Reply to post: Re: Open source?

France mulls tighter noose around crypto

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Re: Open source?

Yep, these proposals read like the security kids' Xmas wishlist: everything we've ever thought of, not necessarily sorted in order of helpfulness. Take GPS trackers on rental cars: if the terrorists use a rental vs their many other options AND if we know who they are in advance AND if we detect their use of a rental in time AND despite that we have no other way of tracking them (license plate recognition, plant a bug, tail vehicle) AND if the terrorists don't know already about this technology so don't take steps to frustrate it AND if the vehicle is somewhere with adequate GPS rather than urban canyon, multi-story carpark, etc THEN this will totally save the day. Trouble is that if you let me nest the if statements deeply enough then I can come up with a what-if scenario to justify almost any requirement. Ompah-band music in all elevators? Well if the terrorist mastermind has tinnitus from earlier IED accidents AND if thanks to technology sanctions against Iran his hearing aid has a crap low-pass filter AND if to avoid surveillance he hands over bombs in mall elevators AND if ...

What they really should do is mandate RFC3514 - once terrorists consistently set the evil bit the job will become a lot easier.

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