| Last Cereal: Message Board: posting |
| re: frozen climate |
| [5844] by "RobPfeifer" (83.234.35.212.in-addr.arpa.ip-po) on Mon 17 Sep 2001 16:02:43 [ reply ] |
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Even I admit to changing my stance. I saw a headline today (too busy to read the story) suggesting that encrypted e-mails had been used in the co-ordination and planning of this strike.
Until now I have been against key escrow. 'A man can be intelligent, honest and in favour of key escrow, but never more than two at once.' But if it could have saved the lives of thousands, then are those lives a fitting price to pay for privacy of e-mail? On the other hand, the question of whether key escrow could have helped is no means clear cut. You have not only to have the means to look, but to know where to look (but... X-reference to the system nicknamed 'echelon', that massive tri-national electronic data monitoring system - USA, UK, Australia...) It is at times like this that people surrender liberties they may later wish they hadn't. But then, they may later be grateful that they /did/. The question remains, whether our culture of comparative freedom (but not absolute freedom) would sacrifice some measure of its ideals in surrendering a little of that freedom, and newly gained freedom at that. There was a time when tappability of communications was taken for granted (and still, criminals managed to communicate safely...). It was also, however, a time when mass 'big brother' communication monitoring was not even technically feasible, let alone implemented. Just a few thoughts on key escrow. Rob |