Re: Questions about Microsoft and Software Key Escrow

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

> On Thu, 28 Jul 1994, Jacob Levy wrote:
> > I respect your feelings on the matter and your ability to think clearly and
> > with great foresight also :-), but for this list it would probably be much
> > more useful if we got some _OFFICIAL_ answer from Microsoft instead of your
> > "I believe, I cannot think, can't see", etc. etc. You're obviously a
> > concerned individual but you equally obviously don't claim to speak for
> > Microsoft.
> People lie.  Tim May speaks the truth and does not charge a consulting 
> fee.:-)  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
> 
> Berzerk.


I don't believe the folks at MS are lying--I believe they are telling
the truth as they see it. In fact, the paralegal guy told me a lot of
stuff about the possible justifications for SKE, the export issues
(Feds want SKE for exported products....don't ask me why), etc. He
thought, I guess, that this would _convince_ me that Microsoft's
motives were not evil--which I have never thought was the case,
ironically. Instead, he just confirmed to me via his arguments that
some kind of SKE scheme is being talked about, negotiated with one or
more federal agencies, and may or may not be planned for future
products. 

This has always been my point: a heads-up on something of profound
importance if it happens.

That Chicago and Daytona have no SKE built in to current versions is
not at all surprising: the SKE proposal got its big boost in momentum
less than two months ago, and demo code may or may not even exist yet
at TIS.

If I were to guess, we're in SKE about where Clipper was in the summer
of '92...a few hints (Denning and Micali papers) but the various
corporate players (Mykotronx, VLSI Technology, AT&T, etc.) were just
being brought on board. And announcement was still 9 months off in the
future. (Actually, I don't know when all the Clipper players joined
the team...it may've been even earlier than 1992. I'm just making the
point that the public knew nothing about this until a press conference
on April 16, 1993.)

Except this time around there's a greater sensitivity to such deals,
and a lot more ways for sources to communicate tips :-}. There are
also 600 Cypherpunks ready to critique software key escrow.

That Microsoft's legal people know about SKE, despite its newness to
most in the crypto community, and that issues are being debated about
it, shows pretty compellingly that the SKE idea is indeed being worked
on one way or another. This is actually more important than "official
statements," for obvious reasons.

(We often lose sight of actual realities in our focus on "official
statements" and disclaimers about not speaking for Lockheed or Apple
or whatever.)

--Tim


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