At 2:12 PM 5/24/96, Peter Wayner wrote:

I'm sure the "Briefing" is quite impressive and it includes several strong arguments for government surveillance. There are bound to be more than a few kids that are alive today thanks to eavesdropping and the quick thinking of folks in FBI, NSA et al.

I expect The Briefing contains unreleased material about FBI stings and apprehensions, such as the apprehension of the group planning to shoot down several airliners in the U.S., the plans to kill Clinton in Manila, etc. No doubt it cites the killing of Pablo Escobar (the real one, not VZNuri) because he was using a typically-insecure cellphone. (Though I doubt they will mention the U.S. involvement in using a cellphone to pinpoint The Bomber, in Palestine.) And almost certainly a few juicy tidbits about "pedophile rings using PGP" (which is almost certainly the case, of course). The Briefing may also contain hints of intelligence ops which caught nuclear material smugglers, which prevented CBW attacks such as the Sarin gas attack in Tokyo, and so on. (Some of this stuff is "CLASSIFIED," and this probably increases the sex appeal to the burrowcrats who get The Briefing. A darkened room, a succession of G-Man accounts of bad guys caught, a glimpse into the world of SIGINT, some nice dramatic music by Lalo Schifrin, and dire warnings about What Will Happen When the Bad Guys Get Crypto.) And so on. As Peter notes, there are undeniably cases where a Surveillance State can in fact capture terrorists, murderers, abortionists, smokers, carnivores, and other criminals and thoughtcriminals.

That being said, I'm sure that there is also an "anti-Briefing" that can be given that illustrates that the huge cost of redesigning the phone system and forcing businesses and people to operate without protection. Here are some examples from the recent press that I think are good arguments for why strong crypto won't change the status quo.

I agree that there are many examples that could be cited. Here are a few more: -- the spies and moles within the intelligence agencies, from the Walkers to Aldrich Ames. Here is an environment in which communications are ostensibly controlled, in which surveillance is ubiquitous, in which counterintel teams have wide lattitude to investigate, entrap, etc....and yet the crimes occurred. (Of course, we don't really know how much worse the spying would be without such surveillance. But the point is that even heavy surveillance still lets willing perps find ways.) -- drug rings have often operated right under the noses of cops, sometimes out of police stations. (The theme of any number of "Serpico"-type books, movies, and television shows.) -- and let us not forget the "Surveillance States" which already exist, or existed in recent memory. The PRC, implicated in various criminal activities, the leftist and rightist governments of the world involved in the drug trade, and so on. (The point being that even such Surveillance States have plenty of crime, and often the apparatus of the State is used for criminal purposes.) -- and so on...

Some might argue that if weak crypto can save one child's life than it is worth it. This is a strong, sentimental argument, but it really doesn't reflect the reality of the tradeoff. We could spend a lot more money on airlines, trains and cars and save a few kids lives, but the cost could be phenomenal. The fact is that government enforced weak crypto is a tradeoff. We pay for the ease of the police surveillance because we make life simpler for crooks who make their living eavesdropping and circumventing security systems. The big question is whether the tradeoff is worth it.

We can all think of repressive steps which undeniably will save the lives of some children, babies, old people, mothers, etc. Banning alcohol, banning smoking, banning sex outside of marriage.... (Some of these were tried, some are even now being tried by do-gooding statists....) Where the USA has gone off the beam is in legislating behaviors which are not directly harmful to others, presumably on the rationale of "the common good." But freedoms are being taken away daily in this rush to make the USA a "more pleasant" place. (The movie "Demolition Man" captured this trend nicely.) And beware the Law of Unintended Consequences. Mandatory airbags in cars, for example. They are having the effect that people are not using seat belts as often as they used to. And inflating airbags are killing children, probably more than are being saved by the airbags in the first place. Whoops. Better rethink that "we know what's good for you and we're going to force you to pay $500 more per car to have it." Meanwhile, the government pays farmers to grow tobacco.... Are things out of whack, or what? --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."