European Parliament says Echelon exists

July 4, 2001 10:39 PM

European Parliament says Echelon exists and is more or less powerless to stop it. All the more reason for government and industry to create encryption standards.
posted by skallas (4 comments total)

Encryption standards? Quite the contrary. If you establish standards, there's no protection. It's like everybody using a lock on the doors to their cars and houses which all open using the same skeleton key, and then giving everyone a copy of the key. Or at best, using the same types of encryption just makes it easier for hackers to figure out how to "lockpick the safe." We don't need standards. If you've got something to hide, or need to protect something while making it available on the 'Net, you should have a wealth of opportunities available to you, more than are available now. Not variants on the same theme, but a plethora of opportunities, each at least as difficult to break as the others. Encryption is one place where standards are a detriment.

Europe's unhappy America is peeking through the window? Close your blinds. Don't like it when we pull out the infrared goggles? Counter it with your own technology. Eventually we'll go back to blowing each other up.

Ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the New Cold War.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:27 AM on July 5, 2001

it may be moot in the coming years should quantum computing become practical. current encryption standards would be obsoleted by the ability of the quantum computer to quickly factor numbers, but there is speculation of (no doubt hyped) "unbreakable" encryption possible through the use of quantum computers. either that, or arthur c. clarke is right: we'll all be using high-atmosphere planes to transfer paper documents from one locale to another as a matter of the highest security.
posted by moz at 12:52 AM on July 5, 2001

(Zach, Kerckhoff's dictum is that "security lies solely in the key". An encryption standard doesn't imply a common encryption key. "Strong" crypto involves algorithms where even when someone knows the precise crypto algorithm, the only way they can attack it is by brute force. Use a long enough key and the solution takes billions of years.)

Yup, Europe needs encryption to protect itself against the mean awful US government. Then the field will be left open for the virtuous upstanding European governments, who won't be stopped by crypto because they'll put you in jail unless you hand them your crypto key.

It's called "putting out a candle while the house is burning."
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:38 AM on July 5, 2001

Without a doubt, the first case brought under the RIP Act will be among the first cases brought to appeal under the "right to privacy" guarantee in the Human Rights Act. It'll be an interesting one.
posted by holgate at 6:59 AM on July 5, 2001