At 10:49 AM -0400 10/22/99, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>...
...
>PRESS CONFERENCE
>WITH U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO
>COLOMBIAN AMBASSADOR ALBERTO MORENO
>
>SUBJECT: ARREST OF COLOMBIAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS
>IN OPERATION MILLENNIUM
>THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
>WASHINGTON, D.C.
>OCTOBER 13, 1999, WEDNESDAY
>
>Acting Administrator Donnie Marshall of the Drug Enforcement Administration
>
>...
>
>In this case, the defendants used very sophisticated communications equipment,
>including use of the Internet, encrypted telephones, and cloned cellular
>telephones, in what was a vain attempt to avoid detection. But in the end, it
>was these very devices which led to the devastating evidence against them.
>Through the use of judicial wiretaps and intercepts in both Colombia and in
>the
>United States, their communications were intercepted and recorded, thus
>producing evidence which comes straight from the defendants' own mouths.
I have long doubted the very premise that encrypted communications
are a asset to criminals and a threat to law enforcement. The
standard way LE penetrates criminal organizations is to work from the
bottom. Someone at the retail level is caught and pressured to
cooperate. He implicates a superior, and so on.
Remember that encrypted messages from the superior to the cooperating
underling are sent using the underling's private key. Providing that
key to LE is in many ways less risky to the underling than other
forms of cooperation. The key need only be provided once and then the
is no need for further meeting with agents. Only a few people in LE
need to know where the key comes, reducing the risk of leaks and
making them easier to trace..
Once they have that key, LE gets both an ongoing clear stream of
communications and evidence that is much more damming in court than
the traditional hard to hear and obscurely worded wire tap recording.
And if encryption get criminals to communicate more, it could be a
boon to law enforcement.
Arnold Reinhold
