Geeks Gather to Back Crypto
CATONSVILLE, Maryland -- Rob Carlson is worried about something that most Americans would
consider entirely obscure: the future of encryption technology.
Carlson, a 21-year-old programmer who typically sports a floppy, pin-studded safari hat, fears
that the U.S. Congress, in the wake of last week's bloody attacks, may vote for anti-terrorism
legislation that also threatens privacy. "There's nothing as permanent as a temporary restriction," he
says.
In an
announcement distributed online Friday, Carlson suggested that like-minded
geeks gather at the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus on Saturday and
Sunday "in order to get the word out about the importance of civil liberties"
and prepare for the worst on Capitol Hill.
Long before the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
the FBI and intelligence agencies warned that Osama bin Laden was using
impenetrable encryption to cloak his communications from American eyes. If bin
Laden, who has vowed to slaughter American civilians and is the prime suspect in
last week's hijackings, had used encryption, not even the National Security
Agency's beefiest supercomputers likely could penetrate the codes.
The mere possibility that the world's most-wanted terrorist may have used
encryption tools like Hushmail or Pretty Good Privacy has begun to spur debate
about how to ensure the U.S. government can listen in on them. Last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called
for backdoors in encryption
products, and a co-founder of the CertCo encryption company wrote an essay on Saturday outlining
how such a system could work.
That kind of news, coupled with a front-page Baltimore Sun article
on Sunday linking bin Laden to crypto cast a palpable pall over the pair of
meetings at the University of Maryland.
About 15 local geektavists did gather at the Albin O. Kuhn library on
Saturday afternoon to try to figure out how to persuade
legislators and the public that the liberties that Americans have long enjoyed
should remain protected during wartime. The participants' dilemma: how to argue for
fewer restrictions on freedoms without appearing unmoved by or insensitive to
last week's calamity.
By the end of the meetings, the group, mostly system administrators and
open-source programmers, settled on a time-proven device of political protest: a
letter-writing campaign to Congress.
