The Evils of Encryption
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
Blaming Zimmerman for PGP is like blaming Boeing for the recent disaster. (2b || !2b)
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
Encryption is a tool and in the wrong hands it can be used for wrong doing - just like any other tool we use everyday. Some totally obvious points:
- If Zimmermann didn't post PGP someone else would have posted something equivalent.
- Encrpytion is used by everyone, including those fighting the bad guys. I would imagine encryption has saved many lives by not exposing peoples activities to nasties.
- If Zimmermann caused the deaths of 5000 (isn't it up to nearly 7000 now? :() people then so did Boeing for making the planes, the owners of the WTC for having such a target, and the airlines for selling the tickets to the hijackers.
- The rest of the world is full of really, really smart people too. Restricting US exports of encryption has always seemed so condescending to countries outside of the States (but did help those businesses overseas producing high powered cryptographic systems ;))
- Withholding all enryption from potential terrorists (and how does one go about deciding that particular list?) won't stop attacks such as Sep11.
(OK - I'm off my soapbox now) cheers, Chris Maunder (CodeProject)
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
Above all, let us be consistent in what we do. Ok, prosecute the person who invented PGP. Immediately start a world-wide search though to get the one who invented the knife. Clearly that is a very destructive tool and whoever invented that needs to brought to justice. My feeling: It just goes to show that no matter how ridiculous you consider things to be somebody is going to think of it as really good idea. All for now, F.
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
Blaming Zimmerman is understandable, but totally without merit. Coded messages have been around forever and we have been dealing with it. Science has always been one step ahead of law enforcement. Like others said, if it wasn't PGP, it would have been one of the 100s of other systems. Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
There will always be fuckwits with nothing to do and nothing going for them. So they run around in circles screaming look at me I'm not as bad as those other people over there. Drawing atttention away from there lack of ability. That's what these idiots are doing, should be working on a current affair television show. Michael Martin Pegasystems Pty Ltd Australia martm@pegasystems.com +61 413-004-018 "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace" - Victor Stone
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Encryption is a tool and in the wrong hands it can be used for wrong doing - just like any other tool we use everyday. Some totally obvious points:
- If Zimmermann didn't post PGP someone else would have posted something equivalent.
- Encrpytion is used by everyone, including those fighting the bad guys. I would imagine encryption has saved many lives by not exposing peoples activities to nasties.
- If Zimmermann caused the deaths of 5000 (isn't it up to nearly 7000 now? :() people then so did Boeing for making the planes, the owners of the WTC for having such a target, and the airlines for selling the tickets to the hijackers.
- The rest of the world is full of really, really smart people too. Restricting US exports of encryption has always seemed so condescending to countries outside of the States (but did help those businesses overseas producing high powered cryptographic systems ;))
- Withholding all enryption from potential terrorists (and how does one go about deciding that particular list?) won't stop attacks such as Sep11.
(OK - I'm off my soapbox now) cheers, Chris Maunder (CodeProject)
Withholding encryption for export does little since the mathematical algorithms involved have long since been public knowledge. Someone with a little programming experience can still convert those algorithms to encryption code and encryption would still exist in the hands of the bad guys. And new algorithms continue to be invented by mathematicians. WillCodeForMoney
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Blaming Zimmerman is understandable, but totally without merit. Coded messages have been around forever and we have been dealing with it. Science has always been one step ahead of law enforcement. Like others said, if it wasn't PGP, it would have been one of the 100s of other systems. Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
Its bullshit blaming a programmer for something that they made, with the intent of doing good. Thats what the Software Licenses agreements are for, taking the responsiblity off the programmer. Visit Ltpb.8m.com Surf the web faster than ever: http://www.404Browser.com
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This article is quite an eye opener on some of the issues involving encryption. Not technological issues but ethical, moral and humane issues. Personally I am disgusted by some of the stories directed at Zimmerman (creator of PGP) doing the rounds. To think that people, even in the heat of anger, can be so callous and short sighted is terrible. Yes they have some good points but most can be argued against with a good point for encryption. To me the main arguement against encryption (delivering a powerful weapon into the hands of terrorists) is quite frankly ridiculous. You could say the same thing about aeroplanes or blame Microsoft for making an operating system which lets people save plans on making a bomb on their computers. What are your thoughts on the issue? I realise a lot of people are incredibly angry about the latest events and are in desperate need for someone to lash out. So blaming Zimmerman for PGP is understandable, but only barely. People who have will look back on their actions and be disgusted at themselves. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes
I think those blamming encryption have missed the point completely. If encryption laws don't allow strong encryption, then those terrorists will be able to hack into our banking systems, healthcare systems,ect. They will program their own encryption products using known encryption algorithims which will be unbreakable, thus the only people who would be hurt are honest citezens and companies who will be at risk to those terrorist who, by the lower encryption standards, will be greatly more vulnerable to terrorists and hackers.
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I think those blamming encryption have missed the point completely. If encryption laws don't allow strong encryption, then those terrorists will be able to hack into our banking systems, healthcare systems,ect. They will program their own encryption products using known encryption algorithims which will be unbreakable, thus the only people who would be hurt are honest citezens and companies who will be at risk to those terrorist who, by the lower encryption standards, will be greatly more vulnerable to terrorists and hackers.
The more subtle point is how do you contain knowledge in the longer term ? The answer is you can't. Most innovations and advances are incremental , and so eventually other people will work things out. Just look at the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons. What lies inside Pandoras Box is not the individual inventions but the knowledge that underlies the technology. This means that as things stand , some time in the future all countries of the world could potentially have access to nuclear and biological weapons. Encryption ? The theory of encyption is pretty well known all over the world , if PGP did not take off then someone else would have done the same thing but with a different name. England is not an island.