[7217] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: NSA back doors in encryption products
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Sat May 27 17:37:15 2000
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
Cc: Rick Smith <rick_smith@securecomputing.com>, John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>,
cryptography@c2.net, gnu@cygnus.com
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Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 08:39:36 -0400
Message-Id: <20000527124052.E28D635DC2@smb.research.att.com>
In message <v04210109b5531fa89365@[24.218.56.92]>, "Arnold G. Reinhold" writes:
>At 11:17 AM -0500 5/25/2000, Rick Smith wrote:
>o There is the proposed legislation I cited earlier to protect these
>methods from being revealed in court. These are not aimed at news
>reports (that would never get passed the Supreme Court), but would
>allow backdoors to be used for routine prosecutions without fear of
>revealing their existence.
That's tricky, too, since the Constitution provides the *defense* with
a guarantee of open trials. At most, there are laws to prevent
"greymail", where the defense threatens to reveal something sensitive.
In that case, the judge reviews its relevance to the case. If it is
relevant -- and a back door used to gather evidence certainly would be
-- the prosecution can either agree to have it revelated or drop the
case.
I'm not saying there aren't back doors that wouldn't fall into this
category; I am saying that such a law would have to be very narrowly
crafted to pass constitutional muster.
--Steve Bellovin
