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Re: Clinton signs bill to count wiretaps that encounter encryption

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jaap-Henk Hoepman)
Sat May 6 16:18:12 2000

To: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
In-Reply-To: "Arnold G. Reinhold"'s message of "Fri, 5 May 2000 08:58:45 -0400"
From: Jaap-Henk Hoepman <hoepman@cs.utwente.nl>
Date: 06 May 2000 22:00:31 +0200
Message-ID: <kp8zxnwisg.fsf@utip202.cs.utwente.nl>
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On Fri, 5 May 2000 08:58:45 -0400 "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com> writes:
> It's worse than that. The new reports are to cover "law enforcement 
> encounters with encrypted communications in the execution of wiretap 
> orders." http://www.politechbot.com/docs/clinton-crypto.050300.html 
> "Encounters" suggests that there will be no distinction between 
> encryption that hinders law enforcement access and encryption that 
> does not. For example, any tap of a GSM cell phone could be reported 
> even though the cipher GSM uses is relatively easy to break.  In 1999 
> there were 676 authorized taps for cell phones and pagers vs. 399 for 
> stationary phones. (1998: 576 vs 494, so the trend is toward cell 
> phones)

Any tap on the GSM cell phone will _not_ be on the encrypted over-the-air
interface but simply on the plaintext leaving the base station on the fixed
network. 

Jaap-Henk

-- 
Jaap-Henk Hoepman             | Come sail your ships around me
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