[386] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Dorothy and the four Horseman
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Informati)
Wed Mar 19 10:24:26 1997
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 9:13:59 -0500 (EST)
From: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" <PADGETT@hobbes.orl.mmc.com>
To: david.hayes@mci.com
CC: cryptography@c2.net
>I think we should be happy. They've been saying all along that crypto would
>be a boon to crooks. Now they're trying to prove it. Let them. I think it's
>unlikely they'll show any case where a criminal investigation was blocked by
>crypto, and they were unable to proceed through other means.
No, if you pay enough, you can always find a "recognized expert" to testify
to anything you want. Going price seems to be about U$10k these days.
Do believe that near univeral use of good crypto will STOP more crime
than it will cause (1st generation) and while it will create a second
generation problem (investigation) there will be fewer crimes to
investigate and so the *overall* investigative effort required will
decrease.
As soon as this is discovered by politicians, investigative *funding* is
liable to drop as well.
Of course this is an unpopular view so will be dismissed as yet another
cryptonut. I will say that predicting second generation problems before
the first generation solutions are applied is like predicting how high
the watertight bulkheads in the Titanic need to be before it is built. You
can say that there could be a problem but there is no way to quantify it
without first generation experience.
Warmly,
Padgett
http://www.netmind.com/~padgett/index.html
ps suspect a good simile would have been if in the early 1900's automobiles
were required to have 15 mph governors since higher speeds would have
made it difficult for an officer on horseback to catch bank robbers.
- come to think of it, I believe there was a law like that...
