[1542] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Nyah, Nyah, I've Got A Secret
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Carl Ellison)
Sat Sep 20 17:24:38 1997
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 16:08:42 -0400
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Carl Ellison <cme@cybercash.com>
Cc: cme@cybercash.com
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first pass at an accessible op ed piece...
--------------------------
Nyah, Nyah, I've Got A Secret
When he testifies before Congress, Director Louis Freeh of the FBI
certainly looks adult, poised, well dressed and in control of himself.
However, as point man in the Administration's chronically failing
attempt to get access to civilian cryptography, the director seems to
be responding to a child's taunt more than to reason.
Civilians have had strong cryptography for over 3000 years. That is
because we civilians have invented the strongest cryptography during
that time. We have used it for encrypting diaries, business messages,
procedures for locating buried treasure, love notes, notes between
school buddies, ....
Criminals have also used strong cryptography. In the 1920's, for
example, the rum runners hired expert cryptographers to design codes
and ciphers for them to use with their ships at sea, so that those
ships could be told when and where to land to avoid the feds. Those
codes and ciphers were reported to be stronger than those in use by
governments at the time.
According to David Kahn, the preeminent historian of cryptography:
"It must be that as soon as a culture has reached a certain level,
probably measured largely by its literacy, cryptography appears
spontaneously -- as its parents, language and writing, probably also
did. The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy among
two or more people in the midst of social life must inevitably lead to
cryptology wherever men thrive and wherever they write."
["The Codebreakers", p. 84]
Many of us experienced as children the process David Kahn describes.
In high school, my buddies and I created our own definitions for
certain key words, so that we could talk among ourselves without our
parents (or the FBI) understanding what we were saying.
Today, equipped with PCs, we would probably have downloaded PGP
(from <http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html>) as well.
However, according to an amendment being advocated by Director Freeh
to a crypto policy bill before Congress, a high school student
downloading and then distributing copies of PGP would be in violation
of federal law. Just imagine FBI agents knocking on a suburban house
door to arrest the teenage occupant for the crime of wanting to discuss
his teen agonies in private with his buddies.
The debate may seem childish, but there are real, adult rights at
stake here. We honest, adult citizens of the US have always had the
right to use strong cryptography to attempt to keep secrets from the
rest of the world, including Director Freeh's FBI. We don't have a
guarantee of success. The government is not prohibited from
attempting to break any cryptography we use. However, we have a right
to try, just as we have a right to sweep conference rooms for
electronic bugs and destroy any we find, even if they were planted by
the FBI. When we use cryptography for Virtual Private Networks we
are securing our conference rooms in cyberspace. As individuals,
we have a right to use curtains, even though a drawn curtain might prevent a
passing policeman from seeing some crime in progress. An encrypted link
between spouses is the cyberspace equivalent of drawn curtains in their
bedroom.
Cyberspace is new and sparsely populated enough that US citizens may
not be aware of their need for strong cryptography. That may explain
the sense of urgency Director Freeh apparently feels. If he doesn't
strip cyberspace of the right to attempt to keep secrets now, before
the general population becomes aware of what is being lost, he may
never get the chance. In the process, he gives the impression of
being unable to hear the old childish taunt without responding
childishly. Meanwhile, we citizens are left asking: "Who do you think
you are, Louis, trying to tell us we aren't allowed to write a love
letter you would have trouble reading?"
------------------
The only problem I have with this piece is that I didn't find a way to work
in the fact that the NRC report last year specifically said that there is no
place in this debate for closed door or classified testimony...yet that is
precisely how the FBI and NSA have swayed the folks in Congress. From my
one sample (briefing staff who had had the NSA briefing), that closed door
testimony included some false statements which would have been refuted if
stated in open testimony. I don't know how many other pieces of false
information were planted in the heads of Senators and Representatives.
- Carl
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