[Cryptography] 1x pad: the elephant in the Apple/DOJ courtroom

[Matthias Wulfeck]

> the writ states that this service depends on a lawful court order to be
done.  It fails to restate the obvious that a court can make this demand
again (rinse lather repeat).

I'm reminded right now of a line from Kipling's poem "Dane-Geld" [0]

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've  proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

> These end-to-end encrypted messages will continue to keep the FBI & NSA
in the "dark".

I've had this thought many times myself. How can we make the crypto
stronger? How can we make it unbreakable? I think in the end it's
foolishness for us to believe the key to privacy / overreach is better
crypto. It's only a matter of carrots or sticks until something in the line
is subverted.

One bright side is that crypto increases the "cost" of monitoring citizens.
For example, police have always had the ability (with a warrant) to tap a
land line, yet they didn't tap and monitor all lines back before cell
phones were around. It was expensive, and impractical. And besides, what
judge would issue that kind of warrant? Madness.

For some reason if we replace "land line" with "internet connection" it
seems a lot more judges are willing to issue warrants. At least in
secret... for all we know. What do we know anyway?

By the way, I did a "ctrl + f" for "secret court" and "gag order" in the US
constitution. No hits.

[0] http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html

Matt
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