clipper + enaction = illegal alternate encryption

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Jeremy@crl.com writes:

>Now why bother going through all the trouble to take out the chip? Why 
>not just leave it in there and send RSA encrypted over your phone line?
>Once they _DO_ decrypt your clipper, they will still have another barrier. 
>Leaving the chip in there does make it a little harder even for law 
>enforcement doesn't it?

This is the reason all other forms of encryption will be outlawed if the
clipper proposal goes through. I foresee at least two lines of enforcement.
The first is that one is held in contempt of court (assuming they can find 
some charges to press) until you give them your key. How long can they keep 
you in the slammer on a contempt charge? This option is already available 
and seems to work, at least so far. 

The second is to make alternate encryption illegal and thus they will get you 
even if they have no evidence to charge you with. After all, if the police 
are monitering you AND you are encrypting information, you must be guilty, 
right? Encryption will be enough evidence to convict. This makes life easy for 
law enforcement and will surely be the next step after clipper. If they can't
get you for the alleged crime you are committing then use of illegal 
encryption will provide a consolation prize. They really HAVE to make 
alternate forms of encryption illegal to make clipper of any value to them,
despite the rhetoric we are now hearing (at least some people are hearing).

Scott G. Morham            !The First,
VACCINIA@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu!          Second  
PGP Public Keys by Request !                and Third Levels 
                           !      of Information Storage and Retrieval
                           !DNA,
                           !    Biological Neural Nets,
                           !                           Cyberspace


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On Tue, 1 Mar 1994 VACCINIA@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU wrote:

> Jeremy@crl.com writes:
> 
> >Now why bother going through all the trouble to take out the chip? Why 
> >not just leave it in there and send RSA encrypted over your phone line?
> >Once they _DO_ decrypt your clipper, they will still have another barrier. 
> >Leaving the chip in there does make it a little harder even for law 
> >enforcement doesn't it?
> 
> This is the reason all other forms of encryption will be outlawed if the
> clipper proposal goes through. I foresee at least two lines of enforcement.
> The first is that one is held in contempt of court (assuming they can find 
> some charges to press) until you give them your key. How long can they keep 
> you in the slammer on a contempt charge? This option is already available 
> and seems to work, at least so far. 

I am talking about the clipper of today, not tommorow.  When the
government decides to outlaw all other schemes of encryption then we have
a different story.  I was responding to someone who was going out of their
way (or said they would) to remove the chips from his/her equipment. 

                   _  .  _ ___ _  .  _
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VACCINIA@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU sez:
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> Jeremy@crl.com writes:
> 
> >Now why bother going through all the trouble to take out the chip? Why 
> >not just leave it in there and send RSA encrypted over your phone line?
> >Once they _DO_ decrypt your clipper, they will still have another barrier. 
> >Leaving the chip in there does make it a little harder even for law 
> >enforcement doesn't it?
> 
> This is the reason all other forms of encryption will be outlawed if the
> clipper proposal goes through.

I do not think so.  It is perceived at very high levels that this
simply won't fly.  Y'all have been pretty effective at creating an
initial negative impression within the press that is being accepted by
John and Jane Q. public.  Congrats.  It is felt that already there has
been too much bad press to counteract even with good arguments.  If it
happens I don't think it will be a matter of legislation but executive
order that will stand the scrutiny of private consultation with
congress and the flak this early publicity will generate.  The latter
is just a guess but I do know that the Clipper proponents are not at
all encouraged and feel the need for it in the most sincere and
concerned ways for what I think are very good reasons.  Personally I
don't think they will do anything to prevent our opening Pandora's Box
simply because they are outflanked and know it but they have considered
things they can't say in public that are creating much fear not only
within this government but quite recently among many governments.  It
is not dope dealers or racketeers these governments are worried about.

> I foresee at least two lines of enforcement.
> The first is that one is held in contempt of court (assuming they can find 
> some charges to press) until you give them your key. How long can they keep 
> you in the slammer on a contempt charge? This option is already available 
> and seems to work, at least so far. 

This could work except that if exchanges are interactive so that a D-H
type protocol can be used to generate one time session keys, using the
RSA PK's only to do this securely, then yielding one's private key gives
no ability to decrypt any prior interactive sessions.  For documents
this line of enforcement could work but for conversation it is useless.

> 
> The second is to make alternate encryption illegal and thus they will
> get you even if they have no evidence to charge you with. After all, if
> the police are monitering you AND you are encrypting information, you
> must be guilty, right? Encryption will be enough evidence to convict.
> This makes life easy for law enforcement and will surely be the next
> step after clipper.

Except that if you use Clipper too they will have no reason to suspect
that you might be using something hard going into it until they have
done the escrow thing and by then you are probably in pretty deep
anyway if the escrow method works as described and probably guilty of
something pretty serious.

There really is a strong argument from their side that says if one must
use a form that is immune from a compromise like well escrowed keys one
is *way* more than likely to be discussing something most of us would
want LE or NS to know about.  I know that argument is anathema here
but I am finding it more and more compelling.


Peace,

Bob

-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-354-8021


           "I used to be different.  But now I'm the same."


--------------PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.------------------

rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain) sez:
> There really is a strong argument from their side that says if one
> must use a form that is immune from a compromise like well escrowed
> keys one is *way* more than likely to be discussing something most
> of us would want LE or NS to know about.  I know that argument is
> anathema here but I am finding it more and more compelling.

I think "anathema" may be the wrong word - I would suggest
"incorrect".  As the number of people who habitually use strong crypto
grows, the nefarious conversations will be lost in the noise about
last night's party and recipes for chocolate truffle cake.  The
likelihood that any particular conversation is of interest to LE/NS
types must drop as well.  This will be true unless the number of
strongly-encrypted nefarious conversations grows at least as fast as
the total number of strongly-encrypted conversations.  Somehow I fail
to believe that the supply of crooks is so large.