These days privacy has bit of a hot topic although the results are mostly just show trials and real decentralized projects. Somehow a person named Peter Avritch who is one of the primary people involved with the SafeHouse Privacy Software made a Medium post two weeks ago describing an event that happened 18 years ago (July 4th weekend, 2000).
This Was Before 9/11 and The Patriot Act
Do not forget the title. Patriot Act was signed into law on October 26, 2001 With that in mind read this article which I'm quoting from.
It was the July 4th weekend, 2000, give or take a day, and Mr. X knew to say that first because he was calling me after midnight at my brother’s house in Connecticut. This was beyond creepy because I lived in California and nobody knew I was in Connecticut except for my immediate family, who were all there with me in the house. I had only arrived the day before as I do most years about this time for our annual family picnic.
Now this guy is someone who developed a privacy software and he gets a call from a guy named Dave saying that it is a matter of national security.
Dave proceeded to tell me that they were in possession of a laptop containing files that had been encrypted using my SafeHouse privacy software. They had a national security situation that required immediate access to those files and they needed my help; or more specifically, for me to help them gain access possibly faster than they could do all on their own.
I mention Dave was polite in asking for my code because it’s something that stood out and struck me as unusually odd — he was way too nice. He seemed predisposed or prepared for me to say no. And if it had been anyone else at any other time, he would have been right, but I could tell something big was up and there simply wasn’t time to debate the merits of handing over my source code to the NSA.
Then our protagonist was asked of any backdoors. But there was no such thing and 256-bit industry-standard ciphers were used. After further inquiry it was found that the laptop was encrypted using the free version of the software which had 40-bit encryption which is totally breakable. Here is another interesting part:
I tried to probe — so, can you guys actually break 256-bit encryption? Dave was mum. Encryption insiders had always speculated about that; I figured it was worth a try. I didn’t really expect him to answer.
Then Peter Avritch gets a mug from NSA from the gift shop and below is the exact same mug that was sent to him.
Was There Even An Emergency
This isn't CIA, but it is pretty close. I mean it could even be CIA pretending to be NSA. Our protagonist was caught in the middle of private family picnic (before 9/11) which is damn good evidence that these surveillance projects have been going around for a long time and at least when it comes to the privacy related developers, they have been closely watched enough to know their sensitive details. These details are more than sufficient to plan and assassination if necessary. The entire event could very well be a staged operation. But despite being a privacy software developer, Peter Avritch only asks;
But there’s still one thing that continues to nag me after all these years — how the hell did Dave track me down 3,000 miles away from home after midnight on that hot summer’s eve in Bristol, Connecticut?
Some Interesting Things I Dug Up
The above screenshot is from an article written by the exact same person. Here is the source Now let me re-quote a previous quote: "I mention Dave was polite in asking for my code because it’s something that stood out and struck me as unusually odd — he was way too nice. He seemed predisposed or prepared for me to say no. And if it had been anyone else at any other time, he would have been right, but I could tell something big was up and there simply wasn’t time to debate the merits of handing over my source code to the NSA."
It's better to look at the political spectrum in terms of personal freedom s state power and in this case we have a privacy software developer sucking upto the leftist narrative while claiming to not be a leftist. It doesn't matter even if this person isn't a leftist. It's still a person who would hand over everything just because he get a phone call in the middle of the night after Pre-Patriot Act surveillance which Peter Avritch doesn't even bother to notice. This incident itself is a piece of evidence that mass surveillance was a thing and Patriot Act merely legalized and expanded it with better funding.
If The Government Can Do It and If It's Corrupt, Then It Will Do Whatever It is Capable of
This is a good lesson for you to remember. You should also put your focus on more privacy obsessed developers who have a track record of not eagerly handing over material to governments over some phone call which may or may not have been staged.
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