From: Dr. David Chaos <dchaos@delphi.com>
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Digital Telephony and encryption
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 00:37:35 -0500

<rishab@dxm.ernet.in> writes:
 
>> 3.      Bill does not preclude use of encryption
>> 
>> Unlike previous Digital Telephony proposals, this bill places no obligation
>> on telecommunication carriers to decipher encrypted messages, unless the
>> carrier actually holds the key.  The bill in no way prohibits citizens from
>> using encryption.
 
Of course this does *not* preclude the gov't. from requiring all encryption
be key escrowed.  Oops, did somebody miss that one?
 
Let me relate the next step for the government in their telecommunications
intercept scheme:
 
1) The committee currently reviewing encryption (I forgot their name) will
   note that it is impossible for the federal law enforcement community to
   conduct wiretaps if the data is encrypted with non-escrowed encryption.
   a) The "committee" recommends that it be illegal to use non-key escrowed
      encryption.
 
2) In a short time, the FBI et al return to congress with a list of horror
   stories where their intercepts were foiled because of un-crackable
 
   non-key escrowed, encrypted data.
   a) The FBI et al proposes a bill outlawing non-key escrowed encryption.
 
Guess what?  We now have digital telephony *and* mandatory key escrow.  Gosh,
no one saw that coming.  Geeez, now what do we do?
 
I'm not much for fortune-telling, but I might be interested in a wager on this
one!
Dr. David Chaos