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Katrina Walczyk CS408-02 Living in a Networked World Ellen Hepp 05/01/2012 At the beginning of the 19th century, the average letter sent internationally took weeks to reach its destination. When the telegraph was invented, these messages could be sent in a matter of days or even hours. Now, with computers and cell phones, international communication is virtually instant. Companies can now do business across the globe in real time. People can make purchases or sell goods online without ever leaving their homes. All of these advances in technology may seem positive, however, there are many problems with communication today. Virtually all forms of communication are prone to interception. This has been a problem since the days of letter writing. However, it has become easier to obtain sensitive information that we assume will stay private through these means of communication. As communication evolves, so do the methods with which to corrupt these means. Since the development of technology is responsive in nature, there is a constant need for the development of methods to protect the privacy of our daily lives. One such way to protect this privacy is through the use of ciphers or encryption. There are countless numbers of ways one can encrypt a message using even a simple cipher. These ciphers or encryptions work similarly to a key in a lock. There are far fewer types of locks that cuts of keys...Locks are easily recognizable even if they do not display their brand names, and there is no reason to be concerned that people know what type of lock you use on your front door. The cut of the key, on the other hand, is a secret, (Diffie 13). This concept of there only being a few locks but millions of keys is very similar to that of cryptography. There are a few types of ciphers or codes, but there are countless possibilities of what the key to decoding these could be. Some of the sim-

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pler systems are called one-time systems. They get their name because of their one time use. Should they be used again, they would not be secure. Problems with these one-time systems are that they have a standard key which has to be transmitted to the recipient. This particular step is where the danger comes in. If the key is discovered, it is too easy for someone to decrypt a message. Other, earlier systems simply substituted letters for other letters. These are called monoliteral substitutions. The problem with these is that they can be easily broken simply by the pattern of how the same letters appear. For example, in Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, they use the word bookkeeper. Regardless of the number of times it is encrypted, it is easily decoded due to its letter pattern. Being the only word in the English language with three sets of double letters, it is easily deciphered. Other examples given are the words: pepper, papa, and noon. These repetition patterns allow a skilled cryptanalyst to read words of this sort directly from the ciphertext, (Diffie 20). Because of these problems with the lack of difficulty in decryption, these simple monoliteral substitutions quickly became obsolete when sending sensitive information. After these systems, a new type of cipher was developed. The Vigenre system, allowed for encryption using a key word or key phrase rather than simply an alphabet. The key word/phrase then represented a series of alphabets which encrypted the message multiple times. These complex ciphers could not have been done without the development of decryption technology, as a single mistake on the part of the person enciphering the message could mean the message is ruined. Over time, cryptologists realized that encrypting a message multiple times made the message more secure. Thus, new systems were developed. However, the problem with these new, more secure, systems was that it was not possible to do by hand. At the time when they were developed, this was the only method available for decrypting messages. Because of this setback, the popularity

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of these types of encryptions did not occur until the 1900s when significant improvement in decryption software was made. The development of the rotor machine helped to transform the cryptographic world. The central component of a rotor machine is the rotor, a disk about the size of a hockey puck that serves to implement a cipher alphabet. On each face of the disk there are a number of contacts corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, (Diffie 23). The simplest of these machines can decode a message that has been encrypted not just once, but three times. In 2001, the Data Encryption Standard which had been used for years was replaced by an Advanced Encryption Standard, which practically doubled the protection of an encrypted message. However, a weakness of cryptography and these cryptographic systems is the time and cost of decoding them. The development of public key cryptography made these codes more accessible to the public. They work very much on the basis that anyone could encode a message using the public key, but only those with the specific secret key could decode the message. The promising thing about these keys was given access to one of these keys, it [was] computationally infeasible to discover the other one, (Diffie 39). This meant that people could more easily transmit messages in secret. As there are a countless amount of combinations as to what a key could be, it would be almost impossible to figure out the other even if you had one in your possession. Another way that these systems have become more accessible is through the internet which uses packet communication. The problem that became apparent with this system however, is that if a packet was lost to equipment failure or other factors, it was lost for good. Government agencies found ways to encode their communications by way of net keying. Every element in the network uses the same key, which is changed a regular intervals (often daily), (Diffie 43).

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All forms of encoding messages or private communication have the possibility to be compromised. A major way in which this happens is through wiretapping. Wiretapping gets its roots from eaves-dropping and letter opening. This is a method used by the police force throughout history to obtain sensitive information or even confessions from criminals or criminal groups. Wiretaps are used to prevent things from domestic terrorism to drug deals. However, at times, this technology is used in a way that renders all evidence obtained by the police invalid. Numerous court cases have been thrown out due to the illegality of the police forces methods. Often, the lack of a warrant is the cause for this discrepancy. When one speaks into a telephone or cell phone, their words travel through either radio or wires. These methods of travel are easily intercepted by an unwanted third party. Tapping intermediate junction boxes, whether in phone closets, on poles, or elsewhere, presents both the danger that the installation will be observed and the danger that the tap will later be found by maintenance personnel (Diffie 132). These risks are a major factor in the process of wiretapping. In Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, privacy is defined as, the right to autonomy, and it includes the right to let alone. Privacy encompasses the right to control information about ourselves, including the right to limit access to that information (Diffie 142). However, while many believe that privacy is a basic right laid out by the Constitution, that is not the case, not explicitly. The First Amendment protects the individuals freedoms of expression, religion, and association. The Third Amendment protects the private citizen against harboring an army in his home, the Fourth against unreasonable search or seizure. The Fifth Amendment ensures that an individual cannot be compelled to provide testimony against himself. The Ninth Amendment reserves to the people those rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution. And the Fourteenth Amendments guarantee that no person can be deprived of life, liberty or propery

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without due process of law (Diffie 144). While the right to privacy is not explicitly noted in the Constitution, the implication of such rights is clearly noted. As problems with privacy, such as wiretapping, arose, the courts were forced to make decisions on what was considered legal in these situations. During the Prohibition Era, a major player in the distribution of illegal liquor importing and distributing was caught using wiretaps for which there were no warrants. Because the evidence had been obtained from warrantless wiretaps installed by the government, the defendants claimed that the wiretapped evidence had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Use of the evidence also violated the Fifth Amendment, the defendants argued, because they had unwillingly become witnesses against themselves, (Diffie 149). Another case overturned by the improper use of wiretaps was Charles Katz v. United States. The FBI had installed an electronic bug in a public phone booth and had used the information gathered as evidence to arrest him. The court ruled that while he was in a public place, what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected, (Diffie 151). With the development of computers and online databases, there is much more information out there about people than there used to be. Therefore, people must take extra precaution to guard what information is out there about them. This now could possibly include your phone conversations and emails. With all of these methods of encryption and decryption it is hard to imagine how our information stays private out in the world. Amazingly enough, however, it is possible with modern technology. The development of decryption technology and tools has improved the ability of the government and military to intercept possibly dangerous messages. The improvement of encryption

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standards has made it possible for people to send messages containing personal information without having to worry about their information being stolen or read by unwanted eyes. Even wiretapping has had its benefits, particularly with law enforcement. However, with all of this new technology, who is to say what is acceptable in terms of what information should be allowed to be decrypted without explicit permission of the sender? When is it okay to tap peoples phones, if at all? These questions have always been, and will always be, a large part of this growing technologybased era.

Referenced in this paper: Diffie, Whitfield and Susan Landau. Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption. MIT Press, 2010.