What kinds of information does Echelon collect?
Echelon is a secret system operated by the USA and other countries that is capable of intercepting satellite communications and analyzing them in the search of specific people or subjects. The kind of information Echelon collects include telephone calls, e-mails and even internet downloads. Telephone conversions of targeted subject(s) are analyzed using voice recognition software to find ones of interest. However, the information Echelon collects is not limited to just suspects and terrorists but also includes information that is of help to the U.S. economy as well as U.S. business companies.
Give two reasons why the U.S. government eventually dropped most encryption-export controls.
One of the reasons why the U.S. government eventually dropped most encryption-export controls is because the economic harm those controls would have had on the U.S. economy. It was estimated that keeping the encryption-export controls would have resulted in a loss of 200,000 and $60 billion over a period of four years.
Another reason is because the export-controls were not having the effect the U.S. government wanted. The main aim of the controls to prevent terrorists and other malicious people from obtaining ‘strong encryption’ programs that would allow them to communicate securely. The export-controls didn’t achieve this goal because encryption programs that were even stronger than those made in the U.S. were already available freely on the Internet so anyone who wanted to – including terrorists – could use them to secure their communications.
What are some reasons why a business might choose to use a private system to escrow encryption keys?
The main reason as to why a business might choose to use a private escrow system is because with a commercial (public) key escrow system, law-enforcement agencies would be able – through a court order / search warrant – to gain access to the keys that would decrypt the encrypted data. Thus, by using an in-house (private) system to escrow encryption keys, businesses can have the confidence their encrypted data is secure and only authorized personnel can access it.
What were some of the communications censored by the U.S. government during World War II?
During World War II, the U.S. government employed a work-force of almost 15,000 people to open mail (in the range of about a million copies a day) being sent overseas and eliminate any that contained sensitive military information that would be of use to the then enemies Germany or Japan. Furthermore, people’s telephone conversations were spied upon in addition to any form of communication that could be used to transmit sensitive military information to enemies. This included movie scripts, magazines, crossword puzzles and even phone-in radio requests for a specific song!
An online book seller that provided e-mail service for a large number of book stores saved copies of thousand of email messages and analyzed them to collect data on sales trends. Was this legal? Explain.
When the online book seller is looking at users email for the analysis of sales trends, he/she is not looking at just one email but all of them. This kind of ‘spying’ is definitely not legal as it clearly violates the privacy of the online book store users. The only way this kind of data gathering can considered as legal is if the online book seller explicitly asked for the user’s permission before saving the contents of their emails and analyzing them for sales trends.
According to the FBI, why is Carnivore needed? According to its critics, what are the main risks or privacy threats from carnivore?
Carnivore is the FBI’s system for intercepting email. The system can also collect files downloaded by a suspect and conversations in chat rooms. The main case the FBI makes for using such a system is that the technology of old-time telephones is so radically different from that of modern email. By this they mean it was easy to setup a wire tap for only a specific phone and thus intercept only that suspect’s call but with email the is no way to tap the emails of only one person and hence the necessity of Carnivore which basically sifts through all the email (headers) until the specific one is found. They compare this Carnivore’s review of email headers to reading the addresses on envelopes.
Critics argue that the FBI doesn’t need to make a system of their own to collect peoples’ emails. Instead, the ISP can keep a copy of a particular subscriber’s emails and then turn them over the FBI when presented with a court order. They fear that the FBI’s carnivore system doesn’t provide sufficient protection to guard against violations of user’s privacy. Furthermore, potential incompatibilities of the system with the ISP can cause service inconvenient service interrupts at ISPs.
Give similarities and differences between requirements to register our cars and requirements to register our encryption keys
Digital cash can be designed to allow transactions to be made securely and anonymous. Considering the privacy benefits and potential for use by tax evaders and criminals, do you think fully anonymous digital cash should be made illegal? Give your reasons.
In my opinion, fully anonymous digital cash should not be made illegal even though it can at times be used criminals and tax evaders. The main reason for this is because anonymous digital cash protects the privacy of the consumer and this benefit only outweighs any potential abuse by malicious people.
Consider commercial key recovery, described in Section 3.4.2. Give some arguments in favor of requiring by law that all business users of encryption use a key recovery system approved by the government. Give some arguments against such a requirement.
Reasons to support the use of a pub
Critics argue that by giving the government backup copies of all encryption keys used by business, the system is open to possible abuse by the government as it has total control.
