Entrevista a Philip Zimmermann

(1ª Parte)

net.News: Before coming to the topic of today, let's say you suffered after all that - after you invented that.
Philip Zimmermann: There was some inconvenience, yes. I found that by creating PGP and becoming an advocate for the use of cryptography for protecting privacy and civil liberties that it's in becoming under criminal investigation for it has stirred-up a political controversy that has made me more affective politically by propelling me along in my career.

net.News: At the day of today, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the evolution?
Philip Zimmermann: Hum, well I'm optimistic at least domestically for the U.S.because the American public is so completely against the government policy of preventing us from using cryptography - the American public values privacy a great deal. As far as the French public is concerned - I don't know, I don't have enough experience in talking with the French people, enough to know how distrustful they might be of their government. We're pretty distrustful of our government in the United States. In fact, our constitution is written in such a way that it encourages a certain amount of healthy scepticism about the power relation between a government and it's people. Cryptography, more than anything else, about the cryptography debate, the debate is about the importance of cryptography on this power relationship between a government and it's people. That's what the debate is really about, because the people on one side say that cryptography is good for civil liberties and privacy in the information age, and the other side, the government says it interferes with the functions of law enforcement, and in a nice democracy like many of the European countries, maybe that debate is ambiguous as to which side is right. But there are many countries where the government is bad and in those countries the people have no problem undertanding the importance of cryptography for protecting civil liberties. I toured eastern Europe a couple of years ago on a spaeking tour, and most of the people that I talked to there, you didn't have to explain it to them, they already understood it, and they don't understand that we don't.

net.News: I see, this morning the people were speaking for example of China, these people, millions and millions of people, and of course it will be very important the way we are doing it in the USA and Europe. So do you think these countries can catch this example in a nice way?
Philip Zimmermann: Well, if we develop policies, government policies on cryptography in Europe and the US that discourage citizen control of cryptography, that encourage technology infrastructures, that allow the government to control our access to cryptography, it will give an excuse to police states such as China, and Burma, and other countries that - I get e-mail from other countries too, that talk about this, it will encourage those governments to say that we have a right to surveil our citizens because you do it too. So, if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for us. I think that we should try and set a better example.

net.News: Are you conscious about your role - what you invented, what you found is going to be really important for humanity, human-kind?
Philip Zimmermann: Well I think that cryptography is really important for human-kind. I would hesitate to draw such sweeping conclusion from my one piece of software. But I think that my software did set in motion a debate that is going to take a long time to unfold.

net.News: You've come to this cryptography meeting, what are the points of this meeting, and what are the points that are being of actuality today?
Philip Zimmermann: Well, I came here today to attend a special meeting that preceeded the OECD meeting here in Paris. The 'Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development' is holding a meeting this week on the subject of government policies regarding cryptography in a particuliar policy known as 'Key escrow'. The United States is trying to persuade European coutries to adopt a policy toward cryptography that favors law enforcement at the expence of privacy and civil liberties, and so I came here to talk to the delegates of the various OECD countries to persuade them to not be persuaded by the US position on this, but to allow peopleaccess to cryptography to protect their privacy.

net.News: And so what do you think the situation is actually in France? What has been the main point you've been debating today?
Philip Zimmermann: I think the most important point being debated here today is whether governments have the right to intrude on the privacy of ther citizens in such a way that citizens ultimately cannot have a private conversation. I should be able to whisper in your ear, even if your ear is a thousand Kms away.

net.News: OK. May I ask you a question about your trial last January? So you have won this incredible trial. Can you very briefly remind us when it started - what year it started and on which basis you had been attacked, and what has been your strategy to push off the attack.
Philip Zimmermann: Well, five years ago, I published the software PGP that encrypts e-mail and it spread all over the world, and about 3 and a half years ago, I came under the investigation of the US custom service, with a criminal investigation and it took them 3 years to decide that they were not going to prosecute me after all. And during that time I assembled a criminal defence team, mostly of laywers that worked for free - 'pro bono', and, I did many press interviews. You know that criminal laywers don't like their clients to talk to the press, but in my case we decided that I would do this, and I think it helped more than anything else to discourage the government from proceeding along such a politically difficult path from what I hear, the deeper they got into the effort to proscectute me, the more it felt like the Vietnam war to them. It just kept getting worse. And so in January of this year they announced, and communicated to my legal team, that I would not be prosecuted for this. The law in which they would have prosecuted me, is law against the export of munitions from the United States, and cryptography software is regarded as a munition by the UnitedStates government. And so since my software was given away for free and spread all around the world, it's free software spreads like dandilion seeds in the wind, you can't contain it in the national borders - especially because of internet. Information wants to be free. And so they took the position that this was an illegal export of munitions. Later they decided to give up and so it appears that I won't be prosecuted.

net.News: So what did you risk if you had been condemned?
Philip Zimmermann: If I had been indicted, then there would have been a trial and if I lost at trial, the mandetory sentence would be from 41 months to 51 months and in a federal prison. In the US federal prisons, you don't get any time off for good behavior, unlike the State prisons, you have to serve the entire 41 months. My family would have been homeless.
We don't have a welfare system to protect them if the sole wage-earner is in prison.

net.News: PGP is free, so I asked this question to Jim Clark too, how do you make a living on PGP - or do you make a living on PGP? Or are you making a living on something else?
Philip Zimmermann: Well for some years I was a consultant and I made my living in doing consultant work as a cryptographer. But now I make my living as chairman and chief technology officer of my new company PGP Inc. and we're planning on selling PGP, in fact we do right now sell PGP and other products such as PGP phone which turns your desktop computer or your notebook computer into a secure telephone.

net.News: Can you develop on that, exactly what you mean, that you crypt the telephone on the internet?
Philip Zimmermann: Yes, your computer becomes a telephone. These multi-media PC's have modems so you can speak into the microphone and your voice is compressed and encrypted by the software and it's sent out through the modem in real time, and at the other end, those steps are reversed by the same software running on another computer and another modem. And so you can have a 2- way conversation just like talking on the telephone. It's like talking on the phone, but no one in between can listen.

net.News: Jim Clark told us on the key-note 6 months ago, that one of the future source of revenue on the internet was telecom: classic voice transportation. You seem to have done the same analysis because you are doing PGP Internet Phone. So it seems that the phone on the Internet is one of the main issues. Can you explain why?
Philip Zimmermann: Well PGP phone is capable of sending voice across the internet, but it's primary purpose is to have a private conversation. And the first version of PGP Phone didn't use the internet at all. It used a simple modem to modem connection between 2 computers and just the telephone system in between. Later we added the capability of sending the same trafic across the internet. I think that the Internet telephoney is an important technology. There are some technology problems with it, having to do with the short delays that you experience. So that if you tell someone a joke, you have to wait a moment before you hear them laugh.

Leia a segunda parte da entrevista.