Re: A secure government

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, February 5, 2003, at 01:23  PM, W H Robinson wrote:

The view I get fed all the time is that crypto is, on the whole, in the hands of
the terrorists, the anti-patriots, the paedophiles, et al.

Correct.

That it is a bad
thing.

We don't think so.

People using it should surrender keys to the government, if you're
encrypting mails then you should be viewed as having something to hide...
Interfaces and usability aside, there's an air that only the "wrong" need
ciphers.

 Most of us laugh at these kinds of proposals.

History as we see it backs this up to an extent, in the fact that
secrets are presented as something in the hands of the enemy to be broken as a
tool of war.

No, the various provisions of the Constitution, flawed though it is, make it clear that there is no "prove that you are not guilty" provision (unless you're a Jap, or the government wants your land, or someone says that you are disrespectful of colored people).

I don't understand what you mean my "history...backs this up." A person writing in a private language is not compelled to translate, or even to testify. O.J. Simpson never took the stand. Bill Clinton was not sent before a firing squad.

But it just seems stange to me that the government in all their paranoia haven't
announced nationwide plans to start encrypting all government communications, to
implement federal-, nay industrial-spanning secure infrastructures.

Much of the sensitive parts of government (as opposed to the 99% which is nattering about rules and regulations) have been using AUTOVON, STU-III, and similar things for decades. In popular parlance, "scramblers." When I did some advisory work for DOD in 1979 they already had their own network of secure satellites, the DSCS (pronounced "discus") satellites. This was at least 24 years ago.

In my proletarianism, maybe I'm just blind to it. Have people in sensitive
positions of power actually seen an increase in taking this seriously? Is it
already in such a state? The security of simple things such as .mil webpages and
IP'd resources certainly doesn't convince. Or are they really not bothered, and
just want to make a good headline?

I thought everyone knew that .mil and .gov sites are on the public side of the Net. Most sensitive sites are forbidden to have a direct connection to the public Net.

Further, if such a scheme were announced, could this conceivably introduce
cryptotech as part of a mainstream process? Necessity is the mother of
invention, and in such times, necessity is what people say it is and sell it as.
As a safeguard against nations' security and/or economy, should we look to
paranoid industries as the first step towards a secure, anonymous society?

Hum, just me thinking aloud anyway. Apologies if this is in the archives..
crypto + govenment throws up a few results...

--Tim May