Don’t Worry be Happy: Why Clipper is Good for You

What worries law enforcement agencies – what should worry them – is a world where encryption is standardized and ubiquitous: a world where anyone who buys an $80 phone gets an “encrypt” button that interoperates with everyone else’s; a world where every fax machine and every modem automatically encodes its transmissions without asking whether that is necessary. In such a world, every criminal will gain a guaranteed refuge from the police without lifting a finger.

Don’t Worry be Happy: Why Clipper is Good for You

The real key to network security is making sure that only the right people get access to particular data. That’s why a digital signature is so much more important to future network security than encryption. If everyone on a net has a unique identifier that others cannot forge, there’s no need to send credit card numbers – and so nothing to intercept. And if everyone has a digital signature, stealing passwords off the Net is pointless.

Vendors Rally to Secure Internet;Encryption-Based Systems Readied

The only real long-term answer is cryptographic authentication, which customers need in products, because address-based authentication will not prevent attacks.

Vendors Rally to Secure Internet;Encryption-Based Systems Readied

The only real long-term answer is cryptographic authentication, which customers need in products, because address-based authentication will not prevent attacks.

Vendors Rally to Secure Internet;Encryption-Based Systems Readied

The only real long-term answer is cryptographic authentication, which customers need in products, because address-based authentication will not prevent attacks.

Claiming Cyberspace

With just a little knowledge and persistence in cyberspace, we can have the world at our fingertips – or even in the palms of our hands.

Privacy and Information

Some propose that we be compensated for the use of personal information. One proposal is to set up a royalty pool for the use of certain information, such as a change of address. Marketers would not have to get your permission to obtain your change of address, but they would have to pay into a pool each time they accessed the information. Individuals would then be compensated based on how often their information was used. The idea of a royalty pool, however, does not address privacy concerns. Another view is that not only should be be compensated for use of our personal information, but such information should be considered our property. We own and control it. Marketers who want to know our names and addresses or buying habits would have to bargain or contract with us for that information.

Privacy and Information

As consumers become more aware of how their personal profiles are bartered, they will become more insistent on certain protections. If you do not like what American Express did with your credit information, switch to VISA. In this way, the argument goes, market forces will pressure companies to respect consumers’ privacy.

Privacy and Information

From a privacy point of view, we are in the midst of the most unsettling period in this revolution … The privacy problems posed are so different than those that have come before, there is no framework to deal with them. Technology is fast. The law, whether formed in tiny increments by individual cases or by the cumbersome legislative process, is slow. As a result, there is simply no comprehensive body of law established to deal with all of the privacy concerns arising in the digital age.