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."

Comments

Perhaps

[Green Aardvark House]

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.

My God ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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?

Re:Show of Hands

[Bonker]

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.

Letter writing (OT but interesting)

[Merk]

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!

Re:Letter writing (OT but interesting)

[sulli]

Or send a fax. Faxes use the office's own paper - plus they're more attention-getting than snail mail.

Key escrow will never pass anyway

[CmdrTroll]

It's nice to see that a formerly ill-informed senator who supported key escrow has changed his evil ways. But key escrow is the least of our worries because big business wouldn't want the government to be trusted with guarding the keys that shield them from huge losses. Consider these large lobbyists:

• Banks: they don't want the government to be able to tap into ATM networks and other encrypted communications, for the personal benefit of the government employees. There's a lot at stake for them because somebody can steal billions if they obtain certain keys. And, as they say, everybody has their price.
• RIAA/MPAA: they don't want yet another potential source of leakage for their CSS/DVD/music encryption keys. They'd prefer to wait for some thief in Norway to find it because thieves in Norway take several months to work.
• Telecom companies: they don't want the government to see what they're really up to. Ditto for Microsoft. They're all engaged in shady, anticompetitive practices and have learned by now to encrypt internal email and memos.

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

a win for the U.S. System of Government

[fetta]

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.

Re:Encryption vs. "Secure"

[dschuetz]

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.

Maybe he was realized the threat from that bill

[friday2k]

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.

Re:Give Him A Break

[An. (Coward)]

Give Senator Judd a break! Just because he changed his mind on an issue is not a bad thing. He probably just came to his senses after hearing the facts about the issue. You should be happy. I am.

I'm extremely happy he changed his mind. I don't think anyone's complaining about that at all. But in coming forward so stridently at first, he swayed the opinion of those who assumed that he knew what he was talking about. Remember, Slashdot readers are not representative of the US population at large--witness the large numbers of people answering in the affirmative when asked if they'd be willing to give up some of their freedoms if doing so would help the war on terrorism. People hear rhetoric about secret unbreakable messages being sent by terrorists, whether true or not, and naturally they want to make it possible for the government to intercept those messages. So when a senator calls for back doors in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in history, they're all for it. They're unlikely to be swayed back. Sen. Gregg's initial call made front-page headlines. His retraction will be buried. He should have been put more thought into his initial position before announcing it.

Doesn't want to be called liar?

[Garry Anderson]

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