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Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto,comp.org.eff.talk From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M Kadie) Subject: [NWU] "Encryption and the NII" Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1993 18:38:50 GMT
[This is an excerpt from the Newsletter of The Political Issues Committee of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) Address Correspondence to: Bob Chatelle, 296 Western Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139 (617/497-7193). The full newsletter was posted to alt.censorship.
(c) 1993 National Writers Union. Posted with permission from the November 1993 issue of the PIC Newsletter, the journal of the Political Issues Committee. All rights reserved to the authors. Reproduction without permission is expressly prohibited, but requests to repost articles on electronic systems serving writers are encouraged. Send permission requests to Bob Chatelle, kip@world.std.com -cmk]
Encryption and the NII, by Jenevra Georgini
... This would provide a digital "signature" (or perhaps "fingerprint" would be a better term; signatures can be forged but private keys are given to only one person).
NO! She is not ``given'' the key. That would imply that it is known to someone else! She makes the key herself using tools provided for that purpose. This is a serious misconception. Public key encryption does not depend on any ``authority'' for issuing keys. She is the only one anywhere who need know the key. Please correct this misconception in your mind and others with whom you discuss the subject. It can cause public key encryption to become identified in people's minds with hierarchical authority, which it emphatically is not. The author takes control of her own privacy and need not rely on anyone else to maintain it.
Of course, the larger and more powerful government machines can crack any private citizens (sic) 140-digit code in a day.
Why then would a ``private citizen'' limit herself to 140 digits? The software is readily available for her to use a key large enough that cracking it is not feasible even by government.
-- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization; this is just me. = kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
John E. Kreznar | Relations among people to be by jkreznar@ininx.com | mutual consent, or not at all. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLPsXl8Dhz44ugybJAQHfuAQArB99cSIYkrOmzNEUKzJlCSrY9BJiZ/VC yIVaVrjwLDBrbgdgYRNaV86mNJ0WLs7XLcui5dO6IHrRRAF5bcsB8TZsHUfY8M0g 1uEG8eriMrVsM1RprSEG769aHHiWhTn1jFELwlOFbdKvGqhDuYmpk0XoevsSDQ9J Kki7N0jiaLM= =1d/v -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----