NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/crypt/5058

Text File | 1992-11-20 | 3.3 KB | 71 lines

Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: sparky!uunet!sun-barr!ames!agate!boulder!ucsu!spot.Colorado.EDU!cuffell
From: [e-mail] (CUFFELL TIMOTHY MICH)
Subject: Re: PGP and real criminals
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: spot.colorado.edu
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 09:28:07 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ed Hall) writes:
>
>Let's say that a suspected child-molestor gets arrested.  As is all too
                  ^^^^^^^^^
>often the case, there isn't enough admissible evidence to convict him.
>However, since he was encrypting his diary, illegal crytographic programs
>were found on his computer.  So the prosecutor is able to get him put
>away for a while even though he won't decrypt the diary.  Anti-cryptography
>laws will join tax laws and other such legal weapons used to lock up
>evil-doers who are otherwise too slippery to catch.

Suspected is a key word.  This assumes that he may be innocent.
>
>Let me make one thing clear:  I personally believe that there should be
>no restriction of cryptography.  But in many people's minds this means
>that I'd "let the {terrorist,child-molestor,...} go free!"  It's an
>emotional argument, but an exceedingly potent one.
>
>How do you folks propose to overcome it?  Mistrust of government might
>sound like a good counter on its own, but when "government" is called
>"law enforcement", and the alternative is presented as blowing up
>airliners or destroying the lives of children, what do you say?  What
>evil is there in denying John Q. Public his cryptography compared to
>these things?
>
In this country, the accused is presumed innocent.  If there is not enough
admissable evidence, then either we cannot assume his guilt, or, in the case
of inadmissable evidence, a shortcoming in the law or a particular odius
example of the price we pay to prevent a police state.  One might argue
that an encrypted diary could prove his guilt.  This is true, in much the
same way a illegal search or a coerced confession proves guilt.  The guilty
going free on occasion is the price we pay for our freedoms.  The claim that
the innocent have nothing to hide takes us one step from them.

Here is a practical example.  You are accused of being a child molester.
There exists on your computer an unidentifyable file, consisting of random
data.  You now have to turn this data into a diary, or face criminal
charges.  You're in trouble if that is the output to the new pseudorandom
generator, or an adaptively compressed file, or just about anything.  Even
if it is your diary, what happens if just one bit is altered?  A good
encryption system would produce garbage.  You'd hate to go to jail because
some incompotent (or dishonest) evidence handler didn't park the heads on
your hard drive.  Practically speaking, there is no way for the accused to
prove there inocence (there's a switch), and therefore nothing to prevent the
guilty from masquarading as the innocent.  Even if you grant the government
the right to invade privacy, there is no practical way to assert thing right
without sending a lot of innocent people to jail.




>        -Ed Hall
>        [e-mail]


--

-Tim Cuffel