Canada's justice minister preparing bill to limit encryption

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, September 26, 2001, at 04:53 PM, Steve Schear wrote:

> At 07:17 PM 9/26/2001 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> At 04:06 PM 9/26/01 -0700, Steve Schear wrote:
>>> Wonder how ZKS will handle this?
>>
>> Ah, yes, Canada, land of the free. Didn't you know that Montreal is an 
>> entirely hospitable place for libertarian anarcho-capitalists?
>>
>> Perhaps there will be an exemption in this (admittedly, entirely 
>> fuzzy) proposal for companies that voluntarily escrow their keys with 
>> the RCMP.
>
> Perhaps I incompletely understand ZKS' technology.  I thought they have 
> structured their system to deny them data (ZK) which could be escrowed.
>
> steve
>


I admit/regret that I live in an almost perpetual state of "I told you 
so."

Pretty much everything that has unfolded was clear to me in the 1988-92 
period, and I have the essays and postings to prove it.

The implications for ZKS were also obvious. In a meeting I had, at their 
request, with Austin and Hammie, facillitated by Lucky Green, and then 
joined by sheer happenstance by Jim McCoy (*), I even anticipated this 
current problem.

(* We met at the cafe next to Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, and Jim 
McCoy happened to wander by.)

I asked Austin and Hammie how their centralized system, localized in 
Montreal, would handle the situation of the hijacking of a plane 
carrying the Queen. (I also gave as examples child porn and contract 
killings.). Austin and Hammie both said "We would not be able to trace a 
message."

Perhaps so, though less obviously so than when a message has gone 
through 10 remailers, with nested encryption, in 5 different countries.

Anyway, my response was this: "The RCMP will tell you to produce the 
origin of the message or will order you to shut down. They may tell you 
to produce the origin AND shut down."

Such is the risk of being highly-visible and a "single point of 
stoppage."

(There is no evidence that Freedom was used by any of the attackers in 
the 911 event, but they could have been users. The point about a single 
point of stoppage remains.)


--Tim May