Truthless,com.

• Author: Godwin, Mike
• Position: Tom Clancy's book 'Ruthless.com

A "Tom Clancy" thriller lends support to the foes of encryption.

If the world were a Tom Clancy novel, I'd know just what to think of Ruthless.com, a techno-thriller published late last year that was "created," if not actually written, by the famous author. I'd have to conclude that such a committee-written, book-like product had been designed by nefarious operatives in the corridors of power to bolster our government's current policy of trying to slow the spread of encryption technology - that is, an individual's ability to encode communications and data so securely that no one else, including the government, can read them

From a Clancyworld perspective - a perspective I know well, having maintained a secret Clancy habit during the last 15 years - there's lots of evidence that Ruthless.com, nominally based on a computer game of the same name, is more propaganda piece than novel. Take this passage from the back cover copy: "Encryption technology keeps the codes for the world's security and communications systems top secret. The profit potential is huge - but deregulating this state-of-the-art technology for export could put a back-door key in the front pocket of spies and terrorists around the world."

Whoa! It's true that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continue to argue that restricting export of encryption products, such as Phil Zimmerman's Pretty Good Privacy software, is necessary to keep terrorists and criminals from thwarting government wiretaps and other surveillance measures.

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that such an argument is not particularly convincing, relevant, or to the point. The claim that export somehow will lead to compromised encryption technology is a new notion - and one that's frequently repeated, yet never explained, throughout Ruthless.com.

It's also flatly bogus: Even if it were true that a terrorist with any encryption software product in his hands could figure out a way to install "a back-door key," there's no way he could install it in everybody else's copies of the software. Nor does exporting the product make it any easier to...