The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 15

Monday, AprJ II, 1994 A-15 It's not science fiction anymore SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER HICK GILLESPIE The Clipper Chip features a 'back door' through which the government can eavesdrop on encrypted communications The Clipper Chip: Big Brother in your computer sion, not just between citizens and government but among private individuals. The Clipper Chip, with its potential for unlimited and undetectable eavesdropping, threatens the free flow of information that is the precondition of all democratic societies. Who can talk freely or conduct business with a third party listening in? Once citizens cannot talk openly among themselves, they cannot speak openly in public, either. As George Orwell pointed out in "1984," the mere possibility of extensive governmental surveillance curtails individual liberty: "They could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live did live, from habit that became instinct in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." We may take some solace in the fact that all surveillance technologies are ultimately inefficient.

In the 1980s, for instance, when the North Korean government installed surveillance gear in public places, the equipment was stolen and turned into receivers capable of picking up broadcasts from outside the country. There is no reason to believe that the Clipper Chip will be totally effective as with most government programs, it will probably only be costly and inefficient But the threat posed by the Clipper Chip should not be minimized. The chip's implementation remains an unjustified and unac- ceptable action on the part of a supposedly limited government whose legitimacy is derived from the consent of the governed. Despite a lack of evidence that the information highway is a hotbed of criminal activity the best Gore can muster is that "encryption can be used to avoid detection" the administration is hoping that people will view the swap of privacy for "law and order" as an even-up trade. The chip, first proposed in April 1993, was developed by the National Security Agency, the inscrutable federal organization charged with monitoring communications around the world.

The underlying technology was developed in secret, and its exact specifications remain classified. As a result, no one outside of the NSA can be sure what the chip is capable of. AND THE NSA's character is plainly less than upstanding (the same could be said for most federal law-enforcement agencies). Congressional investigations in the 1970s brought to light a host of abuses, including the illegal interception of millions of overseas cables sent by American citizens. Such overreaching seems to be a defining characteristic of the agency.

In fact, the development of the Clipper Chip may well violate a 1987 law explicitly limiting the NSA's ability to set standards for the nation's communications networks. Even if the NSA's role is not contrary to the letter of the law, it remains profoundly unsettling to see the Clinton administration embrace a technology as insidious as it is highly classified. One of the great achievements of the United States has been an unparalleled freedom of expres II HALL the chip into their products. Similarly, the administration can't force private citizens and businesses to use the chip, so it'll do the next best thing: require companies doing business with the government to install it The administration sees the Clipper Chip as a complement to its attempt to prevent the sale of encryption software outside the United States. Even as it has eased export controls on some computer hardware, the White House has maintained rules classifying encryption programs as "munitions," which means they cannot be sold abroad without a special license.

Where the attempt to keep encryption programs under lock and key has failed miserably, however, the Clipper Chip promises to succeed miserably at eroding privacy rights, destroying the exchange of information and decimating export sales of computer hardware and software. As Jerry Berman, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The New York Times, "The administration is preparing to implement a system that the public will not trust, that foreign countries will not buy, and that terrorists will overcome." Although the administration maintains that any back-door access offered by the Clipper Chip New York FORGET ABOUT mapping your own route or setting your own speed limit on the Information Superhighway. And you might as well leave the Fuzzbuster at home. In February, the administration officially adopted "Clipper Chip" technology that will make it possible for government agencies to read all coded telephone and computer communications. Technically know as the Key Escrow chip, it allows users to encode telephone calls, safeguard e-mail and scramble data stored on disks things a growing number of computer users are doing to protect sensitive or confidential information.

But it also features a "back door" through which the government can eavesdrop on encrypted communications. The administration can't legally force private manufacturers to make the Clipper Chip, but it is hoping that the federal government's massive buying power will nonetheless make it the de facto industry standard. If computer companies want any share of lucrative government sales, they'll have to incorporate Nick Gillespie wrote this commen- tary for Reason magazine. LOS ANGELES TIMESCATHERINE KANNER National Information Infrastructure, also known as the Information Superhighway. The first half of Gore's statement is patently false.

As far as the government is concerned, the problem isnt that individuals and businesses can't get better encryption programs. To the contrary, the problem is that the widely available existing programs are too good for government snoops. But, as the rest of Gore's statement indicates, the administration's real interest is in playing 21st-century traffic cop on the Information Superhighway. The will require a court order and the use of two digital keys kept by separate, still-to-be-determined federal agencies, past governmental abuses of less-sophisticated surveillance techniques undercut any guarantees of privacy. PERHAPS that's why the official sales pitch for the Clipper Chip is such a huckster-ish combination of soft soap and hardsell.

"Our policy is designed to provide better encryption to individuals and businesses while ensuring that the needs of law enforce ment and national secu rity are met, says Vice President Al Gore, the admin istration's would-be master builder of the Future OCCASIONAL COMMENTARIES ON TECHNOLOGY AND BHD 6 high with technology The techno-gospel of till jifi. costs of "ensuring the needs of law enforce- NA ment and national RWiiritv Are tvni. lech: cally paid by sell- ing off personal liberties. POLICY Hying Washington AT LAST, the blueprint for the New World Order has arrived. Two computer geeks have just divided the world into cells and super-cells and the sky above into a constellation of low-flying stars inclined at a constant angle of 98.2 degrees relative to the sun.

That settles everything. To heck with national boundaries. Who cares if Bosnia is part of Croatia or Yugoslavia? Who cares if the moon is in its second house or Btars fall on Alabama? What will matter in the 21th century is what satellite footprint you live in. Bill Gates, the chairman-president of Microsoft and Craig O. McCaw, the chairman of Mc-Caw Cellular Communications have joined forces to announce plans for a worldwide system of satellites to bring the communications revolution to every mountain, jungle and forest on the globe.

