NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/crypt/4699

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-12 | 6.0 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Kurt Cockrum)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Limits on the Use of Cryptography?
Summary: Hope not!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:43:12 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: >>> Eskimo North (206)-FOR-EVER <<<
Lines: 106

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Terry Ritter) writes:
>
> Although the discussion of key registration has been interesting,
> it does seem a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.  Discussing the
> proposition on a computer network invokes an inherent bias in most
> readers.  So, suppose we give the issue a different environment:
>
>    The police bust an alleged child molester, and take possession
>    of his PC.  They believe that the hard drive contains a full
>    database of young kids who have been *or may be* assaulted.
>    That database is enciphered.

Well, if they *already* have enough evidence to put the person away
for a long time, the contents of the disk are moot, it seems to me.
If people don't *already* know who the kids are who were assaulted,
by virtue of observation of evident trauma or some other visible sign
(i. e. there's no *obvious* wrong to right) or by confession, then it's
not clear how
"justice" might be served by looking for more subtle signs, possibly
encrypted, but more likely contrived.  I think at some point one has
to ask oneself whether one
is really seeking *information* or is one just looking for a reason to
ransack, rummage and/or trash a malefactor's possessions, or does one
have hidden agendae or even ulterior motives?  What's *really* going on?

It would seem to me that if there are people suffering from the person's
assaults, that they could easily be treated without knowing the contents
of the disk.  If they can't, we should be asking why these helping/healing
professions can't do their job, not advocating easy decryption of concealed
data.  I doubt that they have much to do with each other.

We ought to be investigating why there are so many assaults of this kind,
not restricting concealed communications so we can catch more criminals.

> Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
> cryptography to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
> reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
> kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a computer, why the
> government should "allow" private cryptography which could hide
> this sort of information.

I would defend cryptography by saying that child molesting has nothing
to do with cryptography. Does the fact that the child-molester
is an air-breather means we ought to regulate air-breathing?
After all it's the child-molesting we want to stop, not the
air-breathing/cryptography.

What information could *conceivably* be on the disk that could help that
relative work thru their grief?  The nature of the problem that the relative
has is *not* a *puzzle*, with a concealed *clue*, that will aid in its
solution.  It's in an entirely different domain and has to be solved with
techniques that have nothing to do with cryptography.  I'm not entirely sure
just *what* business law enforcement should be in, but I'm fairly sure that
it doesn't include counseling the bereaved.

The relative ought to have had competent counseling in the first place.
It's not the cryptographer's job to clean up the messes the legal system,
law enforcement people, and the so-called "helping professions" make.

> You *could* say that cryptography does not molest children, that
> only molesters molest children.  Or you could say that if ciphers
> are outlawed, only outlaws will have ciphers, and that criminals
> would not register keys anyway.  But the district attorney might
> point out that, if the law required key registration (or even just
> the delivery of keys *after* a formal court hearing), the molester
> could at least be convicted on *that* charge, and would not be
> molesting anybody for a while.

What's with this eagerness to convict? "could at least be convicted" --
does that mean the person couldn't be convicted on the child molesting
charge?  What does that mean?  That the person was innocent?
This is the reason we have jaywalking laws, and the reason we have RICO --
it's a way of targeting those *we* *don't* *like* because our legal process
found them innocent, contrary to our wishes, and allows us to retain the
letter of due process while violating the hell out of the spirit.

> So what do *you* say?

Why not just punish the molester for molesting?  Who really gives a shit
about all those parking tickets, or whether the molester encrypts his
diary?

I say that if the DA can't get the guy except on some piddling bullshit
like that, that's tantamount to a public admission of incompetence (inability
to judge probable cause for having committed a crime -- remember the
McMartin trials in LA, where the DA, Ira Reiner spent $12 million on 3(!)
trials to try to convict the McMartins and failed each time to obtain a
conviction?), and he ought to be replaced.  There's this assumption that
"he wouldn't be guilty if he weren't tangled up with us" that seems to be
prevalent among law enforcement types and security-minded citizens.
I think it excuses a lot of fishing expeditions.

In short, Terry, your child molester is a straw man and doesn't have
much to do with cryptography.

When we get down to the bottom line, I'm a selfish son-of-a-bitch who
doesn't want to trade his freedoms for less crime.  If I have the freedom,
I can deal with the crime my own way.  I don't need help.  I just "vant
to be alone," paraphrasing Greta Garbo's immortal words.

Better 1000 criminals loose than one innocent person's freedom curbed!

Sorry about all the non-crypto talk :)
--
[e-mail] (Kurt Cockrum)
Subvert the Anti-Gands!        F-IW    MYOB