Re: Clipper Chip report on 700 Club today (Wednesday)

I was asked in private mail how the show went.

I'll write up a proper summary later, but for now, rest assured that it
was a most excellent report.  There were a few technical inaccuracies here
and there, (~"Clipper is the most secure encryption device they've come up
with yet"), but for the most part, if you were out to give a ten minute
explanation of the facts of life in regards to encryption to people who
would never read _Wired_, and actually spread useful and non-hostile memes,
you'd have a hard time outdoing that segment of the 700 club.

They interviewed a number of people, including a spokesman from NIST, EFF,
and Dorothy Denning herself.  The guy summarizing the situation at the
end mentioned how the government claims these regulations are just for
child molestors, terrorists, and criminals, but that after any regulatory
sytem is in place, there's nothing to keep them from redefining who the
criminals are, and so monitor anyone they like.

I'll write up a better summary in a few days.

(Remember: 10pm and 2am on the Family Channel.  I'd recommend watching it
if you still can.)

-Mark Shewmaker

Thanks to the heads-up note here, I caught the whole thing on tape
when it repeated here on the West Coast at 10pm PDT. (I see there are
some advantages to living out here!)

If I hadn't seen the show with my own eyes, I never would have
believed it. The Religious Right, so ready to mind everyone else's
personal business and to reshape the government in its own image,
opposes something that would make it easier for the government to
control the private lives of its citizens. This cryptography stuff
sure makes some strange bedfellows. Wow.

Of course, the Religious Right is at odds with the current government,
what with talk of using the federal racketeering laws against
anti-abortion demonstrators.  So perhaps they can be forgiven for
their current anti-government stance.  Their tune might well change if
they ever succeed in overturning Roe V Wade. Imagine their glee
turning to horror when they discover that those satanic pro-choice
people are using encryption to coordinate *their* protests and perhaps
even to coordinate travel by women seeking abortions to places where
it is still legal. :-)

And there's supreme irony in the right to encryption and the right to
abortion both being founded in the same basic concept: personal
privacy.  It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess.


Phil

writes Phil Karn:
>
>Of course, the Religious Right is at odds with the current government,
>what with talk of using the federal racketeering laws against
>anti-abortion demonstrators.  So perhaps they can be forgiven for
>their current anti-government stance.  Their tune might well change if
>they ever succeed in overturning Roe V Wade. Imagine their glee
>turning to horror when they discover that those satanic pro-choice
>people are using encryption to coordinate *their* protests and perhaps
>even to coordinate travel by women seeking abortions to places where
>it is still legal. :-)
>

I wonder if they know that the idea was developed during a republican
administration?

>And there's supreme irony in the right to encryption and the right to
>abortion both being founded in the same basic concept: personal
>privacy.  It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess.
>
>
>Phil
>
>

-nate

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