[2934] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
New York Times: "The F.B.I. should give up its losing fight against encryption"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rich Salz)
Thu Jul 9 11:13:53 1998
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 10:51:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rich Salz <salzr@certco.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net
The lead (only?) editorial in the June 6 issue of the New York Times.
Privacy in the Digital Age
As more and more Americans communicate and do business electronically, the
fear is spreading that information they transmit can be seized by hackers or
criminals and used for illegal or unsavory purposes. Fortunately, the
technology to thwart such invasions already exists. It is called encryption,
or the encoding of digital information to secure its privacy. But the
Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying hard to prevent the growing use of
encryption, both in the United States and abroad, because of fears that the
protective technology itself will get into the wrong hands. That
shortsighted stand will undermine efforts to protect commercial transactions
and may actually hamper law enforcement rather than help it.
The Clinton Administration's current policies toward encryption have been
largely dictated by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.
These two agencies now block encryption makers from exporting their most
advanced technology unless they agree to develop a method allowing law
enforcement agencies to gain access to it. The method favored by the F.B.I.
is known as the key escrow, in which the key to cracking a code is kept with
a third party that could hand it over quickly if law enforcement agencies
demanded it.
But the key escrow method poses tremendous threats to privacy. There is a
danger that access to keys for the code could be abused by law enforcement
agencies and others. Worse, the United States would be required to share key
escrow information with law enforcement agencies of other countries, and
giving access to private communications to countries with poor human rights
records could lead to crackdowns on dissidents using encryption for their
own communications.
According to industry officials, the export controls are already backfiring.
More and more foreign companies are supplying encryption technologies
without key escrow arrangements, making it virtually impossible for the
F.B.I. to eavesdrop and stealing business from American firms.
The growing foreign role diminishes the ability of the F.B.I. to demand new
safeguards or ways to penetrate the communications of criminals who use
encryption.
President Clinton might normally be more sympathetic to concerns over
maintaining privacy in the digital world. But since Attorney General Janet
Reno has protected Mr. Clinton from an independent counsel on campaign
finance, the White House is said to be loath to oppose either her or Louis
Freeh, the F.B.I. Director, on this issue.
On Capitol Hill, the debate over encryption has created some unusual
political alliances. Many conservative Republicans have stood with leaders
of the high-tech industry to oppose any kind of ban on encryption within the
United States and to support a loosening of export controls on encryption
technology. It has been odd to see Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader,
and Dick Armey, the House majority leader, stand with civil libertarians
against the demands of the F.B.I. But the F.B.I. is not without influence.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, more friendly to the agency, has prevented a
bill encouraging greater use of encryption from coming to a vote in the House.
The concerns of law enforcement agencies are legitimate. But smart criminals
are already using encryption, some of which is readily available on the
Internet.
That was the message conveyed only a few weeks ago by such unlikely allies
as Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jim Barksdale of Netscape, who are on
opposite sides in the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against
Microsoft but agree on this issue.
The F.B.I. should give up its losing fight against encryption and work with
industry to develop new means to catch criminals who use it. One approach
under discussion would be to develop software technology that could be
surreptitiously placed in a suspect's computer to capture keystrokes before
they are encrypted. Any such operation would have to be carried out under
strict court control as the electronic equivalent of a search warrant. But
law enforcement agencies have to find a legal and ethical way to stay ahead
of technology, rather than stand in the way of it. Trying to block advances
in the digital age is futile.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
