[954] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: encryption by the wind in an open field
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perry E. Metzger)
Fri Jun 6 16:46:11 1997
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
cc: Carl Ellison <cme@cybercash.com>, cryptography@c2.net
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 06 Jun 1997 14:54:57 EDT."
<Pine.SUN.3.96.970606143215.16522A-100000@polaris.mindport.net>
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 15:50:39 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Black Unicorn writes:
> > If a criminal writes that diary entry and forgets the key, has the key been
> > lost? Should attempts be made by coerced hypnosis to recover the key?
>
> Well, the question of coerced hypnosis is a different and constitutional
> one. Could he be held in contempt and required to sit in jail until he
> produced the key or until the judge was satisified he never will/could? I
> think probably so. I think Prof. Froomkin might have written on this
> topic at one point or another.
I'm not very worried about this overall -- it isn't my area of prime
concern. Various methods can usually be found to point the finger at
someone who's known to be guilty. Besides, the use of perfect forward
secrecy in communications protocols means that the stuff that isn't on
the disk -- say, a captured encrypted communication -- isn't going to
be decodable by anyone, including the original participants.
I am far more interested in another question -- loosely defined,
whether or not we are going to live in a society that recognises that
you do not have to structure your affairs in such a way as to make law
enforcement have an easier time of watching you. The issue of whether
you are allowed to use unescrowed strong crypto AT ALL seems more
significant to me than whether you may be compelled by a judge under
certain circumstances to divulge a key.
Perry
