKINNY ASS IF HE DONT GIT ME
         A BEER, LIKE I DONE ASKED HIM TO.
         Bubba1: LOL!

       In any case, their disagreement on this one isseu
  hasnt hurt Granfather's and Clinton's freindship any.
  Funny thing is, theyve relied on encryption to maintain it
  in secrecy. (A close freindship with Granfather is bound to
  be a politicol liability, if you think abbout it). And
  somhow I think the president is better at 'encryption' than
  he thinks--Ive ben readin in the papers about Whitewater
  for 5 years now: The president seems unscaithed, and I
  still dont know what the hell is going on.

         Bubba1: Do you think my loss on
         the encryption bill will hurt my
         approval rating?
         Granpy: YOU KIDDING? WHAT'RE YOU
         AT, 68 PERCENT? HELL, TWO MORE
         POINTS, YOU KIN START DATING
         AGINN, BOY.
         Bubba1: ROTFL! Seriously--you
         think this chatroom is secure?
         Granpy: YUP. UNLESS NEWT OR AL
         ARE HACKIN' IN.
         Bubba1: Those guys? Everything
         Al knows about computers he
         learned from his kids. And Newt
         still goes to Newsgroups for
         news.
         Granpy: YEH, THE NEWS IN
         BINARIES, I'D BETCHA.
         Bubba1: LOL! Hey, BTW, speaking
         of 'non-family fare' I
         accidentally erased that gross
         .wav file from last week. Can you
         send it again?
         Granpy: SEND IT? GIMME A MINUTE
         AND I'LL BE ABLE TO MAKE IT AGINN
         FOR YOU, LIVE.
         Bubba1: HAH! I'll leave you
         Newt's private phonemail; you can
         leave it for him there.
         Granpy: SO, BUBBA--D'YOU STILL
         LIKE ENCRYPTION?
         Bubba1: Know what, Grampy? I
         like privacy better. Handing
         over encryption keys to the
         government sucks.
         Granpy: HERE IT COMES...NOW,
         BUBBA, NOW
         Bubba1: OH! Hold that, er
         "thought" another second, I'll
         give you Newt's secret
         number...typing...Got a pencil?
         area code (202) (ENCRYPTED)...

  ...And this is where the convorsation seemed to end. Or at
  least, it was the last I got of it that wasnt garboled.

###


-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/


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