This is a song called Alice’s Protocol. But Alice’s Protocol isn’t the name of the protocol: that’s just the name of the song. That’s why I called the song Alice’s Protocol.

1/

You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.
You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.
Send your files from A to B
Just don’t forget your private key
You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.

2/

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, two years ago at Thanksgiving, when my friend Alice wanted to send a file to her husband Bob.

3/

But Bob has a no-good scheming friend called Eve. Let me tell you about his friend Eve. She’s a no-good scheming friend of his, and she likes to listen through walls and under windows and around doors.

4/

So my friend Alice (you remember Alice?), she didn’t want no listening through walls and under windows and around doors, so she decided to encrypt her message with Alice’s Protocol.

5/

Now they say you should never roll your own encryption, but I can’t speak to that. I’ve been rolling my own my whole life. Alice’s Protocol is the good stuff. It’s one hundred percent, military quality, five one two bit public key encryption, and there ain’t nothing like it.

6/

She encrypted her message and sent it off to her husband Bob, safe from the eyes of that no-good scheming friend of his called Eve.

I knew about the message. See, I’m the sysadmin of Alice’s domain, so I saw it in the logs

7/

But what I didn’t see in the logs, and I didn’t see anywhere, was whatever the message was about.

8/

I don’t know if it was about dogs or garbage collection or even their restaurant date, because like I said it was encrypted with one hundred percent, military quality, five one two bit public key encryption.

9/

Now, friends, there was just two things that could have happened to that message after it left my server. It could have been delivered, without Eve seeing it, or it could have bounced, without Eve seeing it.

10/

But next day I discovered there was a THIRD possibility, when a police officer knocked on my door.

11/

He said, “Kid… we hear ya got root on a big mail system?”

I said I don’t wanna talk about nothing personal, but yeah.

12/

He said, “Kid… we heard your friend Alice been sending terrorist messages.”

I said I don’t know nothing.

13/

He said, “Kid… your friend Alice is close to some famous anti-war protestors. And we wanna read her email.”

I told him as how it was private, and for all I knew it was just her recipe for pumpkin pie.

He said, “Kid… just hand over the password.”

14/

So I began to tell him about Alice’s Protocol and the one hundred percent, military quality, five one two bit public key encryption, and he said, “Lemme stop you RIGHT THERE, kid…

you’re gonna decrypt it for me… or you’re going to jail.”

15/

I said I didn’t have no passphrases for him, and he told me he was gonna jail me anyway.

16/

And I thought as I’d call Alice on the telephone, quickly like, but he said,

“Kid… we don’t like your kind. Reg-u-lation of Investigatory Powers Act. You’re going to jail, just for tipping her off.”

17/

But can ya imagine, if four people were to sing him a bar of Alice’s Protocol? And if 2**32 people sang it in harmony, in a concert, they’d think it’s a gig.

18/

And that’s what it is. And all ya gotta do to join is to sing it on the gee-tar when it comes around…

19/

You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.
(Excepting Alice)
You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.
Send your files from A to B
Just don’t forget your private key
You can send anything at all
With Alice’s Protocol.

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