[Cryptography] "How Long Will Unbreakable Commercial Encryption Last?"

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 10:54 PM John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:

> In article <2CCE423E-F119-4FBA-9396-AD0C323FED3B at lrw.com> you write:
> >
> https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-long-will-unbreakable-commercial-encryption-last
> >
> >The article is by Stewart Baker, who's been involved in this debate for a
> very long time.
>
> It's certainly worth reading but I wouldn't take it at face value.
> Baker was a big fan of the Clipper chip (see
> https://www.wired.com/1994/06/nsa-clipper/) and I don't get the
> impression that his positions have changed much in the subsequent 25
> years.
>

I find it really difficult to believe that there will be governments in the
EU that are strong enough to push through such a ban in the next decades.
The UK Tory party has just split and will quite probably not form another
administration in our lifetime. It is highly unlikely that there will be
any single party government in a major European country for the next decade
or more.

The other major issue is that the current President of the United states
gained election by corruptly conspiring with a foreign dictator. He has
since attempted to blackmail another foreign leader to fabricate a case
against the leading contender for the opposing party nomination. And he is
openly abusing his office to cover up both crimes. It is hard to see in the
present political circumstances how there is going to be any willingness to
grant the executive greater surveillance powers. The president's opponents
fear they would be abused, his allies fear that they will be used against
them.

There is a considerable amount of concern about the power that Google,
Facebook, etc. have acquired. But that is in relation to their
custodianship of information that has little if anything to do with
cryptography. It is the use of Deep Learning etc. to uncover information
that society assumes to be private that is of concern.
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