[2319] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Rivest's Wheat & Chaff - A crypto alternative
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marcus Leech)
Mon Mar 23 15:04:55 1998
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 14:43:55 -0500
From: "Marcus Leech" <Marcus.Leech.mleech@nt.com>
To: perry@piermont.com, cryptography@c2.net
Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>
> The fact that the widespread deployment of cryptographic technologies
> would be a potent tool against crime is immaterial to the FBI and
> NSA. They are not stupid people, so we must presume that their goal is
> not to try to defend the U.S. public, so much as it is to preserve and
> protect their own departments.
>
Cryptographic technologies are a potent tool to fight certain classes of
crime. I'd be willing to wager that the bulk of the crime in the
world
could not have been prevented with better cryptography. Certainly
some of
the most spectacular and exotics crimes involving finess of our
complex
financial networks are made less possible through the use of
cryptography.
Cryptography isn't going to protect society from murderers, rapists,
muggers, liquor-store bandits, etc, street-corner drug dealers, etc.
By the SAME argument, however, I'd like to know what the statistics are
on:
The fraction of all sucessfully-prosecuted criminal cases in which the
prosecutions case rested almost entirely on wiretap evidence.
The total "loss" (in dollars) of such cases, vs the total "loss" of
all other
crimes in which successful prosecution was possible without wiretap
evidence.
"NOTICE TO ALL CRIMINALS. Persons engaging in discussions of planned
criminal activity are required to make electronic transcripts of their
conversations, and escrow such transcripts with the government".
"NOTICE TO ALL PERSONS. Whispering is hereby forbidden, except when
such
whispered conversations are electronically recorded and escrowed as
above".
--
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Marcus Leech Mail: Dept 8M86, MS 012, FITZ
Systems Security Architect Phone: (ESN) 393-9145 +1 613
763 9145
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Nortel Technology mleech@nortel.ca
-----------------Expressed opinions are my own, not my employer's------
