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- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Path: sparky!uunet!gumby!yale!cs.yale.edu!news-mail-gateway!daemon
- From: WHMurray@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL
- Subject: Restrictions on Public Use of Crypto
- Message-ID: <921108201101.251385@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL>
- Sender: WHMurray.ISSA@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL
- Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
- Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 20:11:00 GMT
- Lines: 35
-
-
- Dorothy Denning asks us to consider the following question:
-
- >Do we really want a society where electronic communications cannot
- >ever be broken when there is good reason to believe some major threat
- >against society is being planned?
-
- I suppose that she asks it sincerely, as though it were relevant.
-
- Of course it is not. For better or worse, we already live in such a
- world. There is absolutely nothing in the proposals of the government
- or Dr. Denning that will change that.
-
- The question is do those of good will surrender the right to private
- communications in the name of a futile attempt to prevent those of ill
- will from having them? Even if it would work, I would answer no. Given
- that it will not work, it is so silly that one wonders why it is raised
- at all. Is it any wonder that one is made suspicious of the intentions
- of those that would make such proposals? Even if the FBI were free from
- their record of abuse, I would still be suspicious of their motives.
-
- I suspect that Dr. Denning is misled by the goodwill of the people with
- whom she works. While I respect the integrity of the individual members
- of the FBI and NSA with whom I work, my experience tells me that it is
- not sufficient to protect me from the inertia and momentum of the
- institutions. The direction of these is at least oblique to the
- intention of my friends that make them up.
-
- I stand with Perry Metzger. They can have my RSA key when they remove
- it from my gold tooth (where I plan to put it as soon as the technology
- permits. In the meantime, they will play hell finding it (them)).
-
- William Hugh Murray, Executive Consultant, Information System Security
- 49 Locust Avenue, Suite 104, New Canaan, Connecticut 06840
- 203 966 4769, WHMurray at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL
-