IP: Economist on crypto controls

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: David Wagner <daw () cs berkeley edu>
Subject: Economist on crypto controls
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 13:12:26 -0800 (PST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25]


This week's Economist has an editorial coming out against controls
on crypto.  As usual, they've taken an eminently sensible stance on
the issues...




http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/ld4935.html


[Note: if you forward to IP, please trim down -- e.g. delete the first
three paragraphs -- so I don't commit any nasty felonies.]


Forwarded message:
>    Privacy on the Internet
>    Plans to control encryption software are futile and misguided
>    
>    GOVERNMENTS are schizophrenic about the Internet. Most are genuinely
>    excited by its phenomenal growth and the opportunities it offers both
>    to business and education. They also sense that any country attempting
>    to hold it back risks looking foolish and technophobic. On the other
>    hand, they find the Internet's libertarian culture and contempt for
>    national borders subversive and frankly terrifying. Although much of
>    the popular demand for Internet regulation comes from the ease with
>    which it allows the distribution of pernicious content, a much more
>    important debate about the future of the wired world is hotting up.
>    
>    The argument is about the seemingly arcane subject of cryptography.
>    The dilemma for governments is whether to put the demands of
>    crime-fighting before those of protecting the privacy of businesses
>    and individuals. In the United States this week, a coalition of
>    computer-industry heavyweights, civil-liberty gadflies, politicians
>    from both main parties and some of Washington's toughest lobbyists
>    announced the formation of Americans for Computer Privacy. The
>    intention of this new alliance is to make the fight against the
>    administration's policy on cryptography a populist issue and to derail
>    potentially threatening legislation. In Britain too, campaigners fear
>    that Labour in office plans to reverse the liberal approach to
>    encryption it advocated in opposition.
>    
>    America already imposes controls over the export of encryption
>    technology. These have almost certainly hurt American software firms
>    more than the wicked foreigners they are aimed at. Some legislators,
>    supported by the White House, now want to go further. Two bills before
>    Congress, backed by the FBI and the National Security Agency, would
>    bar the distribution of any so-called "hard" encryption software
>    unless code-breaking keys were first given to law-enforcement
>    agencies. Powerful and widely available encryption software, the
>    law-and-order lobby argues, lets criminals and terrorists communicate
>    over the Internet with complete security. Without the ability to tap
>    into their files, heinous crimes will go undetected. Rather than
>    having the right to snoop indiscriminately, it is suggested, keys
>    could be held in escrow by "trusted third parties" and only made
>    available by court order.


>    
>    Reasonable though this sounds, the results would be almost wholly
>    malign. Confidence in encryption is essential for both Internet
>    commerce and the protection of individual privacy. If businesses
>    believe that confidential documents sent over the Internet can be
>    hacked into, they won't send them. If credit-card transactions can be
>    easily intercepted, goods will not be purchased. If e-mails that
>    individuals wish to keep private can be electronically steamed open,
>    they will stay unwritten. Powerful encryption is, in fact, an
>    essential protection for the law-abiding. Who would be confident that
>    keys would not get into the wrong hands, that trusted third parties
>    could be trusted or that law-enforcement agencies would not abuse
>    their new powers as they have done old ones, such as phone-tapping?
>    
>    It is easy to see why some governments are yielding to pressure from
>    their police forces. Keen though politicians are to be seen
>    encouraging the Internet, they are even keener not to be tagged "soft
>    on crime". They should reflect on two points. First, whatever they do,
>    though harmful to the law-abiding, will be countered anyway by
>    well-resourced criminals-the encryption genie is out of the bottle.
>    Second, the list of countries where strong domestic controls on
>    cryptography are already in place is Belarus, China, Israel, Pakistan,
>    Russia and Singapore. Is that a club they really want to join?