re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow after reading the debate over the clipper i have a few things to add first most of the people i know who activly use encryption privately do not care about most of the issues that surround this debate and any questions about what is or is not ok to use in the us all they care about is wether or not what they are using is secure or not that after all is the bottom line second if i look at all the people i know who use any form of encryption at all and this group spans people from the morons who still insist that the des is a good and secure standard to people looking at trying to improve upon existing strategies i can not think of anyone of them who would approve blindly of a strategy that leaves their methods open to abuse the clipper does this because people make mistakes by nature and the us government is made up of people who are just as vulnerable to mistakes as everyone else third since most of the people i know are at least marginaly familiar with the vulnerabilities present in current software encryption stratigies i can t see how most of them are going to blindly trust that someone will not figure out a good way to compromise the clipper chip that despite any strengths or weaknesses that may exist in it so i can not see a high degree of confidence developing in the chip fourth when it comes to criminal abuse sure there are many stupid people out there and yes some will be open to being caught via the built in back door of the clipper chip however anyone who is going to do any serious investigation of how best to secure their data is going to run into that problem pretty damned fast and i would assume start looking around for other easily obtainible methods of encryption if nothing else were avalible none of this would be an issue however the truth is that most private encryption users that i ve ever run into simply do not give a damn about the legal status of rsa or pgp or anything else if it works they use it this is not going to change either i do not think for a moment that anyone with serious criminal intent will be slowed down by the advent of the clipper chip it is all to easy to convert encrypted data into unintellgible garbage as it is if anything the clipper chip just adds another tool to the user the bottom line here is that people will use what works and unavoidibly i m sure most criminals would rather face an encryption related charge than one which could potentialy lead to death penalty charges in the case of criminals who murder as part of their conspiricy the other thing that has struck me since the advent and wide useage of public encryption has begun is that quite simply the cat is out of the bag or if you have an interest in snooping pandora s box has been opened and this is not going to change i ve seen a blindness to this that i ve found utterly stunning and the clipper chip along with the way it has been presented only confirms this to me to a larger degree sincerly tim scanlon tfs gravity gmu edu
