Register on Anderson: "Times misquoted me - crypto expert"

Xeni Jardin xeni at xeni.net
Mon Oct 8 20:57:55 PDT 2001


You gotta love those scribes at the Register--take this comment on UK
tabloid frenzy over alleged stego-hijinks of OBL and crew:

"Since the Times' stablemates the Sun and the News of the World have
allegedly been hiding news in pornographic content for several years,
(although we've never found any news in either paper to substantiate
that meme), the allegation doesn't surprise us. "

XJ


-----
The Times misquoted me - crypto expert
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/22102.html
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 08/10/2001 at 17:43 GMT

International cryptography expert Professor Ross Anderson has demanded a
correction from the The Times for being misquoted on the subject of
terrorists' use of email.

With echoes of Phil Zimmermann's treatment by the Washington Post, which
manufactured quotes by Zimmermann expressing "regret" for devising PGP
encryption, Anderson says the Times journalist "was determined - or had
been instructed - to write the story anyway".

Anderson lambasts The Times for unquestioningly peddling the meme that
terrorists communicate using information hidden in pornographic content.

Since the Times' stablemates the Sun and the News of the World have
allegedly been hiding news in pornographic content for several years,
(although we've never found any news in either paper to substantiate
that meme), the allegation doesn't surprise us.

"It is unclear what national interest is served by security agencies
propagating this lurid urban myth. Perhaps the goal is to manufacture an
excuse for the failure to anticipate the events of September 11th.
Perhaps it is preparing the ground for an attempt at bureaucratic
empire-building via Internet regulation, as a diversionary activity from
the much harder and less pleasant task of going after al-Qaida.

"Perhaps the vision of bin Laden as cryptic pornographer is being spun
to create a subconscious link, in the public mind, with the scare
stories about child pornography that were used before September 11th
to justify government plans for greater Internet regulation," writes
Anderson.

Anderson suggests the articles "should be read as a deliberate plant by
MI5".

You can read more here
<http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-October/01770
8.html>
and here
<http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-October/01771
2.html>. .





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