Re: Introduction & Request for Opinions (Never lacking in FoRK)

Jim Whitehead (ejw@ics.uci.edu)
Fri, 13 Jun 1997 16:34:56 -0700


>Before I go... I will throw out a FoRK kind of question. I have been
>invited to speak to a convention of federal judges, US attorneys and
>DOJ-types (...that's right, folks who can kill or preserve the
>constitution). I have an open topic. I was thinking of CDA, encryption
>exports or privacy in the net... maybe even my opinions on sentencing
>"cyber-criminals". Any thoughts on any of the above issues or any other
>issues. I have 1 1/2 hours to kill.

Well, I've always thought an interesting way to bring home the dangers of
key escrow systems would be to perform a revisitation of the events of the
American Revolutionary War, but with the introduction of computers, email,
and key escrow, and see how things would have occurred (with a bit of
literary license). Something along the lines of the gov't was quickly able
to identify and round-up the malcontents (i.e., who we consider
revolutionary heroes) by exploiting their ability to search electronic
messages. But, switching to PGP, they were able to keep the revolution
alive... Might be tough to keep it from being hokey, though...