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CDT Policy Post 2.20 - Clinton Administration Floats Clipper III Draft
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The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 2, Number 20
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A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online
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CDT POLICY POST Volume 2, Number 20 May 22, 1996
CONTENTS: (1) Clinton Administration Floats Clipper III Key-Escrow Proposal
(2) Join Sen Leahy TODAY (5/22) At HotWired to Discuss
His Crypto Bill
(3) Subscription Information
(4) About CDT, contacting us
** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner in tact **
Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of <[email protected]>
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(1) CLINTON ADMINISTRATION FLOATS 'CLIPPER III' KEY ESCROW PROPOSAL
The Clinton Administration Tuesday (5/21) unveiled a new encryption policy
proposal which would use a government-sanctioned key certification system
as an incentive to virtually impose key escrow on domestic users.
The draft proposal, "Achieving Privacy, Commerce, Security and Public
Safety in the Global Information Infrastructure" (already dubbed Clipper
III), seeks to establish a "public key infrastructure" for encryption.
Broadly speaking, a public key infrastructure would enable users to clearly
identify the people they are communicating with and facilitate key
management, and is widely viewed as an important component of a secure and
trusted communications environment. However, the Clipper III would
establish this infrastructure at a price: All users of the public key
infrastructure would have to ensure government access to their encryption
keys through an approved key escrow authority.
A detailed analysis of the Administration's latest draft proposal is
attached below. Among other concerns:
* The proposal is hardly voluntary - Key-escrow would become a
prerequisite for participation in the Global Information
Infrastructure.
* The proposal contains few guidelines for how keys would be shared with
foreign governments.
* The proposal encourages the collection of highly sensitive private key
information.
* The proposal does not address major privacy concerns such as liability
for key holders, limitations on law enforcement access, audit
requirements, and other concerns that many have already identified as
crucial to protecting individual privacy even in a voluntary key
escrow system.
CDT believes that the Administration's draft proposal does not meet the
privacy and security needs of Internet users or the demands of the
marketplace. While the proposal represents real progress by the
Administration in recognizing the importance of encryption and the value of
a public key infrastructure, in reality it provides few provisions to
protect individual privacy. Moreover, the Clipper III proposal, like its
predecessors, continues to put law enforcement and national security
concerns above the privacy and security needs of the American public.
The latest Administration proposal comes in the midst of Congressional
efforts to relax encryption export controls and encourage the widespread
use of strong, easy-to-use encryption and prohibit the government from
imposing key escrow domestically. It also comes in the wake of a letter
signed by over 27 Representatives last week urging the Administration to
abandon its key-escrow initiative (See CDT Policy Post 2.19)
A copy of the Draft proposal is available on CDT's encryption policy web
page (http://www.cdt.org/crypto).
SUMMARY OF THE PROPOSAL:
------------------------
Taking a nod from the efforts currently under way through the European
Commission to establish a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in Europe, the
Clipper III seeks to establish a means of ensuring authentication and key
management for Americans.
Among other things, the Clipper III draft proposal:
* RECOGNIZES THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT IMPOSE ENCRYPTION STANDARDS
ON MARKET: One positive element of the new proposal is an explicit
recognition of the importance of encryption and the need for private
sector, as opposed to government solutions. The draft states,
"Government can no longer monopolize state of the art cryptography ...
It is unrealistic to believe that government can produce solutions
which keep ahead of today's rapidly changing information technology".
* ESTABLISHES KEY MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE: The draft proposal would
create a new public key infrastructure designed to tie individuals
and entities to their public keys.
* RELAXES EXPORT CONTROLS FOR KEY ESCROW PRODUCTS: The new draft would
continue and expand the effort started with the Clipper II proposal by
allowing the export of software with 64 bit key lengths (80 bits for
hardware) on the condition that products contain a key-escrow
function. Keys could be escrowed in the United States or where the
US has a bilateral escrow agreement. Other exports to certain markets
would be considered on a case-by-case basis.
* PROVIDES FOR 'SELF ESCROW' OF ENCRYPTION KEYS: Self Escrow (where
a corporation or individual could become an escrow agent for its own
private keys) would be permitted, though the exact conditions of and
obligations are not specified in the draft.
MAJOR FLAWS IN THE CLIPPER PROPOSAL RENDER IT A NON-STARTER
-----------------------------------------------------------
* CLIPPER III IS NOT VOLUNTARY & MAKES KEY-ESCROW A PRECONDITION FOR
PARTICIPATION IN THE GLOBAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
While the Administration deserves credit for recognizing that a trusted
public key infrastructure is an important component of a workable National
Encryption policy, the latest proposal attempts to use the need for a
public key infrastructure as a means to impose key escrow domestically.
Although the Administration has repeatedly stressed that any key-escrow
initiative would be a voluntary system, the text of the latest draft
directly contradicts that contention.
The proposal states that in order to participate in the Global Information
Infrastructure, users will need to escrow their keys; if they choose not to
participate in the key infrastructure, "users cannot know with whom they
are dealing on the network, or sending money too, or who signed a document,
or if the document was intercepted and changed by a third party." (page 3).
