There is an even simpler solution. Encrypt your message as you normally would, and what do you end up with? A bunch of seemingly random bits. Wrap a little header around it claiming it is data from a Johnson-Noise measurement experiment, or some such thing. To increase plausibility, you can build yourself a Johnson Noise measurement aparatus (all you need is a high-sensativity voltmeter and a resistor). corwin

I don't think we need to be too concerned about D. Denning's proposals (the D. stands for Dingaling, in case you're wondering). Has she addressed `adequately' the issue of giving false keys to the archiving authority in her article? (If such a thing is even possible.) The whole idea sounds so unbelievably unrealistic and bizarre I can't believe anyone with a significant intelligence or reputation on the line would propose it (but then again, academics can make a living on outdoing each other in their unrealistic and bizarre proposals). I don't really see how this idea of wiretappable encrypted communications could be carried out, unless there are some kind of centralized encryption servers run by the government (I'm ashamed to even say such a thing), and make "private" encryption illegal. This smacks of such blatant totalitarianism I can't imagine anyone in the U.S. seriously considering it (except, of course, perhaps law enforcement types or NSA operatives). Considering how much copiers were regulated in the Soviet Union, I can't say that it'd be impossible to regulate every single of the 100's of millions of PC's in the world or in a country to pull this off, but there's no end to the strange effects brewed from isolated, idealistic bureacrats (and no limit to the severity of threats to freedom...) As I posted once to sci.crypt: encrypted communication is virtually interchangeable with and indistinguishable from communication itself. How does someone `know' that you are encrypting a message? Even straight ASCII messages can contain encrypted messages. (In fact, it would be interesting to write an application that will take any message and encode it like this.) Can you imagine the Meaning Police showing up on your doorstep demanding to know what your last message REALLY MEANS, and smirking malevolently when you insist that it's just a love note to your girlfriend? Unless a really severe cold front hits Hell, I think we're safe on this one. The thing we DO need to be VERY AFRAID OF, and LOBBY VEHEMENTLY AGAINST, is bizarre laws that are vague and can be twisted to whatever means police desire, and put the burden of proof and recovery on possibly innocent victims, such as the without-due-process property-confiscating drug laws we have now. (I suppose one possibility is requiring `carriers' -- phone companies, telegraph services, etc.--to provide keys for messages they encrypt. But what is the strength of nonlocal encryption? Would anybody use this? I guess there are a lot of unsophisticated people who want somebody else to do their encryption for 'em, but boy, not I...) To do something like have completely tappable communications, we'd need half the country to monitor the other half, to make sure nothing out of context is going on. Only problem with this is, who monitors the monitors? (The cypherpunks?) (I suppose I shouldn't be so flippant, because Nazi Germany was one example of a state with a comprehensive populace-monitoring apparatus...) No, I don't buy that paranoid plop about how it would be "trivial" to set up filters that "detect" encryption, or that this is happening on a widespread scale by the NSA in the U.S. This is an absolutely absurd claim. These mechanisms could be just as trivially defeated (although a-priori knowledge of their function may be required). People who think encryption is different from communication think that symbols are different than letters. Speaking as a programmer, good luck explaining it to a computer. I just think Mrs. Denning is well-intentioned but completely out of touch with reality on this one (hm, what's a nice academic PC term for this? cluefully challenged?) Is *anybody* taking her seriously? Maybe we should start an email campaign to SEND HER CLUES. Maybe a Cease and Desist court order? Maybe we could get the police to do a search on her house for all her cryptography keys (hehe, anonymous tip that she keeps an encrypted database of illegal activities? sorry, don't take me seriously). - - - From: corwin@Cayman.COM (Lord Among Panthers)

Encrypt your message as you normally would, and what do you end up with? A bunch of seemingly random bits. Wrap a little header around it claiming it is data from a Johnson-Noise measurement experiment, or some such thing. To increase plausibility, you can build yourself a Johnson Noise measurement aparatus (all you need is a high-sensativity voltmeter and a resistor).

*= <- light bulb going off -- hm, could something like that be used as a hardware random number generator?