Strong cryptography and no regrets.

[ciphergoth]

No Regrets About Developing PGP
Philip Zimmermann, 24 Sept 2001

The Friday September 21st Washington Post carried an article by Ariana Cha that I feel misrepresents my views on the role of PGP encryption software in the September 11th terrorist attacks. She interviewed me on Monday September 17th, and we talked about how I felt about the possibility that the terrorists might have used PGP in planning their attack. The article states that as the inventor of PGP, I was "overwhelmed with feelings of guilt". I never implied that in the interview, and specifically went out of my way to emphasize to her that that was not the case, and made her repeat back to me this point so that she would not get it wrong in the article. This misrepresentation is serious, because it implies that under the duress of terrorism I have changed my principles on the importance of cryptography for protecting privacy and civil liberties in the information age.

http://www.philzimmermann.com/news-Response_WashPost.shtml

Jack Straw is trying the same misrepresentation:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-September/017600.html
(Update: see also http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1568000/1568254.stm)

But there are atheists in foxholes, and there are those who support liberty even under the duress of terrorism.

Comments

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Yesterday's Grauniad also mentioned (albeit briefly, as part of a larger article on terrorism and the internet, iirc) that the 'Post had seriously misrepresented Zimmermann's views. I'll see if I can find the URL...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read it. This is basically what they were quoting. Actually practically all of that article was based on posts to the cryptography, ukcrypto, and interesting-people mailing lists, all of which I'm subscribed to. It should have been peppered with URLs to archived mailing list articles.