From: johnson@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Steve Johnson)
Subject: Re: Once tapped, your code is no good any more.
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA
Distribution: na
Lines: 65

tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:

>Brad Templeton (brad@clarinet.com) wrote:
>: It occurs to me that if they get a wiretap order on you, and the escrow
>: houses release your code to the cops, your code is now no longer secure.
>: 
>: It's in the hands of cops, and while I am sure most of the time they are
>: good, their security will not be as good as the escrow houses.
>: 
>: What this effectively means is that if they perform a wiretap on you,
>: at the end of the wiretap, they should be obligated to inform you that
>: a tap was performed, and replace (for free) the clipper chip in your
>: cellular phone so that it is once again a code known only to the
>: escrow houses.

>Getting the court order to reveal the key *also* makes decipherable
>all *past* conversations (which may be on tape, or disk, or whatver),
>as I understand the proposal. I could be wrong, but I've seen no
>mention of "session keys" being the escrowed entities.

>As the EFF noted, this raises further issues about the fruits of one
>bust leading to incrimination in other areas.

>But is it any worse than the current unsecure system? It becomes much
>worse, of course, if the government then uses this "Clinton Clipper"
>to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption. (This is the main
>concern of most of us, I think. The camel's nose in the tent, etc.)

>And it may also become much worse if the ostensible security is
>increased, thus allowing greater access to "central office" records by
>the government (the conversations being encrypted, who will object to
>letting the government have access to them, perhaps even automatically
>archiving large fractions...). This was one of the main objections to
>the S.266 proposal, that it would force telecom suppliers to provide
>easy access for the government.

>One the government has had access to months or years of your encrypted
>conversations, now all it takes is one misstep, one violation that
>gets them the paperwork needed to decrypt *all* of them!

>Do we want anyone to have this kind of power?

>-Tim May, whose sig block may get him busted in the New Regime

  A remark I heard the other day is beginning to take on increasingly
frightening significance.  The comment was made that "In other parts
of the world the Democrats [note the big "D"] would be known as
Socialists" 

  A [note the small "d"] democrat who wonders what Thomas Jefferson, on
this the 250th anniversary of his birth, would have thought of the state
of affairs between the government and the governed.


------- Any views expressed are those of myself and not my employer. --------
Steven C. Johnson, WB3IRU / VK2GDS      |
TRW                                     | johnson@trwacs.fp.trw.com
FP1 / 3133                              |         [129.193.172.90]
1 Federal Systems Park Drive            | Phone:        +1 (703) 968.1000
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-- 
------- Any views expressed are those of myself and not my employer. --------
Steven C. Johnson, WB3IRU / VK2GDS      |
TRW                                     | johnson@trwacs.fp.trw.com
FP1 / 3133                              |         [129.193.172.90]
