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I can't find the citation right now, so treat this as apocryphal, but... I've read an explanation that the USA's focus on security has changed in the days sinc

I can't find the citation right now, so treat this as apocryphal, but... I've read an explanation that the USA's focus on security has changed in the days since 9/11/2001. At one time, the philosophy was that the country was more secure when we could all be assured that the privacy of our communications was intact. But in the last decade we've changed that philosophy. The government's security philosophy now is that the most important thing is for the government to be able to tell what's going on. So it may be that the parent post's anecdote is quite correct, and reflects the policy of that time. But in the days of the War On Terror, we can't trust that anymore. (And OT, I believe it reflects a fundamental change in the philosophy of governance that is against the founding principles of the country, and a pretty bad thing. I believe that our strength derives from ... us -- we the people. And so strengthening the government by weakening us in fact weakens the nation.) EDIT: fix date. Thanks, Retric.

dpark 14y ago
> At one time, the philosophy was that the country was more secure when we could all be assured that the privacy of our communications was intact. That's never really been the view of the U.S. government. It's always been the view that you should be able to have communications with your neighbor that are secure from everyone except the US government, who obviously need to snoop in order to protect us all. The security agencies and the police agencies have always pushed for more comprehensive and more invasive surveillance. We've had wiretapping for as long as we've had wires to tap. We crippled Internet security for years. I remember the days of separate US and international Netscape releases, due to crypto export restrictions. It wasn't until 2000 that the restrictions were truly relaxed.
- pgeorgi 14y ago
  US and international Netscape releases (as well as Windows and various other tools) rather indicate that the US govt was interested in secure communication for US citizens and corporations, while being able to snoop on the rest of the world. If you need an example, pick the Clipper chip - and even that doesn't _quite_ work out, given how publically that proposal was shot down.
  - nnnnnnnn 14y ago
    Actually it is a reflection of the law. The US government had the authority to prohibit export of crypto (at the time), but did not have the authority to limit it domestically. If they had been given that authority things may have been different.
    - CWuestefeld 14y ago
      That's kind of circular. If the government has the authority to create a law to do X, then the government has the authority to do X, full stop.
      - dfc 14y ago
        I always thought that the clipper chip died in the court of public opinion and not in a court of law. However, I do not understand your interpretation of circular reasoning. Lets look at the case where X is regulate the sale of switchblades. The federal government has the authority to regulate the sale (commerce) of switchblade knives between states, the federal government does not have the authority to regulate the sale of a switchblade within a state.
        anamax 14y ago
        > The federal government has the authority to regulate the sale (commerce) of switchblade knives between states, the federal government does not have the authority to regulate the sale of a switchblade within a state. Let's look at the case of guns. Do you really think that Montana could say "you can sell Montana-made machineguns in Montan without satisfying federal law"? (The feds don't much care about switchblades. They care about guns.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn . In that case, the feds got to regulate even though the wheat in question wasn't sold and never left the farm.
        dfc 14y ago
        Well the feds did care about switchblades, that is why they passed a law banning the interstate sale of switchblades, "the Switchblade Knife Act, (Pub.L. 85-623, 72 Stat. 562, enacted on August 12, 1958, and codified in 15 U.S.C. §§ 1241–1245), prohibits the manufacture, importation, distribution, transportation, and sale of switchblade knives in commercial transactions substantially affecting interstate commerce[56] between any state."[1] Evidence for a continued interest in switchblades can be found in the recent exemption carved out for assisted opening knives in 5 USC § 1244.[2] (I think the exemptions in 1244 were passed within the last 5 years as part of a Homeland Security appropriations bill, but I'm fuzzy on the exact date.) Wickard was 70 years ago, interstate commerce doctrine has evolved a lot in the intervening years. In fact I'm a little surprised that you used it as an example. It has been a while since ConLaw I, but I think Wickard is often used as an example of the height of the broad interpretation of the commerce clause. Are you arguing that there is no limit on the power of the the commerce clause? Or that Wickard is the controlling case? Lopez is one of many cases since Wickard where the Supremes walked back such a broad interpretation of the commerce clause. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#Federal_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#Federal_law [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1244 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1244
- napillo 14y ago
  Well, that was the philosophy that they were promoting. I know for a fact that your re-stating of it seems to be more accurate. My father was doing business in the late 80's, early 90's with Russia, and he was transferring large files across a modem link. The CIA contacted him and asked him not to encrypt his files, so they could see what was going on.
Retric 14y ago
9/11/2001
- tptacek 14y ago
  And? Cryptography is much easier to build, test, ship, and even export after 9/11 than it was before it. I shipped commercial security products before 9/11 and it was a nightmare. A huge portion of all desktops ran insecure crypto simply because it was too logistically challenging to ensure that they had good crypto and were easy to sell in Europe and Japan. There is simply nothing to this analysis. The crypto policy fight happened in the late '90s, and crypto won.
  - CWuestefeld 14y ago
    Yes, the crypto fight was fought and seems to have been won by the people. But crypto is only one facet of a broader communications security policy. It should be clear from recent controversies about "how private is your cellphone"; warrantless wiretapping and retro-active legalization of the same; various proposals for granting government authorities over the Internet (including a "kill switch" and a rumored upcoming Executive Order since he can't get it through Congress); that in the broader context, the US government is very much interested in monitoring communications.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      We're talking about crypto on this thread. I see the controversies over government access to communications differently than you do, but I'm not particularly interested in litigating the issue. The federal government has not subverted cryptography in any meaningful way; industry does a perfectly great job of doing that job for them. You have a lot more to fear from the Linux devs "cleaning up" OpenSSL's CSPRNG than you do from the NSA.
      - trevelyan 14y ago
        But this is not true. David Wagner and Ian Goldberg (the cryptographers who cracked GSM) have documented that the encryption used was purposefully weakened to enable realtime software decryption of voice calls. This was back in the late 1990s and there was a lot of discussion on the cryptography usenet group at the time (i.e. http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg00776.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg007...) but there is a fairly readable mass market piece here (http://scard.org/gsm/pr/nytimes/ http://scard.org/gsm/pr/nytimes/). I'm only an amateur when it comes to this stuff, but why do you think David Wagner is wrong?

