After learning that the Italian Mafia downloads PGP off the Net and the Cali cartel encrypts its phone calls, one might assume that a champion of strict controls on encryption would feel she has more of a case. But Dorothy Denning has gone the other way. In an exhaustive report issued by the National Strategy Information Center, a Washington think tank, the Georgetown University computer scientist and coauthor William Baugh, a former assistant director of the FBI, conclude that organized criminals will ignore key escrow mandates regardless of US policy.
What's more, Denning and Baugh found that in the majority of criminal cases, law enforcement could crack encrypted files or compile enough other evidence to convict. When asked about a proposed US policy that would allow law enforcement access to all encrypted data, Denning is in a quandary. "It's a hard, hard, hard question," Denning says. "To me, a lot of it boils down to whether trying to regulate it is a good idea, and I'm not convinced either way."
ELECTRIC WORD
Denning Changes Her Mind
Microsoft Morphs into a Service Company
