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From: alain@elevia.UUCP (W.A.Simon)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.privacy,sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Denise Caruso reports on new anti-encryption bill: S.618
Message-ID: <1991May8.185016.11073@elevia.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 91 18:50:16 GMT
References: <17597@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: The W.A.Simon Wild Life Fund
Lines: 30

In <17597@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>Denise Caruso wrote a great piece for her "Inside Technology" column of the
>Sunday, 5 May 1991, SF Examiner, on page E-14.  It concerns the attempts
>to outlaw encryption and why that is a bad idea.  She claims that there
>is a second bill that has had anti-encryption stuff quietly slipped into it
>last week by the FBI: S.618, "The Violent Crime Control Act of 1991".
>I'll quote her closing paragraph to encourage you to get and read it all:

>	"I want crime to stop.  I want terrorism to stop.  But do we
>	want to secure the networks or not?  I have *never* seen
>	evidence that power in the hands of government authority
>	didn't corrupt.  I have never heard of a compromise-able
>	network that didn't get compromised.  With increasing reliance
>	on computer-based networks, back doors for law enforcement (or
>	whoever else figures it out) make me afraid.  I don't think
>	they're a good idea."

	Considering that with a few rare exceptions, terrorists have
	been financed, trained, sheltered, and given logistical support,
	by one government or another, I shudder at the idea of giving
	any political power the keys to my backdoor.  NOT MY BACKDOOR,
	or NMB is the operative response.

ps - See: The Economist - May 4-10 1991 - Computers and Privacy - page 21
     for a superb analysis of this and many other related issues.

>John Gilmore
-- 
William "Alain" Simon
                                                   UUCP: alain@elevia.UUCP