« How does Mexico handle foreign nationals? | Main | The best deposition ever »
April 12, 2006
NSA's job gets a lot harder
While the objectively pro-terrorist anti-Bush forces continue to fulminate against eavesdropping on people who want to kill Americans, encryption technology keeps getting better and better. The end result? Privacy advocates -- and jihadis -- can probably stop worrying about The Man, if they're talking via web-based VOIP.
Eavesdropping on phone calls just got a lot harder. Phil Zimmermann, the guy who invented PGP encryption for Internet mail, has developed a similar product, Zfone, for VOIP (telephone calls over the Internet).
Zfone, like PGP, is free and easy to use. PGP drove intelligence agencies nuts, because it gave criminals and terrorists access to industrial grade cryptography. PGP doesn't stop the police or intel people from reading encrypted email, but it does slow them down.
Zfone, however, uses stronger encryption. This means more delays, perhaps fatal delays, in finding out what the bad guys are saying. There's no immediate solution for this problem, unless Phil Zimmermann has provided a back door in Zfone for the intel folks. That is unlikely, but at least possible.
Question: Do you think it's a good idea for everyone to have nearly-bulletproof encryption available?
As much as I'm a hawk in the fight against the jihadis, I'm also a believer in the free market -- and the right of Americans to be free of unwanted eavesdroppers. But I'm troubled by the idea that those who wish us dead may have perfect voice-comm security.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 12, 2006 08:13 AM
| TrackBack