minor disagreement at the CSSPAB meeting this a.m.

[Carl Ellison <cme@tis.com>]

The CSSPAB is having an open meeting today and tomorrow at the Gaithersburg
Hilton.  I happened to be there to hear an interesting exchange.

(Those in the area might want to drop by tomorrow to sit in.  (Tomorrow's
agenda: Gov't email, reaction to public meeting on NII security; Congressional
privacy & security; tax systems; NIST activities; public comment (sign up
in advance with the secy)))

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Lynn McNulty of NIST was giving a summary of the KEA (Key Escrow Alternatives)
meeting of Aug 17.  One of his summary lines was to the effect that industry
believed there was a "significant market for escrow products".

William Whitehurst of IBM, who had been at the KEA meeting, raised his hand to
disagree with that statement.  As he remembered it, industry believed there
was a significant market for encryption and that it was an international
market and that we (the US) were in danger of being left in the dust by
foreign competition -- but that there was no market at all for escrow
encryption.

Steve Walker of TIS seconded Whitehurst's observation.

Lynn replied that they were saying the same thing because the government won't
allow export of encryption without key escrow therefore there's a big market
for escrow products.

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Makes lots of sense, doesn't it???  :-|

 - Carl