Re: Government Mandated Keys

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 2:42 PM 7/22/95, Dan Bailey wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Jul 1995 11:39:07 -0700 you wrote:
>
>>At 11:02 AM 7/19/95 PDT, rick hoselton wrote:
>>>I want to register the 1-bit key of "1".  I expect to
>>>send about half my message bits encrypted, the rest will be clear-text.
>>
>>Oh, go ahead, register 0 also.  You'll probably want to switch keys
>>occasionally during sessions.
>
>Actually, why don't we just register our favorite geometric constant,
>pi?  Assuming it's non-repeating, and non-terminating, you're
>guaranteed that whatever key you end up using will be somewhere in pi.

Reasons this won't work:

1. The Real Reason: It's terminally cute, and terminally cute arguments
rarely stand up in court.

2. The Technical Reason: As I recollect, it is unproven that "any sequence
of digits will appear in pi someplace." (It may be expected that any finite
sequence will eventually appear, but I'm unaware of any proof, and I have
reason to suspect such a proof might be impossible.). A wise-ass judge--not
that any court in the rational (or irrational) world would ever deal with
this--could demand proof.

3. The Legalistic Reason: The "key registration" law would likely be
phrased in terms of direct opening of messages, not existential trickery
about "the set of all keys."

I urge that we deal with key registration on more plausible bases than
trickery and sophistry.

(How may keys can dance on the head of a PIN, and all.)

--Tim May

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