From: steve-b@access.digex.com (Steve Brinich)
Subject: Re: Clipper considered harmful
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Lines: 42
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.net

 > > Criminals who very badly want inscrutable tactical communications
 > >(specifically the terrorists and drug dealers who proponents of key escrow
 > >cite as threats) will be highly motivated to steal the cipher phone of
 > >a legitimate user, and to kill this person or hold them hostage so
 > >discovery of compromise of the device will be delayed.

 >Why doing it in such a rough manner? It is much more professional to
 >steal the chip from the phone and even to replace it with a
 >pin-compatible do-nothing chip that does not encrypt at all. Chances
 >are that the victim will not notice anything, especially if it is done
 >professionally.

  Assuming that the bad guys can easily obtain substitute chips which don't
cause any noticeable effect to either the user or the person at the other end
of the line (if there is any significant difficulty to obtaining such chips,
some of the criminals will decide to fall back on the murder/kidnap method).

 > > Once a suitable collection of devices is stolen, criminals can communicate
 > >with impunity (assuming the cipher system carries no trapdoors apart from
 > >key escrow) until and unless the compromise is discovered by some other
 > >means.

 > No, because the Feds will still be able to decrypt the conversations.
 >True, they'll blame the wrong guys, but nevertheless one cannot say
 >something like "The drugs arrive tommorrow on the ship 'Terminus'"
 >when the Feds are listening, even if they cannot identify who the
 >speaker is.

 This assumes that the Feds are tapping Clipper phones belonging to ordinary
citizens (getting such a phone is the whole point of the crime under
discussion).  To be sure, I wouldn't put it past them -- but raising the
possibility of such crime has the benefit of forcing the Feds to either
'fess up about such intentions in advance or state that using Clipper
exposes the user to an additional criminal threat. <g>

 > No, the criminals will just use some secure encryption. The new
 >proposal does not stop criminals; it ensures that the government will
 >be able to wiretap the average citizen and stops the casual snooper.
 >To me, it also clearly looks as a step towards outlawing any other
 >strong encryption devices.

  Agreed.
