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Blaming Encryption
EisPick writes: "Just as a previous generation wrestled with whether or not to blame physicists for The Bomb, there are some misguided folks who are blaming Phil Zimmermann for the ability of terrorists to communicate confidentially. He tells the Washington Post, 'It has been a horrific few days.'" Meanwhile, John Gilmore has posted far and wide a call to mirror encryption code outside the United States, since export regulations are making a comeback.
They should hate Boeing, too, then, and the construction engineers who figured out how to build a 100-story building.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
How did Americans actually get the idea that American cryptography is the only possibility for terrorists to communicate in a secure way?
Russians had (and still do have) their own cryptographic algorithms, as do Germans, Australians, Italians. I mean, what's the difference? Do export regulations really make that much of a difference?
If this article at the BBC is anything to by then the terrorists never even used encryption simply because it ran the possibility of sticking out like a sore thumb. Once again the only people who are likely to suffer from encryption back doors et al. is Joe public when the crackers find them.
Why use technology when nobody is looking at the plain and simple stuff? Looks like KISS works to the advantage of terrorists as well.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You're coming under attack for your decision to provide strong crypto to the general public. Please do not falter. There is a definite need for this sort of thing and the fact that it might be misused is no reason to ban it.
Cars can be used to run over people. Hammers can be used to hit people. I don't think I need to mention guns. There are lots of things out there that can be used counter to their original purpose. I think in the coming age strong crypto at a personal level will be very important.
There will always be people who blame the inventors for some of the uses their inventions are put. Some people blame Einstein for the devastation of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Is Einstein really at fault? If someone dies in a car crash, who should be blamed - Ford? Benz? Should the Wright brothers be partly held to blame for the events of September 11th?
Just because your tool was possibly used in a bad way doesn't make you guilty. If it's any comfort, since there is so much talk about heroes lately, know that you are one of MY heroes. I remember the early USENET discussions and your original profile in Wired. I've always thought that if I had more ability in math, I would've liked to be like you.
Please know that for many of us, you are not a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination, and for a few of us, you are one of the really good guys.
Thanks for listening.
The simple fact of that matter is that when peopel are distressed, depressed and overwhelmed with hate, anger and fear, fingers begin to get pointed.
If you recall the Colorado school masacre, you will remember the fact that the parents attempted to sue ID software for creating a game which, in their minds, influenced their children to go on a school masacre.
The situation here is very much the same, and Phil is now taking the blame. However, why stop there? Why not blame our roads for allows the terrorists for getting around? How about phones so they could reserve airline tickets and flight school courses? Why not blame computers as a whole for allowing the terrorists to communicate?
The truth is, people will hunt for a reason HOW. How was this allowed to happen? How could this have happened to ME? We resort to blaming others, whether it be the FBI, CIA or even someone like Phil Z.
Time will pass and people will begin to take notice of the real problems that allowed the terrorists to operate. Does Phil Z have the blood of 5000 people on his hands? Hardly.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Let's see, we could also blame:
- The people who make knives / box knives.
- The people who trained the terrorists to fly.
- The people who sold the terrorists the plane tickets.
- The people who made the planes.
- The people who made the plane fuel.
- The people who made the WTC.
Yes this is stupid.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -- Plato
The people who send hatemail are the same kind of persons who hijack planes and crash them to skyscrapers.
Phil Z. wrote software. Software is like any other tool. Even if PGP had been used, does he really think that the person who made the cardboard box cutter cries every day because of "5000 people's blood is in their hands". I think not.
So Phil, let it go. It was not your fault.
Sorry for the inflamitory subject line, but this kind of upsets me. If we are going to blame researchers for the misuse of their inventions then we may as well start with Boeing. One of the great modern problems it that the same technology that helps so many also can be misused.
It began, "Phil -- I hope you can sleep at night with the blood of 5,000 people on your hands." PGP has become a "weapon of war," the e-mail continued, leveling the playing field between powerful countries like the United States and "zealots."
[sarcasm]
Right on! How dare anyone give the victims of oppressive (and sometimes genocidal) US foreign policy a means to strike back at their oppressors!
[/sarcasm]
Besides, do people really think that had PGP NOT been available, that terrorists would have sent their messages in "clear"? Anyone thinking that needs to pick up a stick and whack themselves in the head with it..."Stupid (whack), stupid (whack), stupid (whack)!"
You're using her as bait, Master!
Canada has strict gun control, hand guns any way, cannons are OK (No I realy know a guy that hauled a cannon, black powder and cannon balls threw Canada form Michigan to New York, Customs asked if he had any hand guns when he had a cannon on the trailer in plain view!). On the radio this morning heard about a Canadian Bank being robbed with a Hammer (no B.S I live on the border); but no one was shot.
So it should be much of a logic leap if bad guys didn't have crypto, they'd use something else. Technology don't kill people, people kill people.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You'd as likely find a strict Muslim eating pork rinds in a liquor store as you would surfing a pr0n site, for steganographic purposes or otherwise. The lives of these men are entirely constructed around a strict obedience to (what they misguidedly see as a correct interpretation of) their faith. Further, it as been noted by Western intelligence organizations that these terrorist organizations use very little technology at all (even phones) instead relying on classical "no-tech" spycraft, which is part of the reason that the increasingly-focused-on-electronic-surveillance agencies have a very hard time tracking bin Laden et al.
Even if you assume that they utilize information technology in their organization and steganography in particular, it is highly unlikely that pornographic images are being used.
Naturally and as usual the political elites are using an external threat to move against internal things they do not like, such as encryption and pornography. (An analogy would be how every new recreational pharmaceutical is called a Date Rape Drug. Yet, strangely, the most frequently used chemical in date rape is still available widely, namely ethyl alcohol. Crack would be legal too if crack dealers were beefy white guys, wearing suits with Rotary Club pins on the lapel, that gave campaign contributions.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I believe we should blame them! Without knives the hijacking would not have been possible in the first place... Blaming encryption for this event is just plain absurd...