Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
in public forums by scientists allied in the common pursuit of objective
knowledge.
In 1986, further restrictions on public dissemination were attempted
through the use of the patent secrecy system, which enables the Patent
and Trademark Office to prevent the disclosure or publication of any
subject matter deemed detrimental to national security.
24
By the 1990s,
however, cryptography enjoyed amounts of public attention rarely expe-
rienced by an esoteric mathematical field, emerging as the “first political
movement in the digital era.”
25
Cryptographers appeared on the cover of
the
New York Times Magazine
and
Wired
, and articles on the use of cryp-
tography for privacy protection appeared in
Scientific American
and
Com-
munications of the ACM
.
It was thus with a renewed sense of purpose that the community
embarked in the mid-1990s in another round of confrontation with the
intelligence establishment. This time, the battle concerned the social and
technical adequacy of a system known as the
Clipper chip
and a set of rules
restricting the export of cryptographic products outside of the United
States. The issues, collectively known as “the crypto debate,” spawned a
small policy industry, sharply divided along pro-law enforcement and
cyberlibertarian lines. Because widespread access to encryption technolo-
gies would result in diminish wiretapping capabilities for law enforcement,
the Clipper proposal sought to ensure that every communication device
in the United States be equipped with capabilities for
key escrow
, to be
accessed by authorities as required by circumstances. Export controls
sought to diminish the dissemination of technologies felt to be an essential
element of national security, by limiting the export of so-called strong
cryptography, that is, products with key lengths thought sufficient to
defeat the capabilities of intelligence agencies.
The cryptographic research community largely espoused the cyberliber-
tarian position. It argued that access to cryptography was essential to a
democratic society increasingly structured around computer networks and
provided the only effective tool to escape the looming onslaught of Big
Brotherism.
26
Some saw even greater potential for public-key encryption.
Timothy May, an Intel engineer and founder of the “Cypherpunk” mailing
list, prophesied that free cryptography would act as “the wire clippers
which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual property” and unleash
an age of digital anarchy.
27
Some academics even concurred: “With the
