Well, I promise not to rant as long as no one goes soft on Clipper and
the NSA. Unfortunately for the cause, I've been busy lately. Jim McCoy
1) The NSA is not chartered for domestic surveillance work. If you discover the NSA watching you within the US you can have them arrested. They are probably more interested in the systems being put in use around the world and less about systems internal to the U.S.
they are not `chartered' per se but as Bamford makes clear everyone from the director and all the way down thinks that they live in a sort of extra-legal limbo. The NSA has a Napoleonic complex and delusions of grandeur that it is the fourth branch of the U.S. government--the Police Branch (with additional powers to make policy submissions on the level of the Executive branch). The vague and secret laws supposedly `governing' them do nothing to restrain them. There is even a law that exempts NSA from certain laws unless specifically mentioned! And tell me, who's job is it to arrest a corrupt police officer? (A: the American public.) `They are probably more interested in systems in use around the world than in the U.S...' well, this is a rather strange comment. It reflects both a false dichotomy and a true mutual exclusion. NSA and its members think that what happens in their bunker and the U.S. is universal. It has a very imperialistic and egotistical view regarding its sovereign cryptographic role, you understand. The argument that what happens in the U.S. cryptographic arena is relevant to the world at large is wrong for precisely the reasons the NSA believes in it and right for precisely the reasons they fear. Namely, yes, if U.S. exports strong cryptography it will penetrate the world faster. That is how the U.S. *does* matter. If the U.S. lags behind from absurd and asphyxiating regulations, we will find ourselves inundated by superior products from the outside by countries that don't have bizarre taboos against strong cryptography and secure protections for the privacy of their citizens. That is how the U.S. *doesn't* matter. Either way, the proliferation of strong cryptography is inevitable. The NSA believes that strong cryptography will be restricted internationally to the point that the U.S. quashes it. The truth is that the U.S. will be quashed internationally to the point that it restricts strong cryptography.
2) The NSA has been dealing with strong cryptography for a long time. These are the people who have been playing crypto games with "the Ruskies" since before I was born. I sincerely doubt they are losing a great deal of sleep over the fate of Clipper. ... no one at Fort Meade is going to be getting a pink slip if Clipper goes down in flames.
That's the problem. They should be, if they were truly accountable for their actions and not insulated and inbred bureacrats. Where are the rolling heads? Clipper is an unadulterated fiasco in every respect except in bringing greater public attention to unconscionable clandestine machinations in our government and cryptographic technology. For the former, please spare us the depraved exhibitions. For the latter, far more ethically superior demonstrations are possible. (To say the least for both.)
The FBI, and other domestic law enforcement agencies are probably very gung ho for weak crypto, but I just don't think that No Such Agency is going to be greatly effected by it. Thier fingerprints are all over the Clpper stuff, but seeing as how thier other mission is to develop ciphers this is only natural.
Fingerprints? More like a blaring signature in neon or spraypainted graffiti. Clipper as `only natural'? I suppose in the way one would consider a stillborn monster `natural'. NSA will not be affected by strong cryptography if it doesn't spread, that's correct. But that's like saying Communists would be unaffected if they could prevent the spread of technology. The spread of strong cryptography worldwide to the great detriment of signal interception is absolutely inevitable. Clipper only shows that NSA has deluded itself seriously enough to fail to recognize this basic truth to the point of investing huge sums of money, expertise, and audacity in an illegitimate project doomed to failure by its fundamental premise: that a government can control *any* technology (let alone a powerful emerging one) to perpetuate its own warped agenda and status quo. P.S. the `beta vs. VHS' reference is nothing but NSA propaganda and the terminology of apologists and spooks, and I hold it against you for using it. In only one way is it apt: the government is hoping they can entrench their inferior VHS standard by market momentum and black behind-the-scenes machinations despite the technical superiority of competitors. Well, sometimes inferior standards win out in the marketplace, but only temporarily and never indefinitely. And no government proposed VHS, or they would have been either laughed or chased off the face of the earth.