If we had key escrow, Scarfo wouldn't be a problem

[Bram Cohen]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55606-2001Aug9.html
> "Encryption is virtually unbreakable by police today, with programs that 
> can be bought for $15," said Stewart Baker, former general counsel of the 
> National Security Agency and now partner at the Washington law firm Steptoe 
> & Johnson. Although agreeing that surveillance should be done under strict 
> guidelines, Baker said that "to a degree, the privacy groups got us into 
> this by arguing that there should be no limits on encryption, and the 
> police have to deal with it."

Even if there were widespread key escrow, Scarfo sure as hell wouldn't
have used it. In fact, even if encryption were still tightly
export-controlled, he'd still have used that. The argument that we should
have more key escrow because of cases like this makes no sense.

-Bram Cohen

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
                                        -- John Maynard Keynes




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