Re: Info on Netscape's key escrow position

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

>James A. Donald wrote:
>> I would like to hear Jim Clark say "GAK is bad".

At 11:05 PM 12/3/95 -0800, Jeff Weinstein wrote:
> I do believe that the company, Netscape, will take such a position
> in the coming week.

I will be greatly relieved when this happens.

I would be even more relieved if Netscape were to take action
to make it more difficult for the government to introduce GAK.

> Did he take a position against GAK? 

He did both less than that and considerably more than that:

Instead of trying to persuade us that he was against GAK, he sought
to persuade the reader that the reader should be against GAK.  He
sought to make it difficult for both a future Microsoft and a future
government to introduce GAK.

He described GAK in accurate language, rather than euphemistic terms.

He did not editorialize "GAK is bad" but any reasonable person 
reading his book, unfamiliar with crypto and the controversy, 
would conclude from the facts that he presented that GAK is a 
radical violation of the fourth amendment -- He described GAK 
in neutral, factually accurate language that doubtless deeply
offended the folks at NSA.

> I've been trying to use either GAK, or "mandatory key escrow" 
> to refer to the hated beast. 

"Mandatory key escrow" is still an oxymoronic euphemism.

It is not escrow if the valuable item is held by someone who 
is party to the potential conflict, or subject to the power 
of someone who is party to the potential conflict.

Even to those of us who know what the euphemism "mandatory key
escrow" stands for, it still does not sound nearly as
threatening and scary as "government access to keys".
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