[Near end, Mike Nelson is quoted insisting that White House wants voluntary key escrow, etc. --Declan] http://www.hotwired.com/muckraker/ The Encryption Clock When US Attorney General Janet Reno held a high-profile news conference crowing about the first successful use of an "Internet wiretap," she set the "Encryption Clock" in motion. The Encryption Clock (my own invention) is shamelessly stolen from the "Doomsday Clock" ginned up by nuclear scientists during the Cold War. Since 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock forward or backward; the placement was a guess by the planet's top minds as to how close the world was to full-scale nuclear holocaust. Midnight signaled the end of humanity. At the height of Reagan's "Evil Empire" rhetoric, the clock was 3 minutes from striking 12. It was only after the USSR self-destructed that the clock was rolled back from the brink, and it now sits at 14 minutes from 12. If the Encryption Clock strikes midnight, we will see the FBI's crypto wet dream realized: A ban on encryption schemes that were not developed or endorsed by the government. The ban will be swift and brutal and will come without public debate. It will cover the FBI's encryption "hat trick," outlawing private encryption during all phone calls, modem communications, and even of files stored on your hard disk. [...]