The telecommunications bill is a violation of our first amendment rights. This bill restricts communication. If this bill is allowed to stand it will set a precedent that may allow the government to censor other forms of media. The argument may go something like this: You can not talk about abortion on the Internet you should not be allowed to publish articles about abortion in the news paper or your magazine. Just as it is our right to print what we want it is also our right to ignore/not read articles on topics that may offend us. You can not be forced to go to a site that you do not want to go to. The world wide web is unlike television, another form of communication that is partially censored, in that you do not turn on the web and something offensive may somehow find its way to your screen. You have to actively search for material that interest you.
Restricting encryption is like allowing the government to put a phone tap on your line and allowing them to listen to your calls anytime they like. Without encryption it also allows hackers, crackers and spammers easy access to private information. If encryption is not allowed everything connected to the world wide web or sent through the world wide web could be accessed by unauthorized users.
People are paying for their online services. They are using either using an Internet Service Provider such as Prodigy, America Online, Prodigy, a school server or people are using their own equipment to access the Internet which is very costly. The computer alone will cost at least five thousand dollars for a machine capable of doing a reasonable job as a server. Then you have got you lines. Leased lines are expensive, if someone is paying for a leased line no one has the right to be monitoring their information.
The government can not walk into your apartment or house without a search warrant yet they want people to allow everyone, who knows a little bit about computing, to have access to any information that you send over the Internet. Is that not the same as allowing anyone to go to the Post Office and start sorting through the mail and opening ones that look interesting? This is equivalent to saying that not only can you not have a burglar alarm on your property but you are also not allowed to lock your door just in case you may be doing something the government does not like.
People want to do business over the Internet but how are they going to be able to safely and securely transmit data? People want to be able to send their credit card numbers over the Internet without the fear of people catching their card numbers and why shouldnít they? They pay for the service.
Crackers can already break many of the codes used to protect software. They can get into your sites without too much problem. There are software packages on the net that will allow any one to become a hacker. There are sites that have scripts and programs for ìTestingî the security of your sites, but how many people actually looking to improve their security are going to be looking for sites that contain this kind of information? Is it not more likely that someone trying to break into a site or computer will find this information?
One alternative that may slow down unauthorized users and still allows law enforcement agents to decrypt messages is public key encryption such as PGP using a neutral third party to hold a key. This would protect the individuals rights to privacy while still allowing government officials, such as law enforcement agencies, to gain access to material through a court order. This would allow people to protect their right to privacy but also allow government officials with legitimate reasons to access protected files. This could also help in cases of piracy that involve encryption. If someone had a key to decrypt the data being sent then it may not be as tempting to send pirated software this way, but there are ways around this also.
This system raises quite a few questions, such as how do you tell if an encryption key is registered? A second question is how do you know if the key held by the third party is valid? People want to be able to protect their privacy but the government wants to be able to confiscate material that may be illegal, but with private key encryption they would not be able to do this even if they had a search warrant. What could the courts do then? In the United States the law says people are innocent until proven guilty. Someone that did not want a file opened could say they lost their private key. In this manner people could avoid having data confiscated and used as evidence in a court. It would be hard to prove that someone did not forget their key. What if they used a password that looked something liked this ìab98234KAfdnî and then switched keys every time they sent new data?
If people are not allowed to use encryption, how are they to protect themselves? People have a right to privacy and because the information is on a computer does not change that fact. With the telecommunications bill and encryption laws the government is endeavoring to limit who we talk to and what we say to them. Who is going to want to pay an Internet Service Provider to monitor what they do? This will force people who would never think of joining a hacking group to join underground groups. These underground groups will teach more people about getting around security undetected which means more will be able to successful hack.
Privacy and freedom of speech are topics that should concern everyone. The Internet is a medium for propagating ideas and censoring what people do on the Internet could lead to tighter controls in other aspects of life. We do not allow the government to tap phones without a search warrant why should we allow it to have access to our private data transmissions. If we need to be able to protect ourselves from hackers, crackers and other people that are intent on causing use grief. If bills regulating what we can say are passed then underground groups will continue to grow. People do not like paying for a service and then being told who they can talk to and that they may be silently monitored and furthermore this is an infringement on our rights.
© Dennis Seay , 1996.