dpark 14y ago

> At one time, the philosophy was that the country was more secure when we could all be assured that the privacy of our communications was intact. That's never really been the view of the U.S. government. It's always been the view that you should be able to have communications with your neighbor that are secure from everyone except the US government, who obviously need to snoop in order to protect us all. The security agencies and the police agencies have always pushed for more comprehensive and more invasive surveillance. We've had wiretapping for as long as we've had wires to tap. We crippled Internet security for years. I remember the days of separate US and international Netscape releases, due to crypto export restrictions. It wasn't until 2000 that the restrictions were truly relaxed.

pgeorgi 14y ago
US and international Netscape releases (as well as Windows and various other tools) rather indicate that the US govt was interested in secure communication for US citizens and corporations, while being able to snoop on the rest of the world. If you need an example, pick the Clipper chip - and even that doesn't _quite_ work out, given how publically that proposal was shot down.
- nnnnnnnn 14y ago
  Actually it is a reflection of the law. The US government had the authority to prohibit export of crypto (at the time), but did not have the authority to limit it domestically. If they had been given that authority things may have been different.
  - CWuestefeld 14y ago
    That's kind of circular. If the government has the authority to create a law to do X, then the government has the authority to do X, full stop.
    - dfc 14y ago
      I always thought that the clipper chip died in the court of public opinion and not in a court of law. However, I do not understand your interpretation of circular reasoning. Lets look at the case where X is regulate the sale of switchblades. The federal government has the authority to regulate the sale (commerce) of switchblade knives between states, the federal government does not have the authority to regulate the sale of a switchblade within a state.
      - anamax 14y ago
        > The federal government has the authority to regulate the sale (commerce) of switchblade knives between states, the federal government does not have the authority to regulate the sale of a switchblade within a state. Let's look at the case of guns. Do you really think that Montana could say "you can sell Montana-made machineguns in Montan without satisfying federal law"? (The feds don't much care about switchblades. They care about guns.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn . In that case, the feds got to regulate even though the wheat in question wasn't sold and never left the farm.
        dfc 14y ago
        Well the feds did care about switchblades, that is why they passed a law banning the interstate sale of switchblades, "the Switchblade Knife Act, (Pub.L. 85-623, 72 Stat. 562, enacted on August 12, 1958, and codified in 15 U.S.C. §§ 1241–1245), prohibits the manufacture, importation, distribution, transportation, and sale of switchblade knives in commercial transactions substantially affecting interstate commerce[56] between any state."[1] Evidence for a continued interest in switchblades can be found in the recent exemption carved out for assisted opening knives in 5 USC § 1244.[2] (I think the exemptions in 1244 were passed within the last 5 years as part of a Homeland Security appropriations bill, but I'm fuzzy on the exact date.) Wickard was 70 years ago, interstate commerce doctrine has evolved a lot in the intervening years. In fact I'm a little surprised that you used it as an example. It has been a while since ConLaw I, but I think Wickard is often used as an example of the height of the broad interpretation of the commerce clause. Are you arguing that there is no limit on the power of the the commerce clause? Or that Wickard is the controlling case? Lopez is one of many cases since Wickard where the Supremes walked back such a broad interpretation of the commerce clause. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#Federal_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade#Federal_law [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1244 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1244
napillo 14y ago
Well, that was the philosophy that they were promoting. I know for a fact that your re-stating of it seems to be more accurate. My father was doing business in the late 80's, early 90's with Russia, and he was transferring large files across a modem link. The CIA contacted him and asked him not to encrypt his files, so they could see what was going on.

Retric 14y ago

9/11/2001

tptacek 14y ago
And? Cryptography is much easier to build, test, ship, and even export after 9/11 than it was before it. I shipped commercial security products before 9/11 and it was a nightmare. A huge portion of all desktops ran insecure crypto simply because it was too logistically challenging to ensure that they had good crypto and were easy to sell in Europe and Japan. There is simply nothing to this analysis. The crypto policy fight happened in the late '90s, and crypto won.
- CWuestefeld 14y ago
  Yes, the crypto fight was fought and seems to have been won by the people. But crypto is only one facet of a broader communications security policy. It should be clear from recent controversies about "how private is your cellphone"; warrantless wiretapping and retro-active legalization of the same; various proposals for granting government authorities over the Internet (including a "kill switch" and a rumored upcoming Executive Order since he can't get it through Congress); that in the broader context, the US government is very much interested in monitoring communications.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    We're talking about crypto on this thread. I see the controversies over government access to communications differently than you do, but I'm not particularly interested in litigating the issue. The federal government has not subverted cryptography in any meaningful way; industry does a perfectly great job of doing that job for them. You have a lot more to fear from the Linux devs "cleaning up" OpenSSL's CSPRNG than you do from the NSA.
    - trevelyan 14y ago
      But this is not true. David Wagner and Ian Goldberg (the cryptographers who cracked GSM) have documented that the encryption used was purposefully weakened to enable realtime software decryption of voice calls. This was back in the late 1990s and there was a lot of discussion on the cryptography usenet group at the time (i.e. http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg00776.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg007...) but there is a fairly readable mass market piece here (http://scard.org/gsm/pr/nytimes/ http://scard.org/gsm/pr/nytimes/). I'm only an amateur when it comes to this stuff, but why do you think David Wagner is wrong?