Is Feinstein's comment a blessing in disguise?
Ernest Hua
hua at chromatic.com
Mon Sep 8 18:46:05 PDT 1997
"Nothing other than some kind of mandatory key recovery really
does the job," the California Democrat said at a hearing of the
Senate Judiciary Committee's technology, terrorism, and government
information subcommittee.
This comment may, in fact, be a powerful weapon against ANY control.
In fact, Feinstein is believing that no half-assed policy (including
the current policy and Kerrey's bill) will really help law enforcement
much. I can imagine why Freeh would not just jump at that conclusion
full-force. He is not that stupid. If he were to hold onto that
conclusion too tightly, then there is little justification for any law
"encouraging" the proliferation of key-recovery products, as that
would be worthless in terms of providing relief to law enforcement.
Basically, Feinstein is providing further support for the
long-standing argument that unless you plug every leak (a.k.a. no
KR/GAK product), criminals will find the loop-hole and work around
government surveillence.
Ern
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