A wise scientist once said, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” A similar corollary can be made about how the United States government feels about being denied access to peoples’ secrets: Washington abhors being kept in the dark.

Since the dawn of the electronics age, governments and militaries have struggled to keep their communication secret. For the past 30 years, countries have used “comsec” (communications security) devices to ensure no one eavesdrops on their sensitive telephone conversations, radio transmissions and other forms of electronic communication.

Governments have long used cipher pads and hand-held mechanical devices to encrypt and de-encrypt messages. During the 1930s a German firm even sold a commercial device called the Enigma that was used by businesses wanting their correspondence to remain private. (During World War II, the Nazis used a more sophisticated version of Enigma to encode military communications.)

Today, most comsec devices are computers, which electronically “encrypt” messages.

To accomplish this, a sender’s comsec computer simplifies each piece of the electronic information comprising a message into the mathematical equivalent of a series of zeroes or ones. This is called digitalization. Next, the computer multiplies each of these digitized bits of electronic information by a “prime” number (a number divisible only by itself and one). Finally, the “ciphered” electronic information is delivered.

At the receiving end of the flow of ciphered electronic information, the recipient’s comsec computer uses a matching prime number (the “key”) to “de-encrypt” the secret communication.

Any electronic communication can be encrypted: Telephone calls, FAXs, computer E-mail, data sent to and from missiles in flight, or radio, television and satellite signals.

Encryption complicates the processes associated with communicating electronically, but when the transmitted information is important, governments will go to enormous lengths to ensure enemies do not intercept it.

Conversely, governments also go to exceptional lengths to “de-encrypt” other peoples’ secret communications.

Covert de-encryption traditionally requires sophisticated “supercomputers”. Often, the “key” used to encode a secret communication will stretch out hundreds of decimal places.

Supercomputers were once only available to well-funded spy agencies. Now, for less than $1,000, anyone can own a desktop computer capable of performing sophisticated computations that were once only performed by multi-million dollar data processing systems.

Encryption has also gained popularity as a means of ensuring information sent by the public out over the Internet remains secure.

Once a technology that only interested mathematicians and spies, cryptography has now become a big business as more and more of the world’s information is exchanged on electronic networks and as more and more people want to protect their data from unwelcome scrutiny.

The public availability of encryption technology is making many people unhappy in the United States government.

They worry that commercial encryption software will prevent law enforcement officials from legally eavesdropping on the electronic communications of international terrorists, drug traffickers and money-launderers.

But the government’s desire to have the ability to peek at all encrypted information clashes with many civil libertarians who fear for the public’s right to privacy. In its desire to control the spread of commercial encryption technology, the US government has placed controls on its export. This move elicited an outcry from an unlikely quarter: US software companies. The restrictions, the companies argue, will slow the development of the Internet, and will cause harm to a potentially lucrative overseas market for US software, technology and know-how.

American companies also worry that if they are held back from the international encryption market, foreign competitors will move in with their own encryption products and capture the market.

In late 1996, industry and American law enforcement officials thought they had resolved their differences when it was agreed that US software manufacturers could export sophisticated technologies for encrypting electronic information, provided “keys” for unlocking secret communication were available to authorized law enforcement officials. However, it was understood that the US government would have to obtain a court order to obtain the key to a person’s encrypted computer transmissions.

However, the feud between the American government and industry flared up anew a few months later when Washington revealed that it intended to permanently possess the de-encryption keys. Industry leaders said that this position taken by the government would put the manufacturers at a disadvantage.

“There is not going to be an export market for (encryption) products that require that the spare key be left in the United States,” David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, an electronic privacy advocacy group, told Strategic Policy.

“As long as foreign companies can sell products unencumbered by the spare-key requirement, ours won’t be competitive,” Sobel said in a 1997 interview. On January 14, 2000 the US government published new encryption export regulations that represent a fundamental change in US policy.

The new regulations made it much easier for companies and individuals in the United States to widely export strong encryption in common products regardless of their strength or the type of technology they use.

A major feature of the new regulations include assurances that “retail” encryption products can be widely exportable to all but certain “terrorist nations” though still subject to a government review and reporting requirements.

However, the new rules do not decontrol encryption, and many concerns remain about free expression and privacy. The US government’s new encryption export rules also set the stage for a new debate about appropriate legal protections for decryption keys and other personal data online.

Of larger concern to industry is the worry that striking a bargain with the government regarding the possession of encryption keys will cast a cloud of doubt over the security of business transactions conducted over the Internet.

The commercial exploitation of the Internet — marketing goods and services — is a promise yet to be realized. However, many experts predict the Information Superhighway may soon become a multi-trillion dollar electronic goldmine. However, this dream will only be realized if the public is confident that credit card data and other personal information won’t be scrutinized by prying eyes in the United States government.

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