Arguments for good crypto and against GAK.

[Carl Ellison]

At 03:00 PM 6/5/97 -6, Peter Trei wrote:
>In short, it's possible to pro-crypto, anti-GAK 
>without ever getting near sounding  anti-government; 
>in fact, being pro-crypto, anti-GAK can be a 
>conservative, anti-crime, law & order position.

Yup.

Let me add one more I just posted to the cryptography list.

When you have non-GAK strong crypto for criminals to use, they (like the 
rest of us) will be seduced into believing that they have privacy and will 
loosen their tongues.  As a result, more and better intelligence will be 
available over that communications channel.  For the proportion of cases 
where the person on the other side is an agent or someone turned by threat 
of prosecution, this intelligence falls into the hands of law enforcement.  
Even better, this person who is reporting to LE is remote from the real 
criminal(s), so he is in substantially less danger of being frisked to 
discover a wire.

 - Carl


+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison  cme at cybercash.com   http://www.clark.net/pub/cme |
|CyberCash, Inc.                      http://www.cybercash.com/    |
|207 Grindall Street   PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 |
|Baltimore MD 21230-4103  T:(410) 727-4288  F:(410)727-4293        |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+