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Greplaw Interviews Phil Zimmermann
LawGeek writes "The venerable GrepLaw crew has struck again, this time with Editor Mikael Pawlo interviewing PGP author and all-around encryption expert Phil Zimmermann. Pawlo discussed a number of topics with Zimmerman, including the current state of encryption export laws, DRM, and activism against erosion of privacy both in the U.S. and internationally. The interview is here."
# But you donâ(TM)t code any more?
I havenâ(TM)t written code in many years. I am active in policy space rather writing code, doing a lot of public speaking. There is a lot of need for activism now in the shadow of the Patriot Act.
Interesting. I would have thought that hammering out the bugs in the law would have been the oldest form of coding.
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The Spiders are coming.
It might have prevented the dispute in court over driver's license photos and muslim women wearing veils...with a fingerprint, you dont need picture ID, and its more reliable.
[off-topic]
I was just discussing the issue of this Muslim woman today. As a Muslim I think this woman is doing something kind of dumb. There is nothing in the Quran about covering a women's face. During prayers, in fact, her face must not be covered. So I haven't a clue where they get the idea that they need to wear a veil over their face. And this is specifically for a piece of identification. How the hell are you supposed to identify someone that's covering their face? In fact I've heard suggestions that maybe bin Laden escaped the US in Afghanistan by posing as a veiled woman. It's not beyond comprehension.
But if this woman refuses to be identified, then perhaps she should not be allowed the responsibility of driving. It makes it possible for her to abuse the system and others to abuse her. She could claim some other person wearing a veil caused an accident that she caused, or it's possible someone wears a veil and does something specifically to incriminate her. It's a very unnecessary complication.
[/off-topic] That being said, fingerprints are a bad idea. As another poster mentioned, you leave fingerprints everywhere. And just having them on file and being in the wrong place can make you suspect in something which you have no idea about. It gives far more opportunity for abuse by authorities, and it's naive to think they won't be more abusive the more opportunity you give them.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
When asked about DRM, he said it was bad that a person could restrict who reads his data. Or does Zimmerman have a bias against companies?
I think you're missing the point. The companies utilizing DRM are using it to prevent you from making full use of the content which you purchase. This is in contrast to you encrypting mail which is simply to keep spying eyes from peering into your private life.
However, I did have one concern about a wholesale use of encryption for personal affairs. Suppose I keep a personal journal and I use encryption; who's to say that I won't get run over by a truck, thereby effectively locking that information forever? Ideally I'd like to think that my grandchildren and so forth could learn and appreciate me as a person by reading it when I'm gone. You can't really write down the password as you don't want it falling into the wrong hands (i.e. government), but there's a terrible risk that it may never be readable in the future. Ditto for personal email, which can also be important to future generations.
Gosh this is offtopic but here goes....
There is no right to drive in the US. It is a privilege imparted to citizens of the various states by the state's government. As such, the state may regulate conduct and licencing with regard to driving.
Too bad, so sad. No veils if the state says "no." The Supreme Court has held on numereous occassions that states have the right to protect their citizens. Where religous freedom contradicts state edicts, the SC looks to see if the edict is a right or a priviledge. Where it is only a priviledge, the state always wins.
Driving is a privilege. Enjoy it.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
It seems there is a real need both for strong, open-source cryptographic solutions for VoIp applications and some kind of open-source hardware for telephone communications. Open source because presumably the problem with current telephony encryption is that its closed source implementation has made it easy for the government to crack, as Schneier points out.
Since PZ once wrote an PGPfone for encrypted VoIP communications I'd really like to hear his opinion on this topic.