Re: Real issue of crypto controls: security or taxation loss?

as you say,

    Sun Tsu (from memory): select the battleground where you are
    strongest and the enemy is weakest.

which is good advice.  

i recall Tzu also saying that you need to use
the enemy's momentum to your advantage, the 
principle of judo if you will.  in parallel,
revolutionaries of many stripes have found
that "heightening the contrast" is necessary
if you mean for real change to occur.  

which brings me to ask, rhetorically i suspect,
how we might heighten the contrast.  i'd suggest
delegating to some of us a support-the-bill
effort complete with a detailed description of
how the transmorgrified proposal that makes
illegal all sorts of now ordinary acts.

 * you can't talk on the phone in a language the surveillance
   folk don't know (witness Compuserve's prohibition of Welsh
   on their otherwise monitored bulletin boards)
 * cryptographic door locks are now illegal without escrow
   (witness the SecurID-equipped door knob)
 * contracts that are transmitted over electronic means including
   facsimile must not be encrypted unless the keys are made
   available (witness the proliferation of safe fax machines)
 * no end-to-end encrypting cellular telephones may be used even
   if you are talking to someone in an otherwise hostile country
   (witness the formal industrial espionage of some countries)
 * passwords that map directly to encryption keys must therefore
   be escrowed (witness nearly everything but start with all the
   Kerberos derivatives including new NT stuff)
 * banks have to ensure that encrypted materials put into their
   safety deposit boxes are escrowed (sue somebody for the keys
   in their box naming the bank co-defendant for failure to escrow)
 * the attorney client privilege will not apply to my whispering
   my key to him/her, i.e., if i tell my attorney my key they are
   now my escrow agent even if it means violating the sanctity
   of the private conversation (witness i-don't-know-what but
   call Kevorkian to enlist him)
 * outlaw anonymous trading and the firms that provide it on the
   grounds that these represent encryption-of-names (witness the
   rules requiring such trading under some circumstances and the
   convention for others)

in other words, shift the weight of who is radical
to them.  wrap ourselves in the flag deep within the
big-government-sucks camp.  march on the capital
dressed as skin heads demanding the end of privacy
for some sorrowful group or other.  send the kind
of letters that get you into trouble with the
Secret Service but send them encrypted in Bill's
private key (which you can issue him whether he likes
it or not).  mau-mau the flak catchers...

--dan

On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Dan Geer wrote:

> i recall Tzu also saying that you need to use the enemy's momentum to
> your advantage, the principle of judo if you will.  in parallel,
> revolutionaries of many stripes have found that "heightening the
> contrast" is necessary if you mean for real change to occur. 
...
> in other words, shift the weight of who is radical to them.  wrap
> ourselves in the flag deep within the big-government-sucks camp.  march
> on the capital dressed as skin heads demanding the end of privacy for
> some sorrowful group or other.  send the kind of letters that get you
> into trouble with the Secret Service but send them encrypted in Bill's
> private key (which you can issue him whether he likes it or not).
> mau-mau the flak catchers...

I like these suggestions on how to fight fire with fire.  (Regarding the
last one though, do remember that even just impersonating a federal
official carries a jail term.  Federal citizens have more rights than the
rest of us.)

Whimsically, I can imagine a coalition of dictators lobbying congress in
favor of a key escrow policy.  "Enciphered communications are causing us
to lose our iron grip over our people.  We must impose key escrow now, so
that we can monitor domestic communications, and execute citizens who
exchange undesirable political ideas."

Regarding the struggle in general for free crypto, have faith that spin
control should always work in our favor.  Even if the entire government
remains opposed crypto, the press should still be on our side. 

T Barber
barber@ccrwest.org

Tim Barber wrote:
> Regarding the struggle in general for free crypto, have faith that
> spin
> control should always work in our favor.  Even if the entire
> government
> remains opposed crypto, the press should still be on our side.

Remember during Desert Storm, Saturday Night Live had a sketch
lampooning reporters for pressing the military for information that
would have been helpful to the enemy? And remember how right after that
the press briefings tightened up a lot? And months later someone
mentioned that the SNL skit gave them the courage to do it?

The press is on the side of whomever is most likely to deliver the scoop
that will elevate next week's ratings. If you can deliver a steady
stream of story ideas involving sex, celebrities, and paranoia, the
press will spin anything you want.

-Dwight