Newt's phone calls

[Eric Murray]

Clay Olbon II writes:
> 
> 
> I just caught the news reports of Newt Gingrich's cell phone calls being
> taped by "a little old retired couple" with a scanner.  These were then
> given to a congressman, who gave them to a newspaper.
> 
> The take on this that we won't hear is: "This is outrageous!  Why don't
> cell-phones offer encryption to ensure our privacy?"
> 
> Unfortunately, I think crypto is still so far beneath the public
> consciousness that the obvious solution to these sorts of problems is
> ignored in favor of the "there oughta be a law" non-solution.  (Of course,
> in this case there is a law!) What I really hope this incident spawns is a
> market ...

It won't.  It'll spawn more laws.

Encryption is voodoo to the masses and the politicians.  Even
in Silicon Valley newspapers there's the obligitory "encryption is the
science of scrambling words so that hackers can't read them" in
each article that mentions encryption.  However the masses and
politicans understand laws and jails pretty well.

Use a scanner, excuse me "cellular phone hacking equipment", go to jail.

-- 
Eric Murray  ericm at lne.com  ericm at motorcycle.com  http://www.lne.com/ericm
PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03  92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF