At 4:51 PM -0700 9/26/96, Declan McCullagh wrote:
Anonymity and nonescrowed crypto are the linchpins of AP and its more general case, Maysian crypto anarchy. The withering of the nation-state. Whatever you want to call it.
To prevent it, governments will ban both. A criminal law, passed in the wake of say a bombing this fall in Washington, DC, banning nonescrowed crypto. (Freeh will assert he has evidence the terrorists used PGPhone.) And another law banning online anonymity.
What then, Mr. Bell?
Though I'm not Bell, I have some interest in this question. I believe, and have argued this for at least several years, that we are in a "race to the fork in the road." The fork in the road being essentially the point of no return, beyond which things are either pulled strongly to one end or the other. The two ends being: * a surveillance state, with restrictions on cryptography, the spending of money, the holding of various items (besides just traditional things like guns and drugs), restrictions on the dissemination of information, and of course controls on lots of other things. (For those who think this scenario is ipso facto unconstitutional, look at the many moves already in this direction. Between Supreme Court decisions allowing searches and seizures without warrants (e.g., on buses, planes, etc.), restrictions on discussion of crypto in public places (ITARs), there are a raft of "Presidential Decision Directives" and "National Security Decision Directives" which grant the Executive wide powers to seize control of telecommunications systems, computer networks, emergency systems, etc. While this is fodder for conspiracy theory supporters, it concerns many civil liberties advocates as well.) * a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist state, with people using a variety of secure and private channels to interact, exchange information, buy and sell goods and services, and communicate transnationally. The "anarchy" being the same kind of anarchy seen in so many areas of life: reading choices, eating choices (except for drug laws), this list, and so on. (For those who think this scenario is hopelessy rosy, pointing out that people "can't eat cyberspace," this is surely so. But a large fraction of "interesting" interactions are already done on the Net, or via phones, or other such mechanisms. And even if many people are not in cyberspace at all, if enough of us _are_ and are _secure_, I'll settle for that. The rest can come later.) The reason I believe there's a point of no return is this: once, for example, enough strong, encrypted, black channels are available, it will essentially be too late to crack down and stop them. Add to the mix steganographic channels, lots of bandwidth over several mechanism, and it's too late. (Take the Digital Telephony Act. It mainly covers _telephones_ (though many of us have speculated that computer networks could be covered, especially if Internet telephony catches on in a big way). There is no way the tens of thousands of individual Linux boxes and whatnot can be made to comply with DT "wiretappability." The horse is out of the barn on this one, to use yet another related metaphor.) Declan is right that each major "incident"--Oklahoma City, TWA 800, etc.--jumps us forward toward a totalitarian surveillance state. However, each new anonymous remailer, each new Web site, each new T1 or whatever link, etc., moves us forward in the direction of crypto anarchy. On the issue of terrorists, child molestors, and other Horsemen using PGP, PGPhone, etc., how else could it be? After all, use of PGP is being promoted by folks like us, and many others, and the molestors, Mafiosos, money launderers, Palestinian Neo-Intifada (the war that just started this week) sympathizers, nuclear material smugglers, and other assorted miscreants (or heroes, depending on one's outlook) are surely thinking about securing their communications. So what? After all, as we've been pointing out for years, criminals and conspirators also have locks on their doors, use curtains on their windows, keep their voices down when speaking amongst themselves in public, rent hotel rooms to plot crimes, and generally use various methods to better ensure privacy and secrecy. And yet the Constitution is pretty clear that we don't insist windows be uncurtained, conversations be "escrowed," and locks have keys "escrowed." And so on, with various of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights covering these situations (4th, 1st, etc.). The inevitable use of strong crypto by some criminal, perhaps even a heinous one, will be used as an argument to restrict crypto. We have to be prepared. Meanwhile, deploy as much crypto stuff as possible. (When I spoke to Stewart Baker, former chief counsel at the NSA, at the CFP in early '95, we both knew the race was on. On opposite sides, of course.) Make no mistake about it, the faster and more ubiquitously we can deploy as much strong crypto as possible (e.g., the Gilmore SWAN thing, more remailers, offshore havens, etc.), the greater the likelihood we'll win. (And winning will have some rather interesting consequences for society.) I think there's currently about an 80% chance we'll win, with maybe a 30% chance that we've already won, that we've already reached the point of no return and are on the path to crypto anarchy. --Tim May 0 We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."