Stanton McCandlish wrote:

Just got word from the RISKS folks that the upcoming issue has a denouncement of the Network World article, from Denning. She says she checked up on it, and it's BS. This is pretty much obvious, but it still leaves open the question of who originally came up with this rumor to monger, and why? It looks almost like an act of desperation. That's my interest in this. If it was something that could be taken seriously, it would be a good bit of propaganda work, truth or falsehood aside. But the entire short article smacks of conspiracy theorist ranting. I hope this sort of stuff isn't going to become more frequent, or it may make anti-Clipper people look, from the outside, like kooks.

Since I've seen it cited by Dave Banisar, yourself, and others, including direct excerpting from the source, to me it is "fair game" for spreading far and wide! I'll be interviewed on a radio show in the near future, and I fully intend to let the listeners know about the intrinsic vulnerability of centralized systems like the Clipper key escrow system to theft or compromising of the keys. Whether details have already leaked or not is beside the point: a centralized system takes away our own responsibility for our privacy and places a master or skeleton key to our lives in the hands of the state....a state which has shown itself to be corrupt at various levels and in various unpredictable ways. Frankly, I don't consider Dorothy Denning to be an unbiased source in this matter, so I will look with some skepticism at any "denunciation" of this report. By her. And I hope here reasoning is more than "I have been told." (Not to pick on Denning, but she has demonstrated a credulous approach to accepting the word of law enforcement in the past, and has repeatedly referred to law enforcement's greater need for access to private matters and how things "they know" would scare the rest of us if only we could be told about them.) As for this stuff making anti-Clipper folks sound like "conspiracy theorists," just what is Clipper and Digital Telephony but a conspiracy to crush privacy as we know it today and usher in the surveillance state? Some conspiracies are more than theories. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."