"And who shall guard the guardians?"

[jim bell]

At 02:57 PM 7/31/96 -0700, Martin Minow wrote:

>This question is also relevant to escrowed encryption: how to
>prevent misuse of escrowed keys by file clerks and other people
>who need access to the keys as part of their legitimate duties.
>Since these keys will protect a very large amount of money (consider
>the encryption keys used for interbank clearing) and since we
>know from the Aldrich Ames case that $3,000,000 can buy a
>high-ranking CIA employee, there are significant problems that
>need to be addressed. I would suspect that a Baysian analysis
>would indicate that the risk of holding (and losing) a key is
>greater than the risk of not holding (and needing) a key.

 
However, even that is a somewhat skewed analysis.  Most of us realize that 
the  kinds of advanced surveillance systems that are being promoted these 
days have nothing to do with crimes that are, statistically, the most common 
and feared among ordinary citizens. Will a wiretap ever solve a burglary?  
Rarely.  Will a Clipper-type decrypt bring a rapist to justice?  Fairly 
unlikely.  How about a carjacking?  A strong-arm robbery?  An arson?

Sure, it's always possible, but we know what's really going on.  Governments 
are afraid that technology will not only replace the protections we've 
traditionally been told only came from government (and thus make them 
unnecessary), but also that technology will allow us to force those 
governments to shrink and possibly to disband.  

In other words, to a government-type most of the benefits of a Clipper 
system are to the government itself, certainly not to the person who owns 
the phone and not even to society as a whole.  That's one reason, I suspect, 
why those secret talks given to various people to convince them to support 
Clipper "usually" work if the person is a government-type, but will almost 
never work to an unbiased private citizen.  That's also why the lecture is 
secret:  That way, the government can push two different stories without a 
contradiction being obvious to the rest of us.  





Jim Bell
jimbell at pacifier.com