re clipper considered harmful restated and amplified brad optilink com brad yearwood writes in article apr lehman com pmetzger snark shearson com perry e metzger writes you obviously haven t read the information about the system the chips put out serial number infomation into the cypher stream to allow themselves to be identified the system does not rely on registering people as owning particular phone units i am against the proposal but lets be accurate in our objections do not presume to tell me what i have and have not read the system may not rely upon registering people as owning particular phone units but it is necessary to know which phone units are likely to be used for some suspected criminal communication before you can obtain their unit keys from escrow big deal if you are a legitimate law enforcement agent and have a legitimate wiretap order you just listen in on the line for minutes get the serial number and then take the order and go to the escrow agencies if you notice the criminal is now using a different phone instrument take your still valid wiretap order to the escrow agency with the new serial number this provides opportunities for abuse by law enforcement but thats not what we are discussing right now i oppose clipper but the mechanics here are simple and easy to understand the whole rest of your article is based on a large series of false premises all predicated on the notion that this simple act is somehow impossible i feel free to presume to tell you that you do not seem to understand the mechanics of the proposal arguing that terrorists will be killing people for their clipper phones is silly because its pointless lets be alarmist about what really would show up as a problem shall we perry metzger pmetzger shearson com laissez faire laissez passer le monde va de lui meme
