Cryptography

Software Anonymous Remailers Disk Encryption

PGP is obviously a good idea: look at who objects to it.

For years, FBI Director Louis Freeh has been assuring the public that he was only interested in preventing the export of strong encryption to foreign countries.

Then, in support of an almost unnoticed amendment to the SAFE bill, he suddenly insisted that unannounced inspection of private domestic e-mail was essential to maintaining law and order. Since pedophiles, international terrorists, and drug trafficers will presumably ignore anti-encryption laws, and since Martin Luther King and John Lennon are dead, just exactly whose mail is he interested in? Here's the current administration position on the SAFE bill.

Export Controls An excellent page at Fenwick & West which describes current US cryptography policy. The government seems to be losing the battle: Junger vs. Daley - First Amendment protects crypto source code

At last report, the government appears to have lost the battle to stop private use of encryption. Here are Newsweek articles on code rebels and How they Beat big Brother.

The FBI has other tools at its disposal to defeat encryption used by criminals. One such tool is the installation of a "keyboard sniffer" onto the suspect's computer in a "black bag" job. Such operations may require breaking and entering the suspect's premises and require a valid search warrant.

The FBI has also deployed a system codenamed "Carnivore" to intercept and read e-mail.

 

Anonymous Remailers.

These programs permit individuals to post to usenet without fear of stalkers and without fear of compromising personal and highly private information..

Disk encryption programs.

These programs encrypt portions of (or all of) your disks on-the-fly. Some of the authors claim that they make their source code available, but *none* (except ScramDisk) have made it available to *me*.

See this On-The-Fly Encryption: A Comparison page first; it's much more up-to-date than the material below. The site also includes an excellent comparison of disk and file shredders. and security flaws in OTFE systems..