http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34388,00.html
Everything Hacked but the Budget
by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
1:15 p.m. 16.Feb.2000 PST
Justice Department and FBI officials
Wednesday told a Senate panel that last
week's denial of service attacks provide
ample reason to give law enforcement
bigger budgets and additional powers.
[...]
Repeating a long-standing theme, he said
data-scrambling encryption products
posed a real danger to police, who
needed access to descrambled
documents or communications.
During previous appearances on Capitol
Hill, Freeh has warned of drug smugglers,
child pornographers, spies, and terrorists
cloaking their communications with
impunity.
Now he said hackers, such as the ones
responsible for the denial of service
attacks, could encrypt their files and
make the evidence "all but worthless to
us."
"Without the ability of law enforcement to
get court-ordered access to plaintext,
we're going to be out of business," Freeh
said. "If it is unaddressed, we're not going
to [be able to] work in many of these
areas."
He said that the FBI is finding more and
more cases -- including 53 last year -- in
which suspects are using encryption
products like PGP to shield their files.
[...snip...]
