Fight governmental intrusion in communications Student Perspective, published in Student Life, Washington University's student newspaper April 5, 1994 Traditionally, the main roles of American communication systems have been to facilitate communication and provide a steady flow of income to the owners of the systems. These roles seem quite appropriate for communication systems in a capitalist democracy. But some elected officials and intelligence agents don't think these two roles are enough -- they have proposed adding a new role: surveillance. For over a year privacy advocates and many computer scientists have been lobbying against two proposals that would change the role of communications systems in America. The first proposal, the ``digital telephony bill,'' would force telecommunications companies to include in their systems equipment and software that law enforcement officers can use to perform wire taps. The second proposal, the Clipper initiative, would declare as standard an encryption chip to which the government holds the keys. While both proposals may sound like a lot of technological babble, they could have profound impacts on our society. Therefore, it is important that the public understand these proposals and their consequences. The Digital Telephony Bill Eavesdropping on a traditional analog telephone system has never been difficult. All one must do is intercept and amplify the electronic signals that travel through the phone lines. The interception can be done with a simple metal clip connected by a wire to a small tape recorder. New telephone systems use digital technology rather than the traditional analog technology. In a digital system, sound waves are converted into strings of 1s and 0s which are transmitted as digital signals to a receiver that converts them back to sound waves. Intercepting the digital signal is useless unless you can convert it back to its original form. The FBI has proposed a draft digital telephony bill (ironically called the Digital Telephony and Communications Privacy Improvement Act of 1994) that would require telecommunications companies to provide equipment for law enforcement officers to intercept and convert digital signals into intelligible sound. In addition, it would require companies to be able to give law enforcement officers access to a continuous report of all telephone calls placed and received on specified phone lines. These requirements would not only make telecommunications systems more expensive to own and operate (and these costs would surely be transferred to the customers through rate increases or taxes), but they would build government surveillance directly into our country's communications infrastructure. Law enforcement officials claim the proposed system is essential for them to do their jobs. They cite case after case in which a court-ordered wire tap has led to the arrest of a dangerous criminal. But statistics tell a different story. In 1992, for example, there were fewer than 800 court-ordered wire taps. These wire taps, which presumably were authorized because other suspicious evidence was found, led to about 2000 arrests. These arrests amounted to less than .02 percent of the 14 million arrests made that year. As the statistics show, most crimes are still solved with a lot of good detective work. The Clipper Initiative The Clipper chip is an encryption chip designed for use in telephones. When a call is placed between two clipper phones, the phones exchange encryption keys and encrypt all voice and data for the duration of the call. This system makes eavesdropping nearly impossible. However, the government (specifically the Treasury Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology) holds copies of the encryption keys and, with a court order, law enforcement agents can obtain the keys and decrypt the entire transmission. Furthermore, unlike most encryption systems which are publicly scrutinized for weaknesses, the clipper system cannot be examined because it is sealed inside a tamper-proof chip. As a result, some people are suspicious that the clipper chip might include a secret weakness that will allow law enforcement officers to intercept and decrypt messages without even taking the trouble to get a court order. Such a weakness is often compared to the key holes in combination locks sometimes found on school lockers. While each student must use a secret combination to open his or her locker, the teachers can open all the lockers in the school with a special key. Once again, law enforcement officials claim this system is essential for them to do their jobs. Designed by the National Security Agency for government use, Clipper is being actively promoted as an encryption tool for the general public. The NSA is hoping to drive the price of Clipper down so as to reduce the market for stronger encryption tools and make Clipper a defacto public encryption standard. At the annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference last month, I listened as Stewart Baker of the NSA tried to convince conference attendees of the benefits of Clipper. He argued that Clipper provides more privacy than an ordinary phone can, and that it will help law enforcement to catch criminals. But I was left wondering why any criminal would use clipper when there are other encryption methods available. Who Needs Privacy? If you are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, you may be wondering how these proposals can effect you. After all, you have no reason to encrypt your phone calls and are certain a court authorized wire tap of your phone line would reveal nothing illegal. Besides, as Baker pointed out at the CFP conference, even if you wanted to encrypt your phone calls, you wouldn't be required to use a clipper phone to do it. The problem these proposals pose for law-abiding citizens is that they set a dangerous precedent of building surveillance into systems designed for private communication. I've always thought of the American government as a ``limited government'' that should not have the power to mandate the conversion of communication systems into surveillance systems. I have nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I want my government to treat me like a criminal. Another CFP conference speaker, David Lytel of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, let slip that the White House is considering requirements that all encryption keys be held by the government. This would make it illegal for you to send a coded message that the government is unable to decode. I have my doubts that the administration is really considering such a proposal seriously, but this possibility concerns many people. Furthermore, with more and more business being conducted electronically, encryption is likely to be an increasingly important part of computer and telecommunications systems. Encryption technology can be used not only to keep secrets from falling into the wrong hands, but also to provide a digital ``signature'' that authenticates information and guarantees that it has not been tampered with. Already the U.S. has laws designed to keep sophisticated American encryption technologies from leaving the country. A recent White House press release explains, ``If encryption technology is made freely available worldwide, it would no doubt be used extensively by terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals to harm Americans both in the U.S. and abroad.'' However, U.S. export restrictions have not prevented other countries from developing their own encryption products that are as good as or better than the ones developed in the U.S. If U.S. surveillance laws further restrict the use of encryption and digital communication technologies, American companies will not be able to produce digital communications products that can compete in the world market. What Can You Do? In addition to letting your congressional representatives know that you oppose the Digital Telephony Bill and the adoption of the Clipper standard, you can help by supporting measures that promote the development of strong encryption by the private sector. Currently, most commercial software developers embed weak encryption schemes in their products because products containing strong encryption can not be exported. U.S. Rep. Maria Cantwell introduced a bill last November that would liberalize export controls on encryption software. This bill, H.R. 3627, would make it possible to easily export most non-military encryption software. This would encourage U.S. manufacturers to develop strong encryption systems that can be used as alternatives to Clipper. I urge you to pay attention to these issues and inform others about them. There are a variety of organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility that periodically release advisories about the above-mentioned proposals. EFF is collecting letters to Rep. Cantwell in support of H.R. 3627. You can submit your letter by sending it through electronic mail to cantwell@eff.org. In the Subject header of your message, type ``I support HR 3627.'' In addition, CPSR is collecting electronic signatures for a petition that opposes the Clipper initiative. To have your name added to the petition, send electronic mail to clipper.petition@cpsr.org with the message ``I oppose Clipper.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lorrie Cranor is an engineering doctoral student. Her email address is lorracks@dworkin.wustl.edu.