The tragedy in NYC

Arnold G. Reinhold reinhold at world.std.com
Thu Sep 13 11:59:09 EDT 2001


At 9:20 AM +0300 9/13/2001, Amir Herzberg wrote:
>...
>
>In fact, if giving up crytpto completely would help substantially to protect
>against terror, I'll support it myself. But...
>
>The real argument is simple: there is no evidence or convincing argument why
>shutting down crypto will substantially help defend against terrorism. It is
>a popular, easy solution, good for politicians as it is an easy `sell` to
>the public, but not effective. That's why we should defend against it; the
>negligible help it may provide to law-enforcement is not worth its cost in
>loss of privacy and commerce, in the loss of freedom, and in the dangers of
>abuse by government.
>
>Best, Amir Herzberg
>

I would go one step further: the U.S. Government's misguided effort 
to suppress crypto is a root cause of the massive vulnerability of 
the United States information infrastructure.  Manufacturers of 
commercial operating systems and application software have sharply 
limited the security features they include out of fear that their 
products will be subject to export controls.  If security isn't built 
into foundation products, it can't be bolted on later.

Some say the reason security is lacking is that no one wants to pay 
for it, but the software we use is bloated with features most people 
don't need or want.  Absent export controls I believe free markets 
would have produced good security solutions because companies need 
any competitive edge they can find.

In addition, many of the anti-crypto measures the government has 
suggested in the past, such as key escrow, only create new 
vulnerabilities. In time the security at escrow storage sites would 
have degenerated to the joke level we saw at our airports.

The Pandora's box of strong crypto was opened long ago. The bad guys 
already have it. The question is when will the good guys start using 
it for real?

Arnold Reinhold



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