The proposal goes on to state:
"To participate in the network a user needs a public key certificate
signed by a CA [Certification Authority] which 'binds' the user's
identity to their public key. One condition of obtaining a
certificate is that sufficient information (e.g., private keys or
other information as appropriate) has been escrowed with a certified
escrow authority to allow access to a user's data or communications."
(page 5)
In other words, the Clipper III proposal would require individuals and
businesses to use key-escrow encryption as a condition of participating in
the Global Information Infrastructure. Under the proposal, an individual
cannot obtain certification by a Key Certification Authority (a necessity
under the Clipper III scheme) unless he or she registers with a "certified
escrow authority".
There is no technical or structural reason (beyond law enforcement access)
why key escrow must be a component of a public key infrastructure. In
fact, a robust example of a public key infrastructure exists today for
exchanging PGP keys (the PGP public key server at MIT
<http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html>).
* CLIPPER III TARGETS DOMESTIC USERS
While export controls have ostensibly been aimed at controlling the use of
encryption by foreign users (and indirectly, at domestic users as well),
the Clipper III proposal is aimed directly at the domestic use of
encryption and seeks to establish a system whereby key escrow becomes a
de-facto component of domestic encryption products.
* RAISES MAJOR QUESTIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTERNATIONAL KEY EXCHANGE
In order to work, Clipper III assumes bi-lateral agreements between the US
and other countries with respect to law enforcement access to escrowed
keys, who could legally be an escrow agent, and other factors. Currently
no such agreements exist. Bilateral agreements also raise important
privacy issues, including how to deal with releasing keys to foreign
governments, particularly those without any tradition of privacy
protections. Finally, a patchwork of international agreements can create
problems for interoperability. The same encryption and or authentication
scheme exportable to Germany or England might not be exportable to India or
China in the absence of a appropriate bi-lateral agreements.
* CONTAINS NO PRIVACY PROTECTIONS/RESTRICTIONS ON LAW ENFORCEMENT ACCESS
TO ESCROWED KEYS:
Like Clipper and Clipper II, the latest proposal does not squarely address
standards for law enforcement access to escrowed keys, unauthorized
disclosure of keys by escrow agents, and other privacy issues associated
with key escrow.
* CREATES VULNERABILITY AND INSECURITY BY ENCOURAGING STORAGE OF PRIVATE
KEYS:
The proposal suggests that escrow agents hold either a user's private key
or "other information as appropriate". Allowing escrow agents to
accumulate private keys creates severe vulnerabilities in the network.
Once a private key is disclosed (either to law enforcement or to an
unauthorized third party), *every* communication using that key is
compromised. Although the draft does attempt to limit this concern by
allowing escrow agents to hold "other information", the proposal no where
specifies what that would be.
NEXT STEPS
----------
Congress is currently considering legislation which would head off the
Administration's efforts to encourage domestic key-escrow encryption
schemes and promote the widesprad avaiability of strong, easy-to-ues
encryption technologies.
Several bills, including S.1726 (the Pro-CODE bill) sponsored by Senators
Burns (R-MT), Leahy (D-VT), Dole (R-KS), Pressler (R-SD), Wyden (D-OR) and
others, along with HR 3011, sponsored by Reps Goodlatte (R-VA), Eshoo
(D-CA), Campbell (D-CA) and over 25 others are currently being considered
by Congress. Both bills would relax export restrictions and prohibit the
government from imposing key escrow domestically.
CDT looks forward to working with Members of Congress to pass legislation
that encourages the widespread availability of strong, easy-to-use
encryption technologies based on marketplace, not government, standards.
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(2) JOIN SENATOR LEAHY TODAY (Wed 5/22) TO DISCUSS PRIVACY AND SECURITY ONLINE
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the "Senior Senator from Cyberspace", ardent
proponent of Net.Freedom and co-sponsor of 2 bills to repeal encryption
export controls, will hold an online "town meeting" on Wednesday May 22 to
discuss privacy and security online.
DETAILS ON THE EVENT
* Wednesday May 22, 4 - 5 pm ET (1 pm Pacific) on HotWired
URL: http://www.hotwired.com/wiredside/
To participate, you must be a registered HotWired member (there
is no charge for registration). You must also have RealAudio(tm) and
a telnet application properly configured to work with your browser.
Please visit http://www.hotwired.com/wiredside/ for information on how you
can easily register for Hotwired and obtain RealAudio.
Wednesday's town meeting is another in a series of planned events, and is
part of a broader project coordinated by CDT and the Voters
Telecommunications Watch (VTW) designed to bring the Internet Community
into the debate and encourage members of Congress to work with the
Net.community on vital Internet policy issues.
Events with other members of Congress working on Internet Policy Issues are
currently being planned. Please check http://www.crypto.com for
announcements of future events
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(4) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US
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organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop
and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and
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End Policy Post 2.20 5/22/96
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