- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Communications Policy
by lefty＠apple.com 23 Jan '93

23 Jan '93

>I hear concern over privacy and also over erasure of White House tapes. >I pose the following question: Should an institution have the right >to private communication? Is the White House an institution? A _private_ institution should have a right to private communications. The White House is _not_ a _private_ institution. -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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the bill of rights hasn't been revoked. not yet, anyway.
by thug＠phantom.com 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

I've been thinking about this a bit, and it seems that the Constitution's Bill of Rights has all the provisions required to implement and legally use digital money, secure encryption, and anonymous communication networks. Specifically, the First, Fourth, and Fifth Ammendments can be used as one's defense in implementing any of the above. The First Ammendment can be seen as allowing encryption. Freedom of Speech does not preclude the government or anybody for that matter having to understand what I am saying. I can just as easly say "blardi blahr oof aarf bloo arrr foo barr arrh blard foobaaaaah" or "010110101101101011101.." to anyone I like and be protected by the First Amendment. Only those that can decode my speech will understand it, those that can't won't. I am free to speak to whoever I like (freedom of association / assembly). I am free to speak anonymously provided I break no law (copyright, slander/libel, etc.). Even if I do break a law, the next two paragraphs will show that I cannot be prosecuted for such a crime very easily. The Fourth Ammendment protects us from illegal search and siezure. If the government can get a warrant, they can search my place and sieze all my encrypted files. They can intercept my encrypted communications. They can have them, it won't do them any good. But it is their duty to decode it, not mine, and the Fifth Amendment basically says that.. The Fifth Ammendment is the tastiest one of all when it comes to encryption. By pleading the Fifth, you do not have to decrypt anything for the prosecution. The Fifth Ammendment gives you the right not to testify or provide evidence that would incriminate you. Providing a key to decrypt your hard disk would incriminate you, and you don't have to do it. In short the 1st & 5th ammendments + Secure Encryption can be used make even a completely legal search or wiretap warrant against one self worthless. Hence, not enough evidence for prosecution, hence no prosecution. They can't force you to decrypt any of your communcations or stored files, because you merely plead the Fifth amendment. This is assuming one encrypts everything, and has no accomplices/conspiritors who offer to testify for the prosecution. Even then, with public key encryption, the most that people who rat on you can give to the prosecutors are messages that you sent to them (the rat). And assuming all messages that you have sent out are sufficiently vague/obscure as to be non-incriminating, you are fairly safe there too. Assuming all messages from you were sent anonymously to a list, they can't even prove you sent them. Thus if they cannot force you to decrypt your hard disk, you should be relatively safe from successful prosecution for whatever, whether it be drug running or running a anonymous digital money bank / barter house. I guess now you can see why the government is so scared of encryption. Widespread use of encryption on the part of the criminal class would simultaneously obsolete all police, the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Department of Justice, or at the very least make their jobs several thousand orders of magnitude more difficult. For example, a child pornography ring that trades anonymously in encrypted .gifs using truly anonymous remailers would be impossible to take down by just taking down one member of the ring. Furthermore, it may be impossible to prosecute even that one member. Thug

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Re: privacy vs. public servants
by Eric Fogleman 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

Responding to Tom DeBoni's message concerning whether or not government officials should have a right to secure communications. > I submit that the amount of (real or potential) oversight should be > somehow proportional to the potential for harm or abuse of power > available to the individual involved. Surely Ollie North or Richard > Nixon had much greater abilities to subvert the democratic process or > otherwise break the law than Professor Smith of the Chemistry Dept. of > State U. Agreed! I agree with Dave Deltorto's idea about "a body that decided on a case by case (or a class by class) basis what accounts would be subject to heavy scrutiny". Or perhaps limiting certain public servants (the chief executive, Oliver North's successor, etc) to a set of "open" computing systems and communication paths. (Similar to limiting people with security clearances to sets of closed computing systems, communication paths.) Dave says: > Unfortunately, this begins to create a overseeing body so > huge and convolute as to render the entire process unwieldly > approaching on the absurd. I read Kafka's "The Trial" and I don't > want to face that sort of Juggernaut any time soon. Unwieldy? Kafka-esque? Expensive? Possibly, but it doesn't have to be that way. As Bongo says: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." How much do you want to pay? Eric Fogleman

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Re: the bill of rights hasn't been revoked. not yet, anyway.
by Marc.Ringuette＠GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

> Agreed. I guess if you refuse [ to decrypt your files] after that > point, they can hold you in contempt of court or cite you for > obstruction of justice. Oh yeah, this reminds me of a scheme by my friend Fuzzy. Create an encryption system which compresses and encrypts two files in the space of one (more or less) using two different keys, the "real" one and the "innocent" one. When you encrypt something, you also encrypt a similar-sized hunk of innocuous text. When they ask for the key, you give them the one that spits out the fake stuff. True, it's security by obscurity. But I thought you might be interested. -- Marc Ringuette (mnr(a)cs.cmu.edu)

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Re: the bill of rights hasn't been revoked. not yet, anyway.
by thug＠phantom.com 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

Matthew Lyle writes: > In a recent message, Murdering Thug said: > | The Fifth Ammendment is the tastiest one of all when it comes to > | encryption. By pleading the Fifth, you do not have to decrypt anything > | for the prosecution. The Fifth Ammendment gives you the right not to > | testify or provide evidence that would incriminate you. Providing a > | key to decrypt your hard disk would incriminate you, and you don't > | have to do it. > > What the government has to do in this case is to give you immunity from > prosecution. They can then order you to decrypt your hard disk. You can't > refuse based on the 5th ammendment because you have been given immunity from > prosecution. They can't use the hard drive against you, but they then can > in anybody elses prosecution. Agreed. I guess if you refuse after that point, they can hold you in contempt of court or cite you for obstruction of justice. BUT, what if they "crime" involves only you. Then they (the prosecutors) are up shit's creek, pardon the language. You're immune, and there's no one left to prosecute. Okay, let's assume the crime involves a conspiracy, and they give you immunity and force you to decrypt your hard disk. What good would this do them if all your communications between your conspirators took place anonymously and the messages from your conspirators are so vague/obscure as to be worthless as evidence. Now, they have already given you immunity, and now they can't even go after your conspirators because they may not even know who those conspirators are or even what the hell those conspirators were talking about in their vague/obscure messages to you. Even if the prosecutors know what the messages are in reference to, they still have to prove that in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt. Since they cannot go back on their promise of immunity to you, the prosecutors are again up shit's creek. All this will only work providing the prosecutors have no other evidence against you (ie: voice wire taps, physical evidence (notes, cancelled checks, survielance video, stashed cash, etc.)). If you conduct EVERYTHING via encrypted and anonymous communications and keep all records encrypted, they really cannot touch you. Don't you just love crypto-anarchy? I know I do. Thug

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Re: the bill of rights hasn't been revoked. not yet, anyway.
by fen＠genmagic.genmagic.com 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

> Murdering Thug writes: > If you conduct EVERYTHING via encrypted and anonymous communications and > keep all records encrypted, they really cannot touch you. > > Don't you just love crypto-anarchy? I know I do. So do I! I get the feeling that MT is attempting to display some of the dangers of crypto-anarchy via sarcasm. (I really can't be sure, as such intonations are really difficult to convey or pick up on in ascii.) While it is true that in a free society, someone could buy a gun and kill all their neighbors and possible even get away without a trace, I would rather live in that free society than one that disallows the purchase of the gun to begin with. (The fact that I support strong gun control measures is not contradictory to this.) In the same way, I would like to encourage everyone, even the Ollie Norths, to encrypt their communications. Sure, there will be conspiracies that take their toll upon society, but I feel that one of the biggest causes of violence is the feeling of dis-empowerment caused by conventional laws. Note, for example, that the countries that are less uptight about nudity generally have less sex crimes. Laws take power away from people. Encryption affords people the capability to gain access to the information they want and disseminate it to those they want to without fear of recrimination. This empowering technology will, imho, empower the many to cause less harm to the few, and empower the few to get what they want while protecting themselves from the wrath of the many. Hope that you find some of these ideas worthwhile... Fen

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PGP on BBS
by david.brooks＠cutting.hou.tx.us 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

I have been mulling over the idea of a BBS door which allows users to send PGP encrypted messages to other users using a system pubkey file. The implimentation seems easy enough except for the problem of the secret key. I don't see a way to do it without the sender having to transfer (at least temporarily) his secret key to the host system. Obviously no one in his right mind would ever consider doing such a thing. Has this kind of a program been tried before? If so, how? If not, does anyone have any ideas? Seems to me it would be a handy door for a BBS to have, but not at the expense of compromised privacy... David david.brooks(a)cutting.hou.tx.us <PGP 2.1 public key available by request> * Q-Blue v0.7 [NR] * ---- +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The Cutting Edge BBS (cutting.hou.tx.us) A PCBoard 14.5a system | | Houston, Texas, USA +1 713 466 1525 running uuPCB | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Does anyone know of any specific cases
by jgarner＠netcom.com 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

Does anyone know of any specific legal cases which have tested or are testing this issue of a conflict between the 5th amendment and Obstruction of Justice? Seems I read about something like this recently in a California newspaper but I cant seem to remember the case.

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Re: the bill of rights hasn't been revoked. not yet, anyway.
by Marc.Ringuette＠GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

> I've been thinking about this a bit, and it seems that the Constitution's > Bill of Rights has all the provisions required to implement and legally > use digital money, secure encryption, and anonymous communication networks. I agree, but only if you do all the public key encryption inside your head. :-) :-( You're interpreting the first amendment much more liberally than current legal practice would warrant. Just because something is an act of communication doesn't mean it's protected speech under the first amendment. -- Marc Ringuette (mnr(a)cs.cmu.edu)

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Preferably a screw with BIG threads
by deltorto＠aol.com 22 Jan '93

22 Jan '93

I dig Thug's comment about the "two conflicting issues here" (The Fifth Amendment & Obstruction of Justice). Especially the part about "tell[ing] them to go screw themselves." : ) I suppose that certain "specially designated' accounts belonging to certain "specially designated" officials should be open to complete scrutiny by the 'balancing' arms of Government, i.e. the Executive Branch should be 'checkable' by the Legislative, etc, etc. That begins to sound more Democratic, don't it? At least it sounds "democratic" as we hope it would be (maybe not as we know it to be). dave

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