Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper

[Brian Gladman]

From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@eloka.demon.co.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 9:49 PM
Subject: RE: Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper


[snip]
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> > [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Brian Gladman
> > Sent: 09 July 2001 16:46
> > To: UK Crypto Posting
> > Subject: Re: Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper
> >
> >
> > From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@eloka.demon.co.uk>
> > To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> > Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 10:29 AM
> > Subject: RE: Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper
> >
> > [snip]
> > In order to avoid a long debate about this I should make it clear
> > that I am
> > in favour of the universal use of cryptography for end-to-end
information
> > protection.
>
> No long debate over that. I quite understand that to be your position.
What
> I do not understand is one is to reconcile that with ".....remove the
> privacy and industrial/commercial espionage concerns raised by Echelon
> without undermining its
> value in other areas". If you have the answer to that, then you have a
very
> powerful idea indeed.

I really want to avoid a long debate about this but my comment has to be
considered in the context in which it was made, namely that of proposals
that an EU Parliiamentary group could make to protect commercial/industrial
information assets in Europe.

My suggestion (a) does this, and (b) does not impact significantly on the
value of Echelon unless the content and domain so protected provides a
substantial part of the value of Echelon.

And in my view it doesn't.

My comment about whether it would be sensible for Europe to do this was
based on the possible 'domino effect' that such a move might trigger on a
wider scale.  However, for reasons I am not going to expand on, I don't
think this is a significant concern.

   Brian