A total of 840 satellites would be placed in simultaneous orbit, all exactly spaced and electronically interlinked to beam telephone and television seamlessly to 95 percent of the world and 100 percent of its population. The Earth would be divided by a grid into 180,000 different "cells" grouped into 20,000 "supercells" to receive transmissions. It is insufficient to call this plan "audacious," as news accounts described the announcement Both heaven and Earth are involved here. Moons will talk and will always be over Miami If anyone but Gates and McCaw had proposed such a scheme as the Teledesic Network, it would be written off as science fiction. But these are two of the most pragmatic entrepreneurs of our time Gates, the man who devised an ar- John Hall is Washington bureau chief for Media General News PUBLIC synergy nounced the sale of his company, Tele-Communications to Bell Atlantic, it was big news the biggest media merger in history, worth $33 billion.

The business press went wild, saluting this quantum leap toward the Information Superhighway and exulting in the synergy between cable and telephone. Within a few years, analysts predicted, these two key industries would be completely consolidated, with benefits for everyone. IN FEBRUARY, the deal fell through. This information detour was not only a setback for synergy, but also a setback for Malone, whose personal wealth could have jumped from $700,000 to $1 billion, and for Saloman Brothers, the investment banker, whose fee for handling the transaction would likely have been $20 million to $40 million. It looks like well have to wait for the quantum leap, but meanwhile there's e-mail.

We can broaden our horizons by exploring underwear cyberspace, which consists of testimonials to Joe Boxer (joeboxerjboxer.com). The company is also planning e-mail underwear dating clubs. "You can specify the type of underwear you like," said a spokesperson, "and then we put people together." Oh, you wanted to know why the synergy deal didnt go through? Money. The Federal Communications Commission reduced cable rates by 7 percent, and the parties decided the profits weren't there any more. Open or not, the information marketplace is a place where information is for sale.

The information superhighway is a toll road. Currently, on-line services can cost $5 to $10 an hour. If you cant pay the toll, you'd best stick to the data footpath: The local bus to the public library. As long as there is a local bus and a public library. ILGERT NEWSDAYSERNIE COOTNER Gore rhapsodizes about an open market for information.

To get government out of the way, he's asked Congress to dismantle "regulations and judicial models that are simply not appropriate." Unfettered, market forces will create an environment in which 'Everybody in Washington is in favor of it; but no one knows what it is competition and innovation can thrive, just as they did in the Railroad Age. Gore'i techno-gospel looks to the drive and public spirit of American business leaders to men like Malone, Mr. 500 Channels, whom then-Sen. Gore once described as the "ringleader" of the "cable Cosa Nostra" responsible for predatory pricing practices. Last October, hen Malone fense Initiative.

Brilliant Pebbles called for a global constellation of 1,000 interconnected satellite interceptors to guard against a Soviet launch. Teledesic plans to use space "buses" to carry several satellites into orbit on one launch. And the satellites and their subsystems, according to Teledesic, can be mass produced at substantial savings. In addition, the low orbits 435 miles high as compared to 23,000 miles for existing communications satellites would be cheaper to launch and operate. Where do governments fit into this new world order? HERE, THE Defense Department has its own satellite communications needs.

Vice President Al Gore and others want both military and commercial needs to be taken care of in the same "Infonct and you can be sure it will cost a lot more than $9 billion if the Pentagon gets involved. And Gates and McCaw are not the only entrepreneurs who want a hand at building this system. Motorola has already sunk $3.4 billion and three years into building its own network, called Iridium, to connect mobile phones. Overseas, the problems multiply. Governments that are used to controlling communications absolutely within their borders are not going to turn over the privilege lightly to American entrepreneurs.

All those reservations aside, Gates and McCaw have submitted the first coherent plan to bring the communications revolution to the world. They have demonstrated, if nothing else, hat would be possible if the world were regulated by technology, rather than politics. They are our true geostrategists and may be the only ones in this country who have a real global T'S EVERYWHERE. It's in the news; it's in the future; it's in Al Gore's brain. It's a mind-boggling technological break- yL through that will reshape the way we order pizza.

It's the Information Superhighway. "Everybody in Washington is in favor of it, according to researcher Robert Lucky, "But no one knows what it is." John C. Malone, the King of Cable and one of the 400 richest men in the country, has a vision of a black box on top of the TV that "will allow us to control all the com munication needs of a household with one device." Which That's even more scary than his other dream, the dream of 500 channels: home shopping, reruns, reality TV and home shopping. Vice President Gore is very excited about the data highway. In January, he held a town meeting in cyberspace.

Line by line, interested parties pecked out questions like this: What are your views on These Virtual Are you currently involved in iany (sic) networks? And thrilled to answers like this: We have a kind of 'virtual community here In the White House that gets a lot of work done The previous White House also stepped boldly into the Digital Age. In a 1991 press release, President George Bush described his computer epiphany to the nation: "Today, I learned to turn one on. I pushed a button down there, and little one up there with green on it, and out came a command for someone I had written." Bernard Gdbert is a San Francisco writer and performer. He's mired in thepremodemera, OB. JOHNSON chitecture that is starting to make sense of computers for ordinary people, and McCaw, who has everyone who is anyone walking down the sidewalk with portable telephones.

What is surprising is the cost for this system only $9 billion. Gates and McCaw figure they can buy most of the equipment needed for this venture right off the electronic shelf. THERE IS a reason this cost estimate may be realistic and that is the enormous investment in research and development by the VS. Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Teledesic the company Gates and McCaw have formed, acknowledges that the venture draws heavily on work in NASA's commercial satellite communications program.

It also "builds on proven technology and experience from U.S. defense programs," including the "Brilliant Pebbles" concept from the Reagan administration's "Star Wars" Strategic De-.