RE: the black budget

"It took the Colonists several decades to get worked up enough to fight
a war.  We're only halfway through an equivalent time period.
And I don't want to change the situation only with crypto, but also
with public speech."

Would you elaborate?  Earlier, Tim May said something about using "the 
active spreading of
disinformation about the compromise of the key escrow system" as part 
of the attempt to "Actively Sabotage Clipper and Capstone" (title of 
his message).

What sort of public speeches would you (or others) make (to whom)?
(Just curious)

Blanc

How should Clipper be sabotaged and spoken against?

Blanc Weber asks:

> Would you elaborate?  Earlier, Tim May said something about using "the 
> active spreading of
> disinformation about the compromise of the key escrow system" as part 
> of the attempt to "Actively Sabotage Clipper and Capstone" (title of 
> his message).
> 
> What sort of public speeches would you (or others) make (to whom)?
> (Just curious)

Briefly, "Tell X to Y," where X and Y are the following:

Tell them X:

- Clipper is a wiretapping system

- Clipper has more than one back door

- Clipper keys have already been compromised by non-government
entities

- Clipper is for spying on foreign-based corporations

- Clipper will be used to monitor corporations

- Clipper chip makers (Mykotronx, VLSI Tech, National, etc.) have had
their security systems breached

- Clipper is Big Brother

Tell this to Y:

- your friends and your family...I tell everyone I meet (nearly) what
a frightening and ludicrous thing the Clipper/Skipjack/Tessera systems
is. (And I say the same thing about the "Information Data
Superhighway" boondoggle.)

- journalists (e.g., I informed John Markoff of some of these things,
which he mostly knew about--he knows more than I do!-- and the
strategy of disinformation and sabotage....it made it into his Sunday
article...and I'm talking to two other journalists now)

(I'm honest with journalists: I tell them upfront that a
disinformation/sabotage campaign is underway and that they should thus
take anything I say, or anyone else says, in this light. They're
usually very bright and see these things anyway, so this clears the
air. It is not a contradiction to tell them that a
disinformation/sabotage campaign is underway and then to tell them
about reports the Clipper chip manufacturers have had security
compromises. And other such things.)

- corporations...point out to them that Clipper isn't a real
improvement, that it opens them up to casual monitoring by the tax and
other authorities, and that their competitors will be able to buy the
keys on the black market in not too long a time

- radio call-in shows and the like. I called Dave Emory's show a while
back and spoke against Clipper and the NSA. Dave Mandl interviewed me
over a year ago for his radio show in New York. And I may be on a
Santa Cruz radio show soon. John Gilmore and Eric Hughes, of course,
have also been on radio and t.v. shows.

(Don't be afraid to call Christian Right stations, either. You may not
like all of their policies--I know I don't--but they're very paranoid
government tracking, national identity cards, and 666-style numbers
attached to them. The "700 Club" has come out staunchly against Clipper.)

- foreigners...I get a real rise our of my overseas friends when I
tell them what the National Security Agency has planned for them.

(By the way, I've seen little discussion here of the fact that the
Germans, French, and NATO nations in general seem to be signing on for
some version of the Clipper system. I can provided details if there's
interest. In all the debate a few weeks ago about whether Germany is
more or less free than America, it was left out that Germany is about
to roll back certain Constitutional freedoms and explicity allow more
surveillance. We should not be pushing our German or European list
members (a la Hadmut Danisch) into defending their countries--rather,
they need to fight the fight as well. In fact, more Cypherpunks need
to be recruited in Europe, which shows many signs of slipping back
into a Surveillance State, with barely a whimper of public outcry.)


--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

My use of the term "disinformation" seems to have taken on a life of
its own as "lying," with several posters saying that the truth is
best, that lying is bad, and that if we have to lie we deserve to have
Clipper and Capstone!

What I urge--and others are free to do as they wish--is to "educate"
people by describing to them the implications as we see them. That is,
we who have thought about Clipper and have seen past government
depredations and abuses, have seen from the beginning how Clipper is
likely to be abused, how the very concept of key escrow is anathema to
basic rights, how Clipper and its Big Brethren (I just coined this)
are likely to be made mandatory, etc. We see truth, not the charade of
"voluntarism" and the "social need" cited by the authorities.

So, is it "truthful" to tell people Clipper is a purely voluntary
standard, which is the official position? Is it "disinformation" to
undermine public support for Clipper by pointing to the very likely
(but unprovable, until it happens) banning of alternatives?

(The difficulty of banning alternatives is another issue, of course.)

I don't advocate ever using out-and-out lies, which is why I said the
following in my post this morning:

> Briefly, "Tell X to Y," where X and Y are the following:
> 
> Tell them X:
> 
> - Clipper is a wiretapping system

Is there any doubt about this? 

> - Clipper has more than one back door

This is more speculative, but fits what folks as eminent as Whit
Diffie have discussed. Backdoors in the escrow system and in the
Skipjack algorithm must be assumed to exist until the algorithm has
been publically discussed, analyzed, tested, etc...and maybe still
even then.

I tell folks the history of other such algorithms, including the
speculations about DES. I point out that Skipjack is completely
secret, and the original key escorw procedure has been changed since
announcement, suggesting a more direct way in was planned from the gitgo.

> - Clipper keys have already been compromised by non-government
> entities

This I will concede is probably not the case. And I suppose I wouldn't
make this claim until more evidence comes out. But as soon as there
are hints that unauthorized wiretaps have occurred, or that foreign
phone calls mean the keys are revealed, etc., this will likely be a
true statement. I suspect it's close to being true.

> - Clipper is for spying on foreign-based corporations

No doubts.

> - Clipper will be used to monitor corporations

No doubts. Foreign subsidiaries mean the NSA can tap, without
warrants. The Criminal Enforcement division of the IRS does not
require warrants, I've been told by a fellow Cypherpunk (but I haven't
confirmed this). 

> - Clipper chip makers (Mykotronx, VLSI Tech, National, etc.) have had
> their security systems breached

Recall the "dumpster diving" episode? And there's some stuff about
National's PCMCIA card product that I'm not free to talk about, but it
indicates further leaks are happening.

> - Clipper is Big Brother

A polemical statement, but not a lie.

So, of 7 statements, 5 truths, 1 marginal truth, and 1 wild
speculation. 

> - journalists (e.g., I informed John Markoff of some of these things,
> which he mostly knew about--he knows more than I do!-- and the
> strategy of disinformation and sabotage....it made it into his Sunday
> article...and I'm talking to two other journalists now)
> 
> (I'm honest with journalists: I tell them upfront that a
> disinformation/sabotage campaign is underway and that they should thus
> take anything I say, or anyone else says, in this light. They're
> usually very bright and see these things anyway, so this clears the
> air. It is not a contradiction to tell them that a
> disinformation/sabotage campaign is underway and then to tell them
> about reports the Clipper chip manufacturers have had security
> compromises. And other such things.)

Disinformation does not necessarily mean outright lying...it often means
putting a twist on things to make a point and to undermine confidence
in the opponent's party line.

Call it counter-propaganda if you wish.

By all means, tell the truth. But be sure to tell what you expect to
be the long-term truth, not just the immediate, official truth.

I tell people the governments of the world are clearly planning for
bans on unapproved, unescrowed encryption. The governments would call
this a lie, saying the Clipper and its Big Brethren are purely
voluntary standards. So who is lying?

--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Tue, 22 Feb 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:

[Much stuff deleted...]

> - foreigners...I get a real rise our of my overseas friends when I
> tell them what the National Security Agency has planned for them.
> 
> (By the way, I've seen little discussion here of the fact that the
> Germans, French, and NATO nations in general seem to be signing on for
> some version of the Clipper system. I can provided details if there's
> interest. In all the debate a few weeks ago about whether Germany is
> more or less free than America, it was left out that Germany is about
> to roll back certain Constitutional freedoms and explicity allow more
> surveillance. We should not be pushing our German or European list
> members (a la Hadmut Danisch) into defending their countries--rather,
> they need to fight the fight as well. In fact, more Cypherpunks need
> to be recruited in Europe, which shows many signs of slipping back
> into a Surveillance State, with barely a whimper of public outcry.)

Yes, there is an interest.  Please provide whatever information you have 
on "European Clipperism".  I haven't seen any discussion or reports on 
any such initiatives in Norwegian media.  I suppose that there isn't a 
"critical mass" of interested people in small countries like Norway for 
these issues.  There has been one attempt by one Norwegian party 
(Venstre) to raise questions on personal privacy issues, but without any 
success.  (This party has been out of parlament for a while and has some 
trouble getting heard.)

Work has been done by official Norwegian agencies to develop a National 
Encryption Standard (NSK).  The result of this work is a classified 
algorithm and a chip which implements it, much like the Clipper 
initiative.  There was also a suggestion about something like a key escrow 
system, but this seems to have been dropped.  NSK has had some press 
coverage, most notably in a left-wing paper (Klassekampen) and Computerworld 
Norway.

In a speech held by one of the organizers of the NSK project some two 
years ago, it was indicated that NSK was developed partly to assure 
Norwegian control of the algorithm and independence of foreign algorithms.

Could other Europeans provide information on similar activities in other 
countries??

By the way, I agree with those who oppose disinformation on Clipper and 
related issues.  Such strategies will likely hit you like a boomerang.  
The clarification by TCM on what he meant by "disinformation" was 
welcome.  I, and it seems others who opposed the disinformation strategy, 
understand this world differently than TCM.


-- Rolf




----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rolf Michelsen         Phone:  +47 73 59 87 33
SINTEF DELAB           Email:  rolf.michelsen@delab.sintef.no
7034 Trondheim         Office: C339
Norway
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 22 Feb 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:

> By the way, I've seen little discussion here of the fact that the
> Germans, French, and NATO nations in general seem to be signing on for
> some version of the Clipper system. I can provided details if there's
> interest. 

Please do! Anything about Sweden? I saw some message a few days back 
mentioning that .uk and .se allegedly had applied for Country Family 
Keys. My first thaught was that this belonged to the disinformation 
campaign... There has been zero public information about that here.

//Mats

>And I don't want to change the situation only with crypto, but also
>with public speech."

>What sort of public speeches would you (or others) make (to whom)?

Public speech is not a series of public speeches, but rather one's own
words spoken openly and without shame.

Tim has answered your question admirably.  Here is part of my answer:

   "I desire a society where all may speak freely about whatever topic
they will.  I desire that all people might be able to choose to whom
they wish to speak and to whom they do not wish to speak.  I desire a
society where all people may have an assurance that their words are
directed only at those to whom they wish.  Therefore I oppose all
efforts by governments to eavesdrop and to become unwanted listeners."

You may quote me, as always, but I would rather you spoke your own
feelings.

Eric