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Philip Zimmermann and 'Guilt' Over PGP
No Regrets About Developing PGP
The Friday September 21st Washington Post carried an article by Ariana Cha that I feel misrepresents my views on the role of PGP encryption software in the September 11th terrorist attacks. She interviewed me on Monday September 17th, and we talked about how I felt about the possibility that the terrorists might have used PGP in planning their attack. The article states that as the inventor of PGP, I was "overwhelmed with feelings of guilt". I never implied that in the interview, and specifically went out of my way to emphasize to her that that was not the case, and made her repeat back to me this point so that she would not get it wrong in the article. This misrepresentation is serious, because it implies that under the duress of terrorism I have changed my principles on the importance of cryptography for protecting privacy and civil liberties in the information age.
Because of the political sensitivity of how my views were to be expressed, Ms. Cha read to me most of the article by phone before she submitted it to her editors, and the article had no such statement or implication when she read it to me. The article that appeared in the Post was significantly shorter than the original, and had the abovementioned crucial change in wording. I can only speculate that her editors must have taken some inappropriate liberties in abbreviating my feelings to such an inaccurate soundbite.
In the interview six days after the attack, we talked about the fact that I had cried over the heartbreaking tragedy, as everyone else did. But the tears were not because of guilt over the fact that I developed PGP, they were over the human tragedy of it all. I also told her about some hate mail I received that blamed me for developing a technology that could be used by terrorists. I told her that I felt bad about the possibility of terrorists using PGP, but that I also felt that this was outweighed by the fact that PGP was a tool for human rights around the world, which was my original intent in developing it ten years ago. It appears that this nuance of reasoning was lost on someone at the Washington Post. I imagine this may be caused by this newspaper's staff being stretched to their limits last week.
In these emotional times, we in the crypto community find ourselves having to defend our technology from well-intentioned but misguided efforts by politicians to impose new regulations on the use of strong cryptography. I do not want to give ammunition to these efforts by appearing to cave in on my principles. I think the article correctly showed that I'm not an ideologue when faced with a tragedy of this magnitude. Did I re-examine my principles in the wake of this tragedy? Of course I did. But the outcome of this re-examination was the same as it was during the years of public debate, that strong cryptography does more good for a democratic society than harm, even if it can be used by terrorists. Read my lips: I have no regrets about developing PGP.
The question of whether strong cryptography should be restricted by the government was debated all through the 1990's. This debate had the participation of the White House, the NSA, the FBI, the courts, the Congress, the computer industry, civilian academia, and the press. This debate fully took into account the question of terrorists using strong crypto, and in fact, that was one of the core issues of the debate. Nonetheless, society's collective decision (over the FBI's objections) was that on the whole, we would be better off with strong crypto, unencumbered with government back doors. The export controls were lifted and no domestic controls were imposed. I feel this was a good decision, because we took the time and had such broad expert participation. Under the present emotional pressure, if we make a rash decision to reverse such a careful decision, it will only lead to terrible mistakes that will not only hurt our democracy, but will also increase the vulnerability of our national information infrastructure.
PGP users should rest assured that I would still not acquiesce to any back doors in PGP.
It is noteworthy that I had only received a single piece of hate mail on this subject. Because of all the press interviews I was dealing with, I did not have time to quietly compose a carefully worded reply to the hate mail, so I did not send a reply at all. After the article appeared, I received hundreds of supportive emails, flooding in at two or three per minute on the day of the article.
I have always enjoyed good relations with the press over the past decade, especially with the Washington Post. I'm sure they will get it right next time.
The article in question appears at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1234-2001Sep20.html
-Philip Zimmermann
24 September 2001
(This letter may be widely circulated)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 7.0.3iQA/AwUBO69F2sdGNjmy13leEQIn+QCg2DjDeyibtRe61tUSplSAobdzAqEAoOMF ir3lRc4c1D/0Mmmv/JtP/E73 =HmRO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Only their users. And remember, good and evil are relative. Not everybody thinks like you do.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
We who live in the D.C. area are very familiar with the Post's penchant for "manufacturing" stories where none exist. Mr. Zimmerman unfortunately was the party on the receiving end of the editorial foul play in this particular case.
/.ers are.
As a community, we should recognize that the Post as well as other news media outlets are NOT in their line of work to provide complete and unbiased coverage of events. They are in business to make MONEY, and that is a goal that creates in and of itself conflict of interest with reporting the truth in most (if not all) cases.
I wish the readership of the Post was going to be privy to Mr. Zimmerman's clarifications in the same way we
I was very skeptical of that article. My question: Has the Washington Post apologized or printed a correction? Better yet, have they offered to run your comment as an op-ed? They really should.
sulli
RTFJ.
Couple honest questions I would like to ask within this thread for clarification on this issue?
1. What are the uses of cryptography as a "Human Rights Tool"?
2. If in fact tools such as PGP are used by terrorists, how do governments protect against this?
Any information provided would be greatly appreciated.
Awesome!
There is justification in someone's mind, else it wouldn't have happened. Not saying it's a good justification, it isn't, but they felt it justified. Which proves the bankruptcy of their ideas.
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>PGP users should rest assured that I would still not acquiesce to any back doors in PGP.
It's really good to have a veteran with the possibility of being a champion for privacy issues. Afterall, we all know for a fact that Phil's willing to run the gauntlet in defense of what he thinks is right... I would think that's been proven.
I just hope it won't be necessary to go to the lengths that happened last time.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
Maybe "Envelope" would be a better product name.
In fact, for this public debate, I think that even "encryption" is a bad term to use. It sounds cryptical in the most literal sense, and the average user (or politician) doesn't understand it, so it must be something scary.
While I see a lot of people who discuss abolishing "secure email transmission" (i.e. encrypted mail), I have seen very few people who would demand backdors in "Secure Socket Layer" (i.e. encrypted HTTP) or "secure online banking" (i.e. encrypted financial transactions). The main difference between the three is that in the case of email transmission, people usually use the term "encrypted", while in the latter cases, the buzzword is "security."
If you want to talk with average people, talk about secure communication, not about encrypted communication. Politicians will have a much harder time abolishing security than abolishing encryption.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
You also stated that you could only guarantee that version 7.slightly_lower_version_than_above was free of backdoors - in fact, you sign your open letter with version 7.0.3.
1. How do you reconcile these two, somewhat differing, views?
2. Which version(s) do you regard as "safe".
3. Why don't you run the latest version?
All the relevant versions and statements can be found in stories on
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Do we need to come up with new analogies to explain the civil and privacy rights justification for encryption to politicians and the lay public?
In the past we've used envelopes and locks, but I think these fall short because the reason for encryption is to create a time delay to access sufficient to dissuade the smart and lazy opponent AND allow detection of the stupid but industrious ones.
Not only did Catholics support the Crusades, they enthusiastically supported them. That outbreak of mental illness lasted from 1095 A.D. to 1291; it was not an isolated circumstance. During that time Europeans traveled to Arab lands to kill them. At that time almost all Christians were Catholic.
Many people don't understand the significance of the Crusades, which happened a long time ago. The significance is that the moral teaching of the Christians did not prevent them from designing and participating in a killing rampage.
The Crusades were not the only Christian killing rampage. The Spanish Inquisition was another outbreak of craziness.
The moral teachings of the Christians have not changed significantly since the Crusades. Arabs ask themselves, "What would prevent Christians from being part of another killing rampage?" That's why the crusades have significance in modern thinking. It is easy to understand that when President Bush talked about a crusade in a speech to the entire nation of the U.S., while at the same time declaring "war", Arabs became anxious.
It is remarkable how quickly the discussion of terrorism became off-topic. People are blaming PGP!!! Do you have a right to speak to your wife in private, with no interference or listening from the government? If you do have this right, then you have a right to use PGP. Your wife may be in another country, and PGP is a way of being sure you speak only to her. If you don't have this right, then the government can legally force its way into anything you say to your wife.
The primary reason for the violence seems to be corruption in secret agencies of the U.S. government like the CIA. For example, the CIA trained Osama bin Laden. If there is more trouble, the CIA receives more funding. So the CIA, at least unconsciously, wants more trouble.
Israel receives an astounding $905 per year from the U.S. government for every man, woman and child who lives there. A large part of that money is spent on weapons bought from the United States. Senators in the U.S. who represent the states with weapons manufacturers have lobbied to continue giving money to Israel. The U.S. weapons manufacturers also sell weapons to the Arabs.
I've tried to pull together information about these issues: What should be the Response to Violence? .
The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in the last 30 years, killing about 3,000,000 people. Yet Phil Zimmermann gets hassled for causing problems!!! Duh!
Bush's education improvements were