Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper

[Brian Gladman]

From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@eloka.demon.co.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 11:36 AM
Subject: RE: Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper


> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> > [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Brian Gladman
> > Sent: 10 July 2001 23:17
> > 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: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 8:33 PM
> > Subject: RE: Wired: Echelon Furor Ends in a Whimper
> >
> > > You also said:
> > >
> > > > But rather than trying to change the behaviour of the US, the EU
> > > > can easily remove the threat of Echelon if it wishes to do so.  All
it
> > > > has to do is to
> > > > promote the rapid and ***universal*** deployment of end-to-end
> > > > cryptographic
> > > > information protection (voice and data).  It does not matter that
much
> > of
> > > > this protection will be weak since it is the universal use of
> > end-to-end
> > > > encryption, not its strength, that will completely devastate
Echelon.
> > >
> > > To me, the your different thoughts will not cohere.
> >
> > I made a proposal for what the Euroepan Parliament could do to protect
> > european information assets.  I did not think that I needed to spell out
> > that protecting european information assets in this way would not
> > impact in
> > a direct way on the capabilities of Echelon in respect of non-european
> > information assets.
>
> Then I apologise for my over-literality in failing to equate
***universal***
> with 'all European'. However, given the multi-national' nature of most big
> business, a purely 'all-European' approach to 100% encryption must fail on
> practical grounds, rather on the 'governance' grounds we had previously
> discussed?

Interestingly, however, while I intended universal to mean universal within
Europe, I don't think the global deployment of crypto would have as much
impact on Echelon as many people think.

But I thought you were right in the first place - that is, the idea fails
the politics test, not the practicality test.

   Brian