The prediction, in brief:

Standardized spheres of encryption, organized geopolitically, within which government-approved encrypted communication is possible but between which the links are unclear.

Predictor: Baker, Stewart

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 online newsletter, the Harvard Law School Seminar on Law, Information and Technology, the editors write the following about encryption, including a prediction from Stewart Baker, former counsel for the National Security Agency:”A footnote to the encryption debate: if a key-escrow initiative like the Clipper Chip gets off the ground, what are the international implications? Will other countries adopt standards that include a U.S. government bypass to their data, without even the warrant and process protections of the Fourth Amendment if non-U.S. citizens are using the equipment? Under what circumstances would the U.S. divulge its citizens’ keys to other countries? Perhaps reciprocal key-sharing arrangements would develop between the United States and other countries promoting similar key escrow encryption schemes. Without such schemes, correspondents between countries could, say, double-encrypt their communications with both U.S. and French Clipper codes – requiring both the U.S. and French government keys to intercept them. Unless the U.S. were prepared to try to ban all American communications with a French government-approved encryption system, a way to obtain an international encrypted conversation’s corresponding French key would be necessary if U.S. authorities were to be capable of listening in. The international question is messy, and no one appears to have much of an answer for it in theory much less in practice. Stewart Baker predicts, ‘standardized spheres of encryption, organized geopolitically, within which government-approved encrypted communication is possible but between which the links are unclear.'”

Biography:

Stewart Baker was described by The Washington Post (Nov. 20, 1995) as “one of the most techno-literate lawyers around.” Baker’s Washington, D.C., practice covered issues relating to digital commerce, electronic surveillance, encryption, privacy, national security and export controls. (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Communication

Subtopic: Security/Encryption

Name of publication: Harvard Law School: Seminar on Law, Information, and Technology

Title, headline, chapter name: Dispatch Five: Privacy and Protection

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/6805/articles/crypto/harvard-seminar-spring95.txt

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Beckett, Angela