It’s entirely possible that the spectre of the executive branch being able to listen to encrypted conversations and read encrypted mail of anyone in the Congress may well prove unsettling to some representatives or senators.
Predictor: Crocker, Steve
Prediction, in context:The following is an excerpt taken from a 1995 e-mail exchange in which Steve Crocker replies to David Farber about Internet surveillance: ”It’s entirely possible that the spectre of the executive branch being able to listen to encrypted conversations and read encrypted mail of anyone in the Congress may well prove unsettling to some representatives or senators. Of course, the Administration will certainly assert that they are bound by strong legal and administrative controls and will not violate the Constitutional limits. Congress lives with this exposure now, since the law-enforcement or intelligence folks can intercept the communications now if they choose to. Thus it’s hard to predict whether the prospect of having escrow technology turned against them is enough to move Congress to resist the Administration’s pressure in this direction. So far, Congress has been pretty thoroughly captured by the undocumented by apparently persuasive arguments behind the scenes from the intelligence and law enforcement folks.”
Biography:Steve Crocker was probably best known in the 1990s as the founder of CyberCash Inc. a leading Internet payments company. Earlier, he was program manager on the team developing the protocols for ARPANET in 1966. In1968, he organized the Network Working Group to develop host-level protocols for ARPANET communication. He began the Request for Comment (RFC) series of notes through which Internet protocol designs are documented and shared, and he wrote RFC 1 and many others. In1970, he worked with Vinton Cerf and C.S. Carr to publish the first ARPANET host-host protocol. He later became known as an Internet and computer business and security specialist. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: September 16, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Security/Encryption
Name of publication: Interesting People Message
Title, headline, chapter name: Just a Thought on a Cloudy Day for the Coming Year
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/199509/msg00044.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Culp, William Jarrell