underground encryption was re text of white house announcement in article qmugcinnpu gap caltech edu hal cco caltech edu hal finney writes it looks like the worst nightmares raised by dorothy denning s proposals are coming true if the government continues on this course i imagine that we will see strong cryptography made illegal encryption programs for disk files and email as well as software to allow for encrypted voice communications will be distributed only through the underground people will have to learn how to hide the fact that they are protecting their privacy some thoughts has any work been done on encapsulating encrypted data inside non encrypted data files many file formats can be written with gaps in them to hide other data new file formats could be designed to have alternate data hidden by dispersing it amongst the legitimate data the hidden data would only show up with the right key s and a file with hidden data would be indistinguishable from one without so only the correct key s would reveal the presence of an illegal document if i devise a custom file compression algorithm and only i and a friend have the uncompressor and otherwise the file appears to be total gigerish do i have the right to transmit the file will we have to escrow all our data file formats are gangs required to escrow their hand signals colors and catch phrases i think that it s important to evaluate the content of electronic speach by replacing the media with pen and paper or verbal speach and then re ask the question
