Stewart, if everyone in the world adopted PGP to send their e-mail to each other, would that totally thwart the governments attempts to gain access to encrypted conversations?
Stewart Baker: It would certainly make the lives of investigators much more difficult. People who use encryption, even very good encryption, often make mistakes. Law enforcement could exploit those mistakes. Diva: We’re talking about these encryption programs as if they’re easy to use. But I imagine a very small percentage of the public who uses modems actually uses encryption. Is that because people are uninformed about the importance of the issue? Or is it because encryption in its current incarnation is too hard to use? Stewart Baker: It’s not lack of information so much as a conviction that most of what we transmit doesn’t require encryption. One of the dumbest things that industry has done in the debate is to insist that encryption is necessary for credit card numbers on the Internet. Diva: It’s not? Stewart Baker: I have yet to hear of a single instance in which credit cards were stolen through eavesdropping on the Net and used to buy products. Meanwhile, we’ve scared off the con
Related Questions
- Stewart, if everyone in the world adopted PGP to send their e-mail to each other, would that totally thwart the governments attempts to gain access to encrypted conversations?
- Why has the Scottish Government adopted a different approach to the rest of the UK?
- What is the best format to save and then send e-mail attachments?
