Re: NYT op-ed May 8

At 11:16 AM 5/10/94 -0700, Paul E. Baclace wrote:
>I just tuned-in last night...Has anyone discussed the NYT op-ed by
>David Gelernter (associate prof. at Yale)?  It was accompanied by a
>comic "the first wiretap"

I'd be interested in seeing a scan of that comic, our local paper didn't
include it.

Gelernter's <Gelernter@cs.yale.edu> piece has merit, but he seems to be
missing the point entirely.  He acknowledges that smart criminals would NOT
use Clipper, but then asserts that it's still a good idea because
half-witted ones would.  Am I missing some vital logical point, or does
this just not make sense?

Take two criminals, Danny Dumbo and Sam Smart.  If Danny is too dumb to use
alternative encryption, where does it follow that he would use any sort of
encryption at all?  Thus whether his equipment is Clippered or not, the
gov't could easily tap his line.  Whereas Sam is smart enough to choose
some other form of encryption that the gov't can't monitor.  So what good
does Clipper do in either case?  And thus, why does it even exist?  If the
gov't needs Clipper to secure its own communications, why don't they just
sanctify PGP or something likewise?

Dismissing the likely explanation; that Clipper is just some Cold-war-style
pork barrel project, we're left with one question.  How can Clipper ever be
effective?  The only two possible answers are:
1) if usage of alternative methods is outlawed.  (Which we've been told
won't happen.  Veracity-alert!  Whoop!  Whoop!)
2) if the Clipper chip itself could somehow compromise alternative
encryption schemes, perhaps by monitoring keystrokes during password
entries?  I'm really reaching with this one, but I thought it would be
wrong to dismiss it entirely.  And no, I'm not a proponent of the "Grass
Knoll" and "Frozen Aliens stored in Nevada" conspiracy theories too.  :)

...dtw

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David T. Witkowski says:
> Take two criminals, Danny Dumbo and Sam Smart.  If Danny is too dumb to use
> alternative encryption, where does it follow that he would use any sort of
> encryption at all?  Thus whether his equipment is Clippered or not, the
> gov't could easily tap his line.  Whereas Sam is smart enough to choose
> some other form of encryption that the gov't can't monitor.  So what good
> does Clipper do in either case?  And thus, why does it even exist?  If the
> gov't needs Clipper to secure its own communications, why don't they just
> sanctify PGP or something likewise?

Last week, the Wall Street Journal had an excellent article on a drug
smuggling ring that got caught -- they were the folks who brought in
flights of cocaine for Pablo Escobar. They had an excellent
intelligence network, flew spotter planes to provide them with
information on the movement of government planes, etc. They were
finally captured one day by pure accident as a result of a chain of
events starting from a chance unscheduled overflight by an AWACS plane
on a training mission.

It is unlikely that they would be so stupid as to use government
cryptography.

Criminals are sometimes not smart, but the ones who are a supposed
threat to us will rapidly learn what crypto to use, just as even
stupid people can learn to use cars and learn the difference between
stick and automatic.

Perry

When we engage in debates with the forces of the Dark Side, we should be
careful not to let them talk about criminals as a single class.  It bothers
me to see people on that side do bait-and-switch: talk about the evils of
major Coke importers to get people worked up then admit that the big ones
won't be affected by Clipper but 'some criminals will be'.