The Crypto Controversy:A Key Conflict in the Information Society LAW AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, Volume 6. This item is unavailable.The Crypto Controversy:A Key Conflict in the Information Society LAW AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, Volume 6

Cryptography is essential for information security and electronic commerce, yet it can also be abused by criminals to thwart police wiretaps and computer searches. How should governments address this conflict of interests? Will they require people to deposit crypto keys with a `trusted' agent? Will governments outlaw cryptography that does not provide for law-enforcement access?

This is not yet another study of the crypto controversy to conclude that this or that interest is paramount. This is not a study commissioned by a government, nor is it a report that campaigns on the electronic frontier. The Crypto Controversy is neither a cryptography handbook nor a book drenched in legal jargon.

The Crypto Controversy pays attention to the reasoning of both privacy activists and law-enforcement agencies, to the particulars of technology as well as of law, to `solutions' offered both by cryptographers and by governments. Koops proposes a method to balance the conflicting interests and applies this to the Dutch situation, explaining both technical and legal issues for anyone interested in the subject.

` Any assessment of the careful and methodical analysis pursued by Koops must lead to the conclusion that the Crypto Controversy ... is the most erudite, panoptic and balanced examination of the issue currently available within the literature. ' Computer and Telecommunications Law Review, 5 (2000) ' [T]he author combines a wealth of information with a careful crescent of conclusions crafted appropriately to address the regulatory situation and market needs. [...] As a whole, the author accomplishes the goal to explain an elaborate technical issue and its legal and policy aspects in plain language for just about any reader. ' The EDI Law Review, 7 (2000) ` [K]oops' careful and definitive examination of the totality of issues commands broad appeal and wide readership. ' Computer and Telecommunications Law Review, 6:5 (July 2000)