Crypto and Privacy at the Fringe - Froomkin, Ball, Toren

~terry Sat, Feb 21, 1998 (16:43) seed

This panel will focus on the moral issues stimulated by the increasing use of encryption by private parties who are estranged from, or in active opposition to, the government or society in which they live. The panel will seek to avoid technical details and jargon and instead focus on the moral choices posed by the slow spread of cryptography and by the countervailing efforts of some governments to curb its spread and/or control its strength. Audience participation will be encouraged. A. Michael Froomkin, Moderator, University of Miami School of Law Patrick Ball, Ph.D., AAAS Science and Human Rights Program Peter Toren, United States Department of Justice

~terry Wed, Mar 4, 1998 (07:14) #1

Danielle Gallo: Thursday closed with a controversial panel on 'Crypto and Privacy at the Fringes of Society' moderated by Michael Froomkin from the University of Miami School of Law (http://www.law.miami.edu/). Patrick Ball of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program (http://www.aaas.org) outlined security problems and provided crypto solutions for human rights organizations. He stated that human rights groups need encryption and digital signatures for protection. Ball finds traffic analysis a major threat to privacy, and suggests the use of anonymous remailers. Peter Toren from the United States Department of Justice (http://www.usdoj.gov) took the opposing view (big surprise there). Toren outlined the law enforcement perspective on crypto and privacy. He stated that unbreakable encryption will threaten public safety because it can be used to conceal criminal activity. He said, "advances in technology should serve society not rule it." Furthermore, Toren suggests that privacy and liberty must be protected without leaving a harbor for criminality. Toren's comments created strong response from the attendees and consequently, the question and answer session was lengthy.

~terry Wed, Mar 4, 1998 (07:14) #2

In addition to the many thanks to Toren for actually attending, the Q & A featured predictable responses from each side. Matt Blaze expressed an interesting analogy in describing a paper shredder that created a digital copy of a document and sent it off to a central database. When a document was accidentally shred, the user could contact the database and have a copy faxed. Also, Toren was pressed about the encryption issue and repeatedly cited the significant increase in cases that involve unrecoverable evidence due to encryption. The government's case is made at http://www.fbi.gov/congress/encrypt/encrypt.htm . Audience members complained that the government repeatedly gives misleading information about the difficulty of cracking various encryption schemes. - Danielle Gallo