"If you use encryption, you help the terrorists win"

Tim May timcmay at got.net
Fri Oct 24 14:52:02 PDT 2003


I predict we'll soon be seeing a new thought control campaign with this 
theme, that "if you use encryption, you help the terrorists win."

Similar to the heavy advertising (paid for by Big Brother, and hence by 
money stolen from taxpayers) with the theme that lighting up a doobie 
helps Osama, that taking an Oxycontin (sorry, Rush!) is equivalent to 
flying a plane into the World Trade Center.

Why encryption? Why now?

Perhaps Eric B. can comment on the status of encrypted cellphones, of 
whichever flavor, but it occurs to me that some people in Iraq 
desperately need them. I refer of course to those trying to expell the 
American soldiers occupying their cities and, as Anne Coulter put it 
and as senior Army officials agree, "occupy their country, take their 
oil, and convert them all to Christianity."

You see, the landlines and central offices were largely wiped out in 
the War for Oil. So what is now going in is what makes sense for nearly 
all developing--or flattened--countries: cellphones. The U.S. had plans 
for the contracts to deploy cellphones to go to American companies, but 
the local puppets must have had no fear of the Americans, as they went 
with a better bribe: mostly Arabic cellphone providers will deploy the 
initial system.

And of course this is why there are a lot of subcontractors with ties 
to the NSA, DIA, ASA, etc. now in Iraq monitoring communications. 
(Partly to track down Saddam's whereabouts, as he may use a cellphone, 
if he's careless. Recall the tale of Pablo Escobar.)

So, what would happen if even 5% of the cellphones were encrypted with 
a sufficiently-strong system (Eric's 3DES would presumably be enough)?

And if not encrypted cellphones, encryption of the usual sort, over 
networks.

I wonder what would happen to someone found carrying copies of PGP into 
Iraq?

(Which is not to say copies are not already widely circulating, or 
readily downloadable, etc.)

It seems clear to me that the puppet state of Iraq (maybe we could dub 
it "The Puppet Republic of Iraq"?) will not allow significant use of 
encrypted cellphones, or perhaps even encryption over networks. If the 
daily attacks on the crusaders continue to rise, and there appears to 
be some kind of coordination, the intelligence agencies will be called 
to task on why they are not intercepting (or jamming) the coordination 
channels.

If the expected attacks in Saudi Arabia and other soft targets happen 
on schedule in the next few weeks, we might even see reintroduction of 
crypto ban proposals inside the U.S.

We should not assume the war for crypto is won.


--Tim May
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can 
only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves 
money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority 
always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the 
Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over 
loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." --Alexander 
Fraser Tyler





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list