"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to
be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized."
I know; I know: Various people
working for the people are all
wound up about wanting to know
and wanting to be sure,
wanting to be sure they know
just what is in all those
e-mail messages. Their thinking
might go:
"Those messages, they are sending
lots of messages,
are they planning something?
Are those people up to something?
Are we at threat? We want to know.
Why do they encrypt their e-mail
messages if they
have nothing to hide?
"If they have something to hide,
then definitely for the good of
everyone we should know about it
and they shouldn't use encryption.
Else they might be planning something.
If they have nothing to hide, then
they shouldn't mind our knowing
and shouldn't use encryption.
"Yes, definitely we should have
full access to all e-mail and other
communications, computer hard disks,
private conversations, private thoughts,
etc."
That's what some people working for the
people think.
Sorry, guys, I'm one of the people
you are working for, and you will
just have to do your job
without violating the Constitution.
It's an old story, as is encryption,
and e-mail, the Internet do not
fundamentally change the situation.
Your first part is why I always find these talks silly. Encryption (at least the kind they are talking about) is just math - all the laws in the world aren't going to change the math. You can't legislate away the knowledge of that math; even if you force Apple or Google to insert your backdoor into THEIR implementation of the crypto, that doesn't mean that a 'terrorist' couldn't just use their own implementation of the readily available and widely known algorithms. That cat is out of the bag; you can't legislate it back in.
Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography,
Second Edition: Protocols, Algorithms,
and Source Code in C, ISBN 0-471-11709-9,
John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1996.
That material's not going away.
And, in addition, I
have some nicely short, not
difficult to read, source code.
About all the math needed for
PGP is in an elementary number
theory book -- I have several
sufficient references.
> That cat is out of the bag;
you can't legislate it back in.
Did you mean "The toothpaste
is out of the tube"? -- supposedly
the phrase used in the Nixon
Watergate scandal!
When Zimmerman made PGP public,
he also gave what I thought
was a good description of the
issues with the bottom line,
whatever the pros and cons,
net in plenty of cases
it's important for
individuals to have access
to strong encryption.
Yes, no doubt there's no
shortage of people in government
who don't like PGP. I'll send
some people in government
some toothpaste and an
empty tube and let them
try their hand!
That's why we have PGP, in open source.
And that's why in the US we have:
"Amendment IV
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
I know; I know: Various people working for the people are all wound up about wanting to know and wanting to be sure, wanting to be sure they know just what is in all those e-mail messages. Their thinking might go:
"Those messages, they are sending lots of messages, are they planning something? Are those people up to something? Are we at threat? We want to know. Why do they encrypt their e-mail messages if they have nothing to hide?
"If they have something to hide, then definitely for the good of everyone we should know about it and they shouldn't use encryption. Else they might be planning something. If they have nothing to hide, then they shouldn't mind our knowing and shouldn't use encryption.
"Yes, definitely we should have full access to all e-mail and other communications, computer hard disks, private conversations, private thoughts, etc."
That's what some people working for the people think.
Sorry, guys, I'm one of the people you are working for, and you will just have to do your job without violating the Constitution. It's an old story, as is encryption, and e-mail, the Internet do not fundamentally change the situation.