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Senator Backs Down On Crypto Backdoors
evenprime writes: " Sen. Judd Gregg (Republican, New Hampshire)
was advocating mandatory backdoors in crypto on Sept. 13. Wired
is now reporting that Sen. Gregg has changed his mind. They say that Gregg's spokesman, Brian Hart, has said: 'We are not working on an encryption bill and have no intention to.'" As Rob Carlson is quoted at the article's close, though: "(Gregg) said he was definitely supporting it. Now he says he's definitely not. Maybe he'll say he's definitely supporting it again."
From the Wired article:
I think if they put a crypto provision in this bill, it would have passed," Froomkin said. "Look at what the administration got."
Froomkin was talking about additional eavesdropping and surveillance powers requested by the Bush administration, which the Senate and the House overwhelmingly voted for last week. That bill is called the USA Act.
He backed off crypto backdoors because the government is going to get enhanced wiretapping powers, etc.
It's a little give and take, but it's nice to see the "give" this time.
This is the first time I can think of where some politico who was talking about some horrible piece of legislation which was opposed in an organized fashion by the open-source community actually changed his mind. Am I being wildly optimistic in thinking that the online petitions, EFF lobbying, etc. made a difference, and might make a difference in the future? Or was there some other factor at work here?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Usually, when there is an issue I'm concerned about, I fire off a quick email to my rep and both senators, since they (oddly) both seem to send a staffer-written reply that is pertinent to what I've written.
Larry Combest, R-TX,(or his staffer) said something to the effect of, "Senator Hollings has not introduced legislation known as the SSSCA to the House yet. When and if he does, I will keep your opinions in mind," in response to the email I sent about the SSSCA.
Encryption controls, even more than roving wiretaps or secret warrants or anything else was the thing I was concerned about most, and put in a 'my vote for you depends on this' line into my correspondance to my reps. I'm glad to see that there was enough pressure to 'force this off the plate'.
Remember that at least some of these people were bright enough to get through various law-schools on their own merits. Corruption and campaign finance-whoring aside, they can be made to understand the issues if they get pounded hard enough often enough.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It's kinda funny. For a long time now people have been saying "if you want your congress rep, senator, MP, friendly dictator, etc. to listen send them snail-mail". These days with the Anthrax scares, I'd say one way to guarantee your rep won't see what you wrote it to send it by snail-mail.
Will this result in more reps using email, and thus more influence for geeks? Or will this just mean phone calls and personal appearances become even more important.
One thing's for sure. If you want to write your rep a letter about something that matters to you -- put down that powdered sugar donut and wash your hands before you do do it!
The list goes on. Fortunately key escrow is opposed by the very people who run America - large corporations and lobbying groups. And that is why we need to worry about the crap in ATA/PATRIOT instead - because big companies don't care whether or not the government can snoop on anti-WTO activists, detain immigrants forever, or give life sentences to hackers.
-CT
Politicans _should_ change their position, if they come to understand why their position was incorrect.
Think of science - Science is _built_ on making a proposition and testing it, and abandoning the proposition if it tests false. i.e. scientists must be prepared to continuously "change their belief", if they're beliefs don't fit reality (the essence of the difference between science and religion).
Why should politics be any different?
A college political science professor once made a statement that stuck with me - "the U.S. system of government is intentionally designed to impede the popular will." In this case, it seems to have worked. Our entire system of government is designed to slow things down so that rash and unwise decisions don't get made too quickly. It doesn't always work, but the current crisis is exactly the kind of situation our government is designed to deal with.
The government doesn't always act as quickly as we would like - and that's a good thing.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
I think some of us tech geeks ought to go to Capitol Hill and point out that "Secure" websites also use encryption
That's a great point. Without an encryption system universally (work with me here) accepted as "secure," the Red Cross would not have been able to raise $1,000 a minute at Amazon.
I guess somebody finally told him that the good guys would simply shrug their shoulders and the bad guys would have been forced into other, more secret, methods or implemented their own encrpytion. With "no backdoors" encryption in place investigators can at least gather some information about potential bad guys. E.g. that there _is_ secret information exchange taking place and/or they can detect patterns in the secret information exchange. Is there a rise in communication, followed by silence (somebody received orders, had questions and has now gone to sleep!?). You maybe not know the content of the message, but that might not be too important. Just imagine if the bad guys would now take a stego approach, doing it a little bit more clever than the "I hide a picture with content at eBay because it is soooooo secret" guys? Hide it in music, streaming videos, with your own algorithm, chunk it, ...
Nevermind, I know that the paranoid will now say that the NSA can compute any key length anyway. Maybe. Who knows? This is not a threat to me.
Perhaps we can use this to our advantage in other areas where we would like to influence legislation. Rather than lobbying the politicians directly, we simply need to formulate arguments for or against legislation that appeals to Big Money and lobby them instead.
This tactic is unlikely to work with respect to the DMCA and its decendants; I can think of no argument that would persuade the RIAA et. al. that these copyright laws are bad for business. But there are many other areas of online privacy and security which could be of great interest to Big Money if framed in the correct way.
I used to intern in Senator Gregg's Washington Office, and I very much applaud his decision to back off this absurd position on encryption. While I am not informed about the exact circumstances surrounding his position change, I tend to think that he (and his staff) probably did react quickly and without detailed study of the issue out of genuine concern for the country. Then upon further study and consideration he has wisely and somewhat courageously backed off the issue.
Senator Gregg is an honorable and intelligent legislator, but he is also human and as we all know to err is human. That's what happened in this case and thankfully he and his staff have realized their error and corrected it. If all legislators were as conscientious and willing to examine and retract imprudent and ineffective positions as Sen. Gregg has proved he is in this case, IMHO this country would be a much better place.
One final note, at least when I interned on the Hill (about 4 years ago) snailmail was much more effective as a public lobbying tool than was email. The volume of e-mail (and faxes) was such that it was impossible for the staff to respond or even really note the contents of all the messages, while just about every peice of snail mail (at least from constituents) was answered. Keep this in mind for future letter campaigns.
I think it is because he cannot explain how putting in backdoors will stop terrorists communicating by other means e.g. personal courier and steganography.
Government say about surveillance - "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law"
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiesce - else appear guilty.
It does not address the real reason, why they want this information - they want a surveillance society.
They wish to invade your basic human right to privacy.
This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
All your finances for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.
Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on Carnivore will not protect you.
Incidentally, the United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization know the solution to domain name and trademark problems.
You will find it at WIPO.org.uk