[1617] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Congress & Crypto Roundup: Vote in Commerce cmte tomorrow
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (f_estema@alcor.concordia.ca)
Wed Sep 24 18:19:56 1997
From: f_estema@alcor.concordia.ca
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 17:43:48 -0400 (EDT)
To: Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <199709241820.OAA11000@mail.intercon.com>
On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Amanda Walker wrote:
> If the left hand is yelling "we must make the Internet less secure, in
> order to preserve national security," why isn't the right hand objecting,
> since they've already publically come to the opposite conclusions?
Job security. If the public can do a better job of securing itself than
the government agencies whose mandate is to protect us, these agencies
will have a very hard time justifying their funding to Congress.
It is much more flashy to have FBI agents catching Kevin Mitnicks (poor
guy) than have some invisible off-the-shelf piece of software keeping half
the world out of your system. Firewalls and crypto programs aren't very
photogenic or easy to understand. By creating a problem that Joe
Journalist and your average congressperson can understand and by solving
it in a visible way (ie arrests), permanent funding as an "essential" part
of "National Security" is assured.
I'm not at all saying that government agents consciously conspire defraud
the public in this manner, but rather that the economics of government
will reward each little part of the behaviours that make up this pattern,
thereby coordinating the various actors unawares.
Nasty stuff.
