Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption

Telecommunication has never been perfectly secure, as a Cold War culture of wiretaps and international spying taught us. Yet many of us still take our privacy for granted, even as we become more reliant than ever on telephones, computer networks, and electronic transactions of all kinds. So many of our relationships now use telecommunication as the primary mode of communication that the security of these transactions has become a source of wide public concern and debate. Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau argue that if we are to retain the privacy that characterized face-to-face relationships in the past, we must build the means of protecting that privacy into our communication systems.

This has not proved simple, however. The development of such protection has been delayed--and may be prevented--by powerful elements of society that intercept communications in the name of protecting public safety. Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies see the availability of strong cryptography as a threat to their functions.

The U.S. government has used export control to limit the availability of cryptography within the United States, and bills introduced in Congress in 1997 would place legal restrictions on essential elements of any secure communications system. These policies attempt to limit encryption to forms that provide a "back door" for government wiretapping.

Diffie and Landau strip away the hype surrounding the policy debate to examine the national security, law enforcement, commercial, and civil liberties issues. They discuss the social function of privacy, how it underlies a democratic society, and what happens when it is lost. They also explore the workings of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, how they intercept communications, and how they use what they intercept.

More information is available at our book-of-the-month site.

Amazon.com Review
There was a time when cryptography--the making and breaking of secret codes--was of interest only to spies, diplomats, and the occasional eccentric. Those days are over, and the reason, as Diffie and Landau explain, is that secret codes have become the key to preserving traditional notions of privacy at a time when technology is rapidly altering the nature of human communication.

When the vast majority of conversations happened face to face, keeping them private was a simple matter of stepping away from the listening crowd. But the growing number of conversations that take place over easy-to-intercept phone lines and e-mail channels requires more sophisticated safeguards. Above all, it requires online encryption tools of the highest grade, and this book does a good job of explaining how these tools work, both in principle and in practice. It does a better job, though, of explaining why the tools matter. The intense political battles that have surrounded digital cryptography in recent years are a testament to the profound political implications of privacy in the online era, and Diffie and Landau have delivered an admirably thorough overview of both the struggles and the stakes. If at times their thoroughness bogs them down in dry recitations of detail, their book at least generates more light than heat, and that can hardly be said of most contributions to the cryptography debate so far. --Julian Dibbell

Customer Reviews:

Review #1: Freedom is Privacy-based
2002-01-06
For those out of the crypto loop, the lead author, Whitfield Diffie was co-developer of public key encryption technology at Stanford several decades ago and stands as one of the most knowledgeable figures in the field of cryptography. Though the public policy aspects of cryptography are an important part of what this book is about, it is really a book with much broader implications, especially with the passage of the Patriot Act which strips U.S. citizens of any meaningful court oversight in the search and surveillance arenas. Now that the justice department has unleashed the Magic Lantern trojan horse on the public, the warnings found in this book pale by comparison since it was written before 9/11 events. The author delineates the many rationale for why respect for privacy is a good idea and how arguments to the contrary are basically flawed. Those in law enforcement and national security roles cyclically lobby for totalitarian capabilities, get them, become insatiable with MKULTRA type scenarios, get discovered, get their hands slapped and start over again when the headlines subside. Meanwhile taxpayers take a beating in lost jobs, ruined reputations, unwarranted jail time, suicides and the like. Since it is obvious that lawmakers have been delinquent in learning these lessons, what will happen when someone detonates a nuclear device in a large city and the justice department introduces legislation for mandatory implants? How will you be able to turn back after that? Tick, tick, tick...
Read Diffie, think hard about lessons unlearned and what you can do about it. Ask your lawmakers to MAKE NEW MISTAKES.

Review #2: Superb book
2000-10-30
During the civil war in Beirut some years ago, Life magazine ran a photo essay of people lounging around a hotel pool, ostensibly oblivious to the hostilities around them. In a similar sense, many people are unaware of a skirmish currently being fought on the digital battlefield: the war for protection of personal privacy.

The authors of this book assert that privacy is one of the underpinnings of a democratic society, and that if the democratic society in the United States is to survive, Americans must maintain privacy in communications. In addition, the means of protecting that privacy must be built into all current and future communication systems.

In recent years, the convergence of the Internet, telecommunications, and other technologies has elevated personal privacy to new levels of importance. It is now possible to effortlessly track a person's every movement, from the path of the morning commute to the choice of sandwich at lunch. Every keystroke and e-mail transmission can likewise be monitored.

Authors Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau assert that in the "old days," when communications largely occurred face to face, privacy was simply a matter of stepping aside from those who butted in. With voice communications traveling over cellular networks, through the Internet, and via other pathways prone to compromise, the best method of securing such communications is with strong encryption.

The authors argue their case effectively and engagingly, and are uniquely qualified to do so, especially in the case of Diffie. He is one of the seminal computer scientists of the last 30 years, and hardly a household doesn't benefit from security technology he helped develop. While he has written scholarly tomes and dissertations on encryption, Diffie does an excellent job here of explaining in plain English how such technologies operate and why they are crucial to a free society.

The book details numerous privacy issues, from personal privacy to national security. It starts with a brief overview of cryptography, just enough to educate the reader without boring the nonmathematician. The rest of the book explores issues related to today's communications systems, such as wiretapping. A welcome surprise is that the book often reads like a Tom Clancy novel, interwoven as it is with episodes of domestic and international intrigue.

Privacy on the Line is a timely and important book, relevant to every citizen, wired or not. Security professionals will find this work well worth their time.

This review of mine originally appeared at http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/000740.html

Review #3: A nice book finnaly answering most of my questiouns.
1998-09-20
A good book answering my questions about encription and if it's safe to send your credit card over the internet, but now all of them.

Review #4: Excellent reading; critical towards US govt perspectives
1998-08-30
This is an excellent viewpoint into personal privacy isssues in contemporary society. I recommend it to people interested in understanding the current issues associated with govt legislation of cryptography and personal privacy. The book is written from a viewpoint critical of the US govt position and it serves as an excellent balance to law enforcement writings on government requirements for key escrow systems.

Review #5: The most important book written on the future of our privacy
1998-01-13
This is the most clearly written book on the sources of the problems facing our right to privacy that I have seen yet. Well documented, well written and shows just what the Federal Government is doing to eliminate our ability to have private communication. I suggest that this book should be considered urgent reading. It could be the one that wakes everybody up.