Imagine … Clipper is rolled out. The mass market buys it because it’s better than nothing. Sophisticates use something else. The law enforcement guys run some sort of Net monitoring program to see who is using what type of encryption, and compare it to their database of key registrations. Then they just watch the folks who are encrypting with programs other than Clipper.
Predictor: Grossman, Wendy
Prediction, in context:In her 1994 New Scientist article “Code, Decode in Secret” freelance writer Wendy Grossman says: ”Ultimately, all the commercial interests, coupled with the flourishing of non-U.S. encryption products and dramatic advances in technology, should leave Clipper languishing in its own taxpayer-funded backwater. Mass use of encryption, such as scrambling telephone calls and data files, will bring chaos, though. There are still substantial numbers of people in the U.S. and elsewhere who can’t read a bus timetable and who, as the Wall Street Journal reported this spring, are novice computer users who mistake a mouse for a foot pedal. When Aunt Minnie goes into a coma, leaving all her private documents (including her digital cash) encrypted and she’s the only one who knows the password (probably the name of her illicit lover, if her relatives only knew), people will have to admit that key escrow might have been a handy idea. But perhaps it’s all a coded red herring. People keep saying that Clipper is such an obviously stupid idea there must be something else going on. My favorite network anti-Clipper slogan may be the key: ‘If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption.’ Imagine … Clipper is rolled out. The mass market buys it because it’s better than nothing. Sophisticates use something else. The law enforcement guys run some sort of Net monitoring program to see who is using what type of encryption, and compare it to their database of key registrations. Then they just watch the folks who are encrypting with programs other than Clipper.”
Date of prediction: August 20, 1994
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Security/Encryption
Name of publication: New Scientist
Title, headline, chapter name: Code, Decode in Secret
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 4343